Animal Cognition

Michael,

Its meaningless to label things "animate" and "inanimate" when we are talking about the smallest parts of reality. What, you call anything that becomes part of your body "animate" as soon as it becomes a part of your body, and then "inanimate" once again once it leaves your body? Is your skin animate? How about the cell membrane of your skin cells? Do you know what your cell membranes are? They are double layers of a type of fat with protein parts. Do you know what fat and protein is? They are molecules, their shape and electromagnetic properties etc. cause them to function as they do. You can go through all of the parts of your body like this. Its been done, its incredible to learn.

Life arises, intelligent beings arise from "inanimate" matter. But "inanimate" is kind of misleading, it gives you the idea that the thing in question doesn't interact, do, or cause anything. Instead, I think it would be preferable to label the most fundamental parts of reality as either "interactive" or "non-interactive" with other parts of reality. Interactive means that a part of reality influences another part of reality's state as reality changes (time). I challenge you to find something that is "non-interactive" (you won't, its impossible by my definition of "interactive").

Sleeping is a process that your finite/infinate? state self-changable/reconfigurable parallel reality-sensed information computational, reality-interactive parts go through. Its like a computer in the sense that it can perform operations on information, load and store too. Its not like a computer because it is capable of changing itself and has way more I/O (interactive) capabilities with reality.

Well, I'm off to work.

Post 141

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 7:53am

Michael:

Q: What is life made up of?
A (you guys): Processes of inanimate matter.

Let's do it again:

Q: What is life made up of?
A (me): Why, life.

Well, what answer is more informative? Those processes of inanimate matter can be studied and analyzed, there is even a whole science dedicated to that task: biology/biochemistry/biophysics. That way we can learn something about life. On the other hand, what use is the second answer? It is as informative as that Objectivist bromide "A is A", which is often used in discussions as some magic formula to dispel the evil ghosts of dissent, but which is as useful to that purpose as "2 + 2 = 4", as Jon already hinted. This second answer is the secular version of "God did it, and that's good enough for me!"

So I will ask you also. Have you observed life being created from scratch out of inanimate matter, or know of someone who has? Will that be in the basic textbooks you advised me to read?

Life has already evolved out of inanimate matter, here on earth, a few billion years ago. You don't really doubt that, do you? Now it took nature a few billions of years to get life started, so you shouldn't be too impatient if it'll take humans a few more years to perform the same trick. However, I think it's not unlikely that we'll succeed in doing so in the next decade.

It doesn't really exist? That's the answer? Or it's merely an attribute or a process of something nor the other, meaning that an attribute or process can cease to exist, but a special type of existent cannot? That sounds an awful lot like playing word games.

Not at all, it is a process occurring in highly specialized structures, made from inanimate matter. It is the special structure and the processes that it generates that give life its unique features. If the structure is damaged, those processes can be aborted and life ceases to exist, even while the materials are still there. You may compare it with software on a computer (which may manifest itself for example as great music coming out of the loudspeakers or wonderful pictures of naked women on your screen). This also consists of a series of processes in the hardware, a special arrangement of inanimate matter. When I damage the circuit boards in your computer, the software ceases to run, it dies. Just like the running software, life does exist, but not as some "thing" made of magic stuff, but as a special process created by a special structure. Of course life has special characteristics that distinguish it from non-life (although "coming into existence" and "ceasing to exist" are not among them), but these are the result of the special configuration of its building blocks, and not the result of some special mystical stuff. Do I detect a yearning for skyhooks here?

Post 142

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 8:31am

Cal: When I damage the circuit boards in your computer, the software ceases to run, it dies. Just like the running software, life does exist, but not as some "thing" made of magic stuff, but as a special process created by a special structure.

