Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, Essays on Mind and Matter

[TheHumanHydra]

* And ipecac's and Bacchus's case about physical laws is a very strong riposte -- looking forward to more on this from both sides.

It has been argued that given enough time, chemicals can do even the extremely extremely extremely unlikely (abiogenesis). Eventually, I gather, we might get a reply from the bags of chemicals.

Ipecac, dude, come on, this is just rude. Salt and light.

[Bacchus]

This thread isn't just atheism vs. Christianity?

For me, this debate has nothing at all to do with theism or Christianity specifically. T-Hawk's position can easily be accommodated with a Christian worldview, as a kind of strong Augustinianism. (Obviously, an Augustinian would disagree in their being a God, but could otherwise proceed to say that the will of humans in their fallen state is indeed nothing but enactment of material impulses, not free, but enslaved to sin. The Augustinian would also claim that there is nothing at all spiritual in this material realm, and Augustine himself flatly denied the possibility of anything contrary to the laws of nature from happening.)

[darrelljs]

Feels more like Calvin, although obviously Calvin borrowed a lot from Augustinianism. It’s kind of funny given what I assume T-Hawk thinks of religion that we are comparing him thusly, but there you have it. Would have been neat to have a poll with this thread, along the lines of what do you believe in...

Darrell

[ipecac]

Ipecac, dude, come on, this is just rude. Salt and light.

Rather, it's entirely appropriate when dealing with self-admitted mindless bags of chemicals.

Light shines into darkness, and reveals the things in darkness to be what they are. We are averse to doing this in these times, not least because it gets with 'Rude!' or 'arrogant' or 'judgmental'. Well, it's still part of the job.

[ipecac]

This thread isn't just atheism vs. Christianity?

There was a Christian philosopher (I forgot his name) who bought into physical determinism, and his 'solution' to preserve free will in some sense was to have God alter reality as the human willed.

The more I think about it, this issue really stems from people's tendency to go for false either/or dilemmas. In this case the only two valid options are that 'humans have full control of their actions' or 'they don't have any control of their actions'. Some thinkers, even maybe Calvin and Augustine, buy into this dilemma, and since obviously humans don't have full control they default to 'humans have no free will'.

You can tell from my posts that I support some 'middle' option in between the two extremes, which for various reasons the people above don't seem to even consider, I think because the existence of middle options are ruled out a priori for some reason. So they only consider two extremes with no middle ground.

The other aggravating factor I alluded to in my very first post in this thread: the influence of Descartes. Post-Descartes, most thinkers have given up on the idea that the non-physical and the physical could directly interact.* In other words, 'never shall the twain meet', again the lack of a middle ground.

Back to your question: a Christian worldview without actual free will or interaction of the non-physical with the physical is very confused, of course. Clearly (as you also have intuited) they've taken into their worldview some beliefs that are more characteristic of atheists and just don't go with a Christian worldview.


*Of course, many implicitly assume they do when laws of physics interact with particles, but they don't realise it.

[T-hawk]

It has been argued that given enough time, chemicals can do even the extremely extremely extremely unlikely (abiogenesis). Eventually, I gather, we might get a reply from the bags of chemicals.

I'll take that as friendly teasing. This bag of chemicals spent its weekend out and about, then playing Alpha Centauri instead of philosophizing about it, then its Monday writing about Alpha Centauri instead of getting back to this thread. I'll start to catch up now but more tomorrow.

[T-hawk]

Argument for the existence of the non-physical:

If the laws of physics exist, then there exists something non-physical, as they are non-physical, they are not particles.

I use "the particles" as shorthand for the particles themselves and the forces they exert. Those forces comprise what we call the laws of physics: electron shells and covalent bonds and nuclear fusion and all other behavior derives from those forces. I'm not literally saying that only mass exists; fields such as electromagnetic and gravitational exist too as physical realities.

What this leads to is that, if particles can project a gravitational field, and if particular combinations at particular distances project the nuclear strong-force field, could an arrangement of particles project a "consciousness field"? I do not rule out this as a possibility - indeed this is the argument for free will apart from dualism or a supernatural creator. I do say we don't have observable experimental evidence for this. Our ability to express "I think I'm a consciousness" does not constitute evidence, since a computer program or simulation could express the same thing.

T-Hawk, what's your stance on mathematical and geometric ontologies? Are there objective truths in mathematics? What are they truths about?

