Og

Thanks for the reply romansh,

I don't think the last part is true. Think about it. What is your reason for your action to stop at 2 beers? What is your motivation to be calm and cool with your kid? What are your reasons for actions? Could you change your reasons for those actions? If so, what reason would you have to do that?

If you sit and look at it like that (this is how the philosopher Schopenhauer describes it) then you see that the notion of free will falls into an infinite regression that doesn't make any sense. When you say you have a reason for an action you are describing how you, the machine, is working. The notion that we are somehow free to make a choice (in some cosmic/ultimate sense) is an illusion. It appears that way because of our egos (this is not necessarily a bad thing!).

The fall is an image that the literalists talk about separating us from god. He is the father and the CREATOR. We are the CREATION. We are certainly separate entities in the stories of the west. Whether it's sin that separates us or whatever.

Cool, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Boundary conditions are there because you define a boundary. This is green's theorem. Draw a border around it, define the boundary conditions and the functions that govern the behavior of the system and you get a solution. But the choice of that boundary is arbitrary (there are reasons). Think about the boundary that is my skin. If you could characterize the boundary conditions (i.e. sensory inputs and behavioral outputs) back to my conception then you would have a full description of who I am.

But expand that boundary to include you and me... What's the difference? That's what I'm talking about. You would just need a new and more complex set of boundary conditions. But it'd still be a system. The boundary you choose to solve a problem in engineering and physics is arbitrary. Some boundaries make the problem easier to solve.

This speaks to the fundamental fact that there is no thing that produces effect without cause. There is a system and it's I/O. Shrink your boundary to nothing or grow your boundary to infinity.. That part is arbitrary.

I'm not promoting atheism. I just think that there are some religions that put forward damaging ideas that are demonstrably false. Given that there is no ultimate distinction between you and me, the notion that a deity judges us as moral agents is false.

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Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

romansh

Thanks Og

I have understood intellectually the recursive nature of decisions/actions for awhile, but this is the closest I have come internalizing the argument. I'll get there yet.

Regarding split philosophers and neuroscientists. It is probably obvious to you, regarding philosophers, I know not of what I speak. Neuroscience: my information comes primarily from the New Scientist, there have been an interesting set of articles with respect to free will and how are minds perceive our surroundings. My interpretation of what I read is that there are good arguments for, against and much we don't understand.

Regarding 'boundaries' I will have to think about this one. I'm not sure I follow or know how to move forward on the reasoning.

Reading between the lines our 'end points' are similar. My path, I might describe as logic, intuition, probablistic. Whereas yours I sense was different. Perhaps your journey was more important than the destination? Can you recommend a clear and concise text (paper or book) with the minimum of jargon.

thanks again

Og

I always recommend Joseph Campbell. He is the most important other in modern myth, religion, and culture from the last 100 years or more in my opinion.

Try "Myths to Live by" or "Myths of Light" or "Thou Art That" or get the DVD interviews titled "The Power of Myth"

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Tomasz

By no means, by no means. That wouldn't have even crossed my mind for a second
On the other hand some of the conclusions you draw sound like music for atheists

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Og

I would call myself more of an Itheist or a wetheist. It is certainly music to an atheist's ears. But I think that atheists and theists agree on one important thing. "The stories of religions are to be taken literally."

They differ in their response to the content of the stories after they agree upon that.

I'd be happy to call myself an atheist about many god ideas in their literal incarnation.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Tomasz

I think atheists are framed by theists and partly by themselves into that position in those "Is there a God"-like debates. Theists make a claim and atheists oppose
You may sometimes get a feeling that atheism is the worst enemy of mystery and spirituality which is a false notion, but it's only because of conventions assumed in those debates.

On the other hand what would atheists do without theists ?

__________________
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts - Sherlock Holmes

Og

There was a high-larious south park speaking to your last question... It starred richard dawkins, the nintendo wii, and sea otter people.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

NotConvinced

haha, that dude on southpark was actually a real atheist/agnostic dude?

It's funny how some stuff hits you backwards......like watching the southpark episode mocking 300, then watching 300 a couple weeks later for the first time.


The stuff on us not actually having free will and it pertaining to the ego...good stuff man, awesomely logical.

quick thing on the "god being a product of our ego" thing, isn't it still possible that that's what god wanted us to think, like....taking it to another level of abstractness.

Like....God tells us we can't fully comprehend him, what if he does exist, and some of what the bible tells us he's just "feeding us" what he wants us to hear? Possibly like a cruel joke, like God's this dude that just sits somewhere looking at all of us, people he created in a universe/world he created, laughing at us cuz most of us don't get the fact that we think we're being judged on something we have independent control over.

Oh and something else on the free will thing, isn't it possible our reasons for the choices we make are just partially due to environmental influence, like a percentage thing? Cuz yeah I can see how our brain biology is such that............man, even now I can feel my ego trying to convince me that I sure as hell do have some kind of free will....like it won't let me not accept that.

Could a free will derive itself from something non biological? like a soul of it existed?

Og

There's a neuron that connects to your forearm muscle. When you want to flex your forearm muscle, this neuron fires action potentials and releases chemicals at the forearm neuromuscular junction and then your forearm muscle flexes. It's just as if you pointed your remote control at your TV an hit the power button.

The neuron that stimulated the muscle is connected to other neurons upstream. So when the neuron told your muscle to flex, it was doing so because it was told to tell your muscle to flex. It was a little robot passing on information that it received just like a cell phone that converts radio frequency radiation into audio from a speaker.

Each neuron in your brain (there's about a hundred billion of them) is connected to tens of thousands of other neurons in complex pathways. But every place (synapse) along the way, what you have are two neurons connected. One releases chemicals because of the way it is designed to function and because it was stimulated by other neurons and the other responds to the released chemicals.

This is the way every single component of your brain works. A doctor can open your head and scoop out parts of your personality, motor control, etc. A single neuron has been recorded from that fires in response to bill clinton and no other object/concept.

A doctor can open your skull up and give little zaps to parts of your brain and cause physical behaviors, memories, emotions, sensory experience, etc. He uses a crude big old zapper. But when your brain is zapped by a doctor and your right arm lifts, you are not in control of your body.. The doctor is pulling the strings. When your head is closed up and you're walking around, instead of one big stimulus from the doctor's hand held stimulator, you are receiving tens of millions of stimuli from the outside world in exactly the same fashion through your sensory neurons (i.e. temperature sensors, photoreceptors, odor receptors, mechanical receptors for touch/sound, etc).

The notion that you and I are different processes is just a convention that we use in order to behave the way that we do. But just because my skin doesn't enfold your neurons doesn't mean that you and I are ultimately something separate.

Just as your motorneuron tells your forearm muscle to flex, this text is hitting your eyes and stimulating your photo-receptors. The connection between us is more transient than your neuromuscular junction, but there is nothing fundamentally different about it.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

digitalMedia

Og, I'm really having to work hard to get my head around what you're saying here. I don't even think I could paraphrase it. I haven't been on this forum long and I tend to be more creative than technical, so please bear with me.

The difference is; The expanded boundary wouldn't be "your skin". Are you saying that the universe is a constant mesh of energy/matter in at least four dimensions and that this idea, therefore, negates uniqueness?

On one hand, it seems to me that your argument is purely rhetorical. Isn't establishing no boundary as arbitrary as setting a distinct boundary?

It does seem to me, moreover, that I don't understand your argument.

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