What motivates atheists (and/or materialists) to deny the will?

[atanu]

No, it directly follows from the lack of any test that could distinguish the 'immaterial' from the imaginary. Without such a test, the material is the only live possibility.

Do you think your awareness of existence is imaginary? Have you seen any inanimate matter to exhibit such awareness? Your theory that your intelligence rose from inanimate matter is imaginary to the extreme, however. Although, I know that you will not acknowledge that you only have unproven speculation to offer.

Feedback, I think I suggested / guessed in one of our earlier conversations ─ the brain having an ability to be aware of, perhaps oversee, what's going on in the various specialized areas.

The brain does not see anything. Your seeing and thinking are recorded in the brain. If the brain was seeing then it would continue to see in a life-less body. Have you seen a brain saying "I see" ever, in a living or a non-living body? If intelligence was intrinsic to brains, then brains would never lose consciousness. Does any matter lose its fundamental property?

But the electricity will nonetheless be explained. The bioelectricity of cells, not least in the brain, is much studied. Whereas you can't offer any discernible source of the kind of consciousness you allege.

In my opinion, that is simply the issue of the arrogance of "I know all". The meditators who can see their content-less mind can indeed see that awareness transcends forms. Why I should at least not be willing to verify their knowledge?

They exist because the water exists with a particular set of physical conditions applying. The water, and the dynamics, completely account for the phenomenon.

Exactly. You exist at the mercy of life-consciousness. Extinction of a single form does nothing to extinguish life-consciousness, which marches on in diverse other forms. This is not imaginary. This is empirical.

I think the sense of self is basic to being a human; let's say for argument's sake that it's a kind of discernment. The awareness of self doesn't have to be generated from without ─ it arises in the biochemical / bioelectrical phenomena that are brain function and thought. No other kind of explanation is needed.

In my opinion, that is either arrogance or naivety. There is no known mechanism which can explain how matter characterised by mass, spin, and the charge becomes the subject "I". If there is any such known mechanism, please share it with me. Else, see what you yourself said on being asked to explain 'mental causation' and consciousness.

blü 2 said
We're still learning, but in my view we're the only ones who are going to get meaningful answers to these questions.

Do you recognise the explanatory gap in your thinking? You offer a promise that at a future date you will bridge the explanatory gap as to how matter can give rise to the subject that knows and wants. On the other hand, you claim to be certain that 'No other kind of explanation is required'.

OTOH, if 'discernment' is the fundamental nature of existence (as all evidence points to), there is no need to explain the 'Hard Problem of consciousness or the 'Explanatory Gap". The strong 'Mental causation' that we see in neuroscience experiments with expert meditators are explained easily. No physical law is violated too.

Okay. Let me try to be more scientific, hoping against hope............. (I know that committed physicalists have very heavy immovable mountain like brains).

Quantum and thermal uncertainty obstruct upwardly causal deterministic chains between the physics of the atomic and molecular level and the biophysics of the organic world. Determinism is not a characteristic of the Quantum world but it emerges in the macro world in a statistical way. The "laws of nature," such as Newton's laws of motion, are all statistical laws. Ergo, since the fundamental indeterminism of component atoms never completely disappears, it follows that physical brain events are not pre-determined by the events in lower hierarchical levels and the world is not "causally closed" by deterministic physical laws of nature.

On the other hand, since some "mental events" can act causally on lower biological and physical levels in the hierarchy (for most stark demonstration see how meditators control body-mind-brain).

An example of the mind causing an action, while not itself being caused by antecedent events is given next. Suppose, faced with a decision of what to do next, the mind considers several possible alternatives, at least some of which are creatively invented based on random ideas that just "come to mind and other possible alternatives might arise out of habit or previous experience. All these alternatives will obviously show up as "neural correlates". What is so surprising about that? Suppose you evaluate the alternatives and select one, the selected action results in still other neurons firing, which may signal muscles to move the body ... or some change of state.

Apart from the occasional indeterministic generation of creative new alternative ideas, this whole causal process is adequately determined and it is downwardly causal. Mental events are causing physical body events. This is how brain plasticity and fabulous effects of conscious meditation on body-mind scan be explained. This is how there remains no need to explain away consciousness or to try to explain the hard problem of consciousness.

OTOH, if it is the brain is the sole generator of consciousness, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would be in jeopardy.

...
Don't these guys know what death is? Don't they know that death is the irreversible cessation of life?
Don't they know that life, like death, is purely physical?

Are you a bit inflexible and/or unable to detect the irony? If you knew life-death so surely, you would be immortal, I suppose. Coronavirus would have fled.

...

 

[blü 2]

Do you think your awareness of existence is imaginary?

No, but I think the explanation for it is entirely physical ─ because there's no credible alternative for a start, and because there's no reason materialism can't explain it ─ it's already explaining it.

Have you seen any inanimate matter to exhibit such awareness?