I missed this point and meant to come back to it. I suppose those areas define their own truths, although only as idealized abstractions. The sum of the angles of a three-sided polygon is half the angle subtended by the arc of a circle (180°, but saying it in those terms to avoid the human-created abstraction of a degree), but physical reality has no straight-edged polygons or perfect circles. Even something as simple as 1 + 1 = 2 doesn't convert to physical reality; 1 proton + 1 proton ≠ 2 protons thanks to the behavior of nuclear forces. I'm not sure if this covers what you were asking, let me know otherwise.

[T-hawk]

I think you ultimately agree with this, T-hawk, I just want it to be clear that, say, if humanity chooses to imprison anyone who ever tries to make a Genejack, there is little room for complaint. Optimization is not a goal or value (or real). Who cares?

I agree with the rest of that section, but not with that point.  If a Genejack has no desire other than to be a Genejack, what wrong has been committed?

I don't think anyone would think it wrong to build a household robot to carry out your chores, since the robot has no desire to do anything otherwise.  Now what if we increase the complexity of the robotic system until it matches that of the Genejack.  Is that wrong?  If not, then what is the difference between an equivalently-functioning system implemented on electronics versus the one implemented on biology?

Your framework, notably, allows you to perform any behaviour or hold any attitude you wish, without moral constraint. There is no guilt (beyond the chemical), because you don't have agency (and morality doesn't exist as such anyway). There is no reason not to do anything other than a) lack of desire, b) inability, or c) knowledge of undesired consequences thereof.

This is indeed true.  What holds me back from unfettered theft or anything like that is acceptance of the societal consequences.  I'm willing to refrain from such activities based on the socially enacted rules that others will observe to refrain from doing it to me.  It is positive-sum for two organisms to agree not to kill each other, even if one would gain by doing so.  I do have no moral problem with committing truly victimless crimes, like jaywalking or whatever.

To relate this back to my post, yes, I think if you could pinpoint every particle and predict its interactions, you would know what every mind will choose (as does the god of my framework). But what you define as free will, the ability to make choices independently of the particle substrate of the universe, is not free will, because it requires the choices to be made randomly, that is, arbitrarily, that is, not selected for any reason, that is, not the result of volition but of impartial chance. But choice is the ability to exercise partiality.

It sounds like you are agreeing with me on the determinism.  You're defining free will to mean the outcome of that determinism, but then how is that free?

Also I want to clarify what you mean by randomness or chance here.  Do you actually mean quantum randomness, the distribution of particles within their probability fields, which is a real and observable phenomenon?  Or are you using the colloquial meaning - like how the result of rolling dice is commonly called chance, but it's really deterministic and we just perceive it as chance because we can't observe it quickly in enough detail to follow the determinism of the initial trajectory and bouncing and all.

Per Bacchus's argument, if you speak of brain chemistry as causing behaviour, haven't you acknowledged that phenomena of a higher order than particles have causal import?

No, because it's still the particles causing everything.  Any causal import attributed to the higher-order phenomenon is just an abstraction by our perceptions.  We can say that the hurricane knocked down the tree, but what we really mean is that the cumulative impact of each water particle caused the separation of some other particles that we call a tree trunk.

[TheHumanHydra]

I think you ultimately agree with this, T-hawk, I just want it to be clear that, say, if humanity chooses to imprison anyone who ever tries to make a Genejack, there is little room for complaint. Optimization is not a goal or value (or real). Who cares?

I agree with the rest of that section, but not with that point.  If a Genejack has no desire other than to be a Genejack, what wrong has been committed?

I don't think anyone would think it wrong to build a household robot to carry out your chores, since the robot has no desire to do anything otherwise.  Now what if we increase the complexity of the robotic system until it matches that of the Genejack.  Is that wrong?  If not, then what is the difference between an equivalently-functioning system implemented on electronics versus the one implemented on biology?

Your framework, notably, allows you to perform any behaviour or hold any attitude you wish, without moral constraint. There is no guilt (beyond the chemical), because you don't have agency (and morality doesn't exist as such anyway). There is no reason not to do anything other than a) lack of desire, b) inability, or c) knowledge of undesired consequences thereof.

This is indeed true.  What holds me back from unfettered theft or anything like that is acceptance of the societal consequences.  I'm willing to refrain from such activities based on the socially enacted rules that others will observe to refrain from doing it to me.  It is positive-sum for two organisms to agree not to kill each other, even if one would gain by doing so.  I do have no moral problem with committing truly victimless crimes, like jaywalking or whatever.

To relate this back to my post, yes, I think if you could pinpoint every particle and predict its interactions, you would know what every mind will choose (as does the god of my framework). But what you define as free will, the ability to make choices independently of the particle substrate of the universe, is not free will, because it requires the choices to be made randomly, that is, arbitrarily, that is, not selected for any reason, that is, not the result of volition but of impartial chance. But choice is the ability to exercise partiality.