The software analogy though is interesting in that the software exists very much independently of the hardware. The software will function the same way whether it's stored or processed in any number of different ways. In fact, if the processor is different, the storage will be different in the same media. So now we can even have the same software stored in very different ways AND with different media. Is life/mind somehow independent of physical implementation? It would be fruitless to study the nature of magnetic media to understand software. Optical media would be the same functionally but physically would be very different, and irrelevant really. Does studying the physical nature of life/the brain make sense in this context? I think it does to some extent I guess, but it might not yield many answers to deep questions anytime soon.

Unlike a life "force", the software "force" can be identified as the idea/logic/concept of the program that exists independent of implementation. I can't help suspect there's a parallel with life here but...

Post 143

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 10:03am

In any particular experiment only one choice is possible (and there is only one outcome, surprise, surprise).

There is only one outcome once you see what it is, of course, but prior to the results there are multiple possible outcomes. Newton's laws are not even accurate enough to cover all of sub-atomic particle physics as well as other observed phenomena in the universe, why are they suddenly determining what choices I make? That is what I am saying, that the experiments and understanding you refer to specifically deal with defined areas of what we observe in the universe and how it operates. You are extrapolating them into something they don't define. Each law you have mentioned has a benefit to our understanding of the universe, but it has no such applicability as to whether, prior to choosing an action, only one action was possible. The process of life, consciousness, and rational consciousness all have a bearing on the way a living being acts - again it acts within the physical laws - but unlike an inanimate object, which only reacts, animate beings also act, in a heirarchy from the least complex to the most, in ways not yet fully described. Hence, our lack of ability to do any of the following:

Create any object that is self-replicating that is not already alive.
Create any living thing from a non-living thing.
Understand what the nature of mind truly is.
The ability to create an artificial intelligence.
The ability to agree on a definition of consciousness or intelligence or what "self-aware" means.

Newton's laws won't cut it to figure that out, nor will Einstein's.

Post 144

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 10:10am

Michael wrote,

Thanks for the non-snarky answer.

You're welcome!

I find it strange that people say that life does not have any special attributes not contained in inanimate matter. They acknowledge that the existence of life is conditional and, as you quoted from AS, the existence of inanimate matter is not conditional.

So, what make life's existence conditional, then? If it is simply rearranged inanimate matter, then the life itself it would merely change form on death, not cease to exist. Where does it go?

No, the matter of which the organism is composed would change form, not the organism itself. The organism itself would simply cease to exist, because life is a process of self-sustaining, self-generated action, which ceases when the organism dies, at which point, its body begins to decompose and the matter to assume a new and different form. What makes a living organism's existence conditional is the necessity of self-sustaining action in the face of an alternative; if that condition isn't satisfied, the organism ceases to exist.

It doesn't really exist? That's the answer? Or it's merely an attribute or a process of something nor the other, meaning that an attribute or process can cease to exist, but a special type of existent cannot?

No, a living organism is a special type of existent, namely, one that engages in a process of self-sustaining, self-generated action. When that process ceases, the special type of existent ceases as well.

Life exists. It is special and has special laws that govern some aspects of its existence that do not apply to inanimate matter. Ceasing to exist is one of them. Coming into existence is another.

Coming into existence and ceasing to exist is not special to life; inanimate objects can come into existence and cease to exist, e.g., a star. What is special about living organisms is that their action is self initiated and goal directed, and their existence, self sustaining, such that when that action ceases, they decompose. Although inanimate objects can come into existence and cease to exist, their action is not self initiated and goal directed, nor their existence, self sustaining.

To be clear and try to head off the pushing I mentioned above, all of the attributes of inanimate matter not included in the special attributes of life ALSO apply to life. But SOME attributes are specific to living organisms only, and are not included in inanimate matter.