The brain is biochemistry. The brain, like all living things, is material but not 'inanimate'.

Your theory that your intelligence rose from inanimate matter is imaginary to the extreme, however. Although, I know that you will not acknowledge that you only have unproven speculation to offer.

I could repeat much of what I've already said. I could emphasize the lack of any credible alternative.

The brain does not see anything. Your seeing and thinking are recorded in the brain.

My seeing and sensing are done by my brain and I am my body and brain. There's no difference between what my brain senses and interprets, and what I sense and interpret. For such purposes I am my brain.

If the brain was seeing then it would continue to see in a life-less body.

No, it would see a complex functioning system fully alive in every respect. When the body dies, the brain dies, and when the brain dies the self dies. No mystery there.

Have you seen a brain saying "I see" ever, in a living or a non-living body? If intelligence was intrinsic to brains, then brains would never lose consciousness.

Eh? Why? Consciousness arises from brain function. Intelligence arises from some aspect of brain capacity, the capacity of a functioning brain. A brain in a dead body is a dead brain. A person with a dead brain is a dead person.

Does any matter lose its fundamental property?

The fundamental property of matter is that like everything else it's made of mass-energy, the contents of the Big Bang. If we're right in thinking mass-energy can neither be created nor destroyed, then matter may cease to be matter (hadrons can decay into mesons and fermions) in particular circumstances, but mass-energy never ceases to be mass-energy.

In my opinion, that is simply the issue of the arrogance of "I know all". The meditators who can see their content-less mind can indeed see that awareness transcends forms. Why I should at least not be willing to verify their knowledge?

I don't pretend to know all. I'm not even sure of what you mean when you say, "The meditators who can see their content-less mind can indeed see that awareness transcends forms." As you know, I try to avoid the word 'mind' in formal situations because it means a vaguely defined set of brain functions, so it's rather slippery. Nor do I see how awareness can be said to 'transcend forms' ─ what does 'forms' mean here?

Exactly. You exist at the mercy of life-consciousness.

No, that's silly. My awareness that I'm myself is not a thing separate from me with a will of its own that I can be 'at the mercy' of.

Extinction of a single form does nothing to extinguish life-consciousness

If by form you mean my self, my living body and brain, when my self is no longer alive, it is / I am dead. If you mean something else, what do you mean? There is no generic 'life-consciousness' that gets recycled, whether for me or for individual ants, or for microorganisms.
Otherwise we could talk to the dead.

This is not imaginary. This is empirical.

Then you can show it to me in the lab. You can create it commercially and sell it. You can bring the dead back to life. I see nothing of the kind, so a demonstration would be helpful.

There is no known mechanism which can explain how matter characterised by mass, spin, and the charge becomes the subject "I".

Of course there is. That's why I set out the history of the evolution of the human brain for you in a previous post. It's as plain as the proverbial.

Do you recognise the explanatory gap in your thinking? You offer a promise that at a future date you will bridge the explanatory gap as to how matter can give rise to the subject that knows and wants.

In outline I've already done that, as in my answer just above.

On the other hand, you claim to be certain that 'No other kind of explanation is required'.

With all due respect, you haven't given me any reason to require one. You can't even distinguish your version of 'consciousness' from the imaginary. What use is that?

OTOH, if 'discernment' is the fundamental nature of existence (as all evidence points to), there is no need to explain the 'Hard Problem of consciousness or the 'Explanatory Gap".

I already told you I don't understand what all the fuss over qualia is about ─ it's very simple.

The strong 'Mental causation' that we see in neuroscience experiments with expert meditators are explained easily. No physical law is violated too.

When I learnt to tie my shoelaces, I also learnt that the brain / body can be taught tricks. So what? I had a friend who could beat lie detectors at will. He'd found a trick that interrupted any relevant response. No surprise if there are thousands of such tricks.

Quantum and thermal uncertainty obstruct upwardly causal deterministic chains between the physics of the atomic and molecular level and the biophysics of the organic world. Determinism is not a characteristic of the Quantum world but it emerges in the macro world in a statistical way. The "laws of nature," such as Newton's laws of motion, are all statistical laws. Ergo, since the fundamental indeterminism of component atoms never completely disappears, it follows that physical brain events are not pre-determined by the events in lower hierarchical levels and the world is not "causally closed" by deterministic physical laws of nature.

Some of the details there are arguable, but indeed strict determinism is defeated by randomness, in brains as elsewhere. So what? We have nothing so far to suggest we have an ongoing problem as far as living and deciding are concerned. And randomness doesn't confer any particular dignity on human decision-making, any more than determinism does. Yet there's no third option ─ either for physical beings or for ghosts.

if it is the brain is the sole generator of consciousness, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would be in jeopardy.

Yes, there's no avoiding the fact that our decisions are the result of brain processes; and that these are complex chains of cause+effect in the brain. That's why it's so interesting to look at how the brain works, how it makes decisions, how we have evolved moral tendencies, and so on and so on. There are interesting studies of them, which you may have read.