It sounds like you are agreeing with me on the determinism.  You're defining free will to mean the outcome of that determinism, but then how is that free?

Also I want to clarify what you mean by randomness or chance here.  Do you actually mean quantum randomness, the distribution of particles within their probability fields, which is a real and observable phenomenon?  Or are you using the colloquial meaning - like how the result of rolling dice is commonly called chance, but it's really deterministic and we just perceive it as chance because we can't observe it quickly in enough detail to follow the determinism of the initial trajectory and bouncing and all.

Per Bacchus's argument, if you speak of brain chemistry as causing behaviour, haven't you acknowledged that phenomena of a higher order than particles have causal import?

No, because it's still the particles causing everything.  Any causal import attributed to the higher-order phenomenon is just an abstraction by our perceptions.  We can say that the hurricane knocked down the tree, but what we really mean is that the cumulative impact of each water particle caused the separation of some other particles that we call a tree trunk.

For some reason I struggle a bit with formatting interwoven quotes, so I'll just number my responses. 

1. I think we're talking past each other a little. Under your framework, I agree completely it is not wrong to create a Genejack (because there is no wrong). What I meant by this was to try and persuade anyone who might want to make a Genejack not to get too worked up about doing so, because under your framework, in contrast to Yang, there isn't really any great driving purpose to 'optimizing' humanity (and I don't want them to do it).

2. Yes. I just wanted this to be clear to the reader. While I have confidence you do no such things, I just want to add that there is really nothing here to prevent those without anyone looking over their shoulder (or powerful enough to do something about it) from committing all manner of abuses, great and small. This isn't an argument from reason, just the 'Parental Guidance' label on the package, as it were.

3. Yeah, like I said, it's not my favourite argument. Thankfully, it's not what I believe. That said, I think there is a little bit to the idea that the (human) brain is a machine for making choices, and not surprising to find it has (ahem) particular reasons for its choices. As to randomness, I'm not really referring to any real (factual or perceived) random behaviour, but to the hypothetical idea of a mind that could 'choose' without physical reasons for its choices -- it's not really choosing (= discriminating, preferring, i.e., on some basis), it's submitting its choices to what amounts to some kind of RNG. You can still take this and say, 'Well, then, there is definitely still not free will'!  But what I'm saying is that I'm not sure the thing you define as free will actually is either (it may be free, but it's not will)!

4. I ask this because your argument with Bacchus seems to me mostly semantic, not factual. I.e., of course under materialism all things and all causes are reducible to particles, but is it meaningful to describe those things on a higher level? By speaking of chemicals, not particles, you seem to have tacitly acknowledged the utility of describing causes on a higher level (and the practical reality of those causes). Basically, I don't know why there isn't some compromise view that says, 'of course the lower orders are affected by higher-order patterns, which are ultimately just collections of lower-order phenomena, which can be described as higher-order aggregates, which are really lower-order ...' so that you're both right and preferring different ways of thinking. But maybe I'm just not following.

Thanks for your responses. 

[ipecac]

Argument for the existence of the non-physical:

If the laws of physics exist, then there exists something non-physical, as they are non-physical, they are not particles.

I use "the particles" as shorthand for the particles themselves and the forces they exert. Those forces comprise what we call the laws of physics: electron shells and covalent bonds and nuclear fusion and all other behavior derives from those forces. I'm not literally saying that only mass exists; fields such as electromagnetic and gravitational exist too as physical realities.

What this leads to is that, if particles can project a gravitational field, and if particular combinations at particular distances project the nuclear strong-force field, could an arrangement of particles project a "consciousness field"? I do not rule out this as a possibility - indeed this is the argument for free will apart from dualism or a supernatural creator. I do say we don't have observable experimental evidence for this. Our ability to express "I think I'm a consciousness" does not constitute evidence, since a computer program or simulation could express the same thing.

Well, firstly I have to say that it's good that you're dropping the argument from Occam's razor/simplicity. It is only a heuristic, and there are other important heuristics such as whether what is proposed accords with intuition. There is also the question of simplicity itself: what is more 'simple', invoking a complex chemical cascade together with a 'consciousness field' or the intuitive explanation that a non-material mind exists? But we can leave this aside.

Back to your response on laws of physics: I expected this solution. Instead of saying the laws are something external to the particles, they are said to be part of the particles' nature, part of their essence. The consequence of this, however, is that you lose the 'iron law' aspect that many associate with the laws of physics: you can only talk about the tendencies of particles, and you can't rule out the non-material.

Really, there is nothing more in your current position that can rule out the non-physical. All you have left is a very non-intuitive preference to assert that it is so.