Are you a bit inflexible and/or unable to detect the irony?

For me, since the alternative is imaginary, there isn't really a choice. So there isn't really room for irony (much as I love a good irony).

If you knew life-death so surely, you would be immortal, I suppose. Coronavirus would have fled.

The materialist team will come up with a coronavirus vaccine lo-o-o-ong before the meditators of Tibet do.

 

[Nakosis]

None of your arguments proves that consciousness originates in the brain, more than fusing of an electric bulb proves that the bulb is the source of electricity. It is your philosophical interpretation and I humbly beg to state that it is not well reasoned.

...

Ok, but I don't see a better alternative.

 

[atanu]

Ok, but I don't see a better alternative.

I know. Since our existence is meaningful only because we are conscious, we start to forget it. And we create imaginary stories, using that same given consciousness that it was created in so and so way. In other words, with the given consciousness we kill off consciousness and build imaginary stories that awareness developed magically from unconscious materials.

There is no explanation of any kind how matter characterised by mass, charge, and momentum, become te subject "I am".

OTOH, consciousness is self-evident. It cannot be and need not be proven as separate from your own consciousness. It is actually naive to ask for independent validation of consciousness. How will you validate consciousness from outside consciousness? We can only offer indications that consciousness is the fabric of existence. You know the existence because consciousness drives your living process. Furthermore, the fact of mental causation cannot be explained if brain processes are the sole creators of our awareness.

Quantum and thermal uncertainty obstruct upwardly causal deterministic chains between the physics of the atomic and molecular level and the biophysics of the organic world. Determinism is not a characteristic of the Quantum world but it emerges in the macro world in a statistical way. The "laws of nature," such as Newton's laws of motion, are all statistical laws. Ergo, since the fundamental indeterminism of component atoms never completely disappears, it follows that physical brain events are not pre-determined by the events in lower hierarchical levels and the world is not "causally closed" by deterministic physical laws of nature.

On the other hand, since some "mental events" can act causally on lower biological and physical levels in the hierarchy (for most stark demonstration see how meditators control body-mind-brain).

An example of the mind causing an action, while not itself being caused by antecedent events is given next. Suppose, faced with a decision of what to do next, the mind considers several possible alternatives, at least some of which are creatively invented based on random ideas that just "come to mind and other possible alternatives might arise out of habit or previous experience. All these alternatives will obviously show up as "neural correlates". What is so surprising about that? Suppose you evaluate the alternatives and select one, the selected action results in still other neurons firing, which may signal muscles to move the body ... or some change of state.

Apart from the occasional indeterministic generation of creative new alternative ideas, this whole causal process is adequately determined and it is downwardly causal. Mental events are causing physical body events. This is how brain plasticity and fabulous effects of conscious meditation on body-mind scan be explained. This is how there remains no need to explain away consciousness or to try to explain the hard problem of consciousness.

OTOH, if it is the brain is the sole generator of consciousness, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would be in jeopardy.
...

 

[atanu]

Of course there is. That's why I set out the history of the evolution of the human brain for you in a previous post. It's as plain as the proverbial.
In outline I've already done that, as in my answer just above..

I did not find in your long post anything except repeated assertions for which you offer no concrete evidence. I think you never question your beliefs.

I do not see how if brain is the sole generator of consciousness, it can ever lose consciousness? You say it dies. What process then controls its death? How do you know that consciousness is not intrinsic to that process? If consciousness is intrinsic to the brain then why does it not control the life process and retains the "I am" awareness?

OTOH, if you are sure "Of course evolution gave birth to life-consciousness", then please lead me to that theory or model or explanation. Explain how matter, characterized by mass, momentum, and charge, came to become phenomenally conscious. And explain mental causation. If it is the brain that is the sole generator of consciousness, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? And if this is the case, how do you explain the free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, the reason itself?

Mind you, this is the point of the OP. If the brain is one and all, what are you -- your will and reason? I find it ironic that you delegate consciousness to physical processes of the brain and yet hold reins to the reasoning process -- how absurd. You are effectively saying "Although I do not exist apart from the brain processes, I know the best". It is like Harry Potter declaring knowledge of its author.
...

 

[Nakosis]

OTOH, if it is the brain is the sole generator of consciousness, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would be in jeopardy.
...

I have my ideas about that but again they are just ideas. A possible explanation.

 

[atanu]

I have my ideas about that but again they are just ideas. A possible explanation.

Kindly explain then.

 

[Nakosis]

Kindly explain then.

Before I get myself in too deep, what do you consider the "laws" of neurobiology?

My understanding is there is, well IMO it is all physical, but there is a "hardware" aspect to the brain and an encoding aspect. While neurobiology seems to know a lot about the hardware, there is still a lot that is unknown about the encoding process.

IMO it is the encoding of information physically stored in the brain that we can consciously manipulate.