Again, the term "inanimate matter" may be a source of some confusion. "Inanimate" simply means non-living, so "inanimate matter" would refer to the matter composing non-living entities; and, although the term is rarely used, "animate matter" would refer to the matter composing living entities; but it's the same matter in either case. It is not the matter which is living or non-living, but the entity comprising the matter. You are correct that some attributes are specific to living organisms only, and are not included in inanimate matter, but that distinction is true of all entities that are composed of matter, whether the entities are living or non-living. For example, some attributes are specific to houses only and are not included in the bricks and mortar of which they are composed. The distinction to which you are referring pertains to one that exists between parts in isolation and parts comprised of a whole. To cite an example by Harry Binswanger from his book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts:

[I]magine we are presented with two hemispherical pieces of wood, each having a sticky substance on its flat side. Alone, neither hemisphere can roll; when joined to form a sphere, the whole can roll. Rolling is thus an emergent form of action completely determined by the individual separate properties of their parts and their arrangement. Obviously the whole formed by uniting the two hemispheres is, in a sense, "greater than its parts"--but it is just as obvious that this "extra something" of the whole (its ability to roll) is not to be explained by the supervention of a "principle of order" or "entelechy." There is no "transcendence" of the natures of the parts nor of the laws governing their behavior." (p. 22)

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 1/16, 10:19am)

Post 145

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 10:43am

Bob Mac:

Unlike a life "force", the software "force" can be identified as the idea/logic/concept of the program that exists independent of implementation. I can't help suspect there's a parallel with life here but...

An interesting question. I think that the "system"-aspect (the "force") of life in principle is independent of the substrate. However, it seems that, apart from the mental functions, the realization in practice is limited to "organic" (i.e. carbon-based) molecules, as it is difficult to imagine how all the intricate functions performed by the DNA machinery on the amino acids to create proteins which make such things as reproduction, differential growth, copying and expression of genes etc. possible, can be replicated by a system that is not based on carbon chemistry, as only the staggering amount of carbon compounds seems to be versatile enough to perform all those functions. The second best element would be silicon, but its versatility is orders of magnitude lower. It might perhaps be possible to base a form of life on a different carbon-based system than DNA/RNA. It would therefore be very interesting to find life on other planets, to see whether DNA is the only viable solution.

Post 146

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 11:54am

Bob, you wrote:

Organic matter has been experimentally created spontaneously from inorganic matter given the right conditions.

Where? I am unaware of it. (btw - Thanks for your voice acknowledging the special nature of life in the other posts.)

Dean, you wrote:

Its meaningless to label things "animate" and "inanimate" when we are talking about the smallest parts of reality.

Here is the crux. It seems you just threw out the whole science of molecular biology... I contend that it does matter, and not only does it matter, I suspect (as I am not a scientist) that studies of the smallest parts of reality will be/are being undertaken on matter gleaned from both "animate" and "inanimate" sources to find out what the differences are, and if there are any.

Dragonfly,

There are so many thing in your post... but I will confine myself to a few. To start with, it has become a fad to dismiss statements illustrating axioms (A is A) or basic truths (2 + 2 = 4) as if they are meaningless. They are not. This, in my experience, usually comes from those who have studied Popper (who sets up falsifiability as a standard of scientific truth, when the core standard that he uses for falsifiability will always boil down to axioms like existence and noncontradictory identification - and even falsifiability itself becomes a corollary axiom in his equation).

The point of a basic truth or axiom is a fundamental identification of an isolated fact only. The dismissal of the importance of making such an identification makes the mistake of saying that it has no value because it didn't do more than it does. "A is A" merely states that identity exists and implies that there is a noncontradictory means of knowing it. Nothing more - and that is what it is supposed to do. You cannot find anything at all informative (your word) if (1) there is no identity, and (2) there is no noncontradictory way to know it. I will admit, however, that far too often this illustrated axiom has been used as a bromide by superficial Objectivists to dismiss arguments that deserve a deeper discussion.

Thus identifying an existent like "life" is the same as identifying an existent like "subatomic particle." You have to identify something that you observe before you can study it. That is the only way you can learn something about it. If you do the contrary, i.e., study it before you identify it, then you are not studying "it" at all. You are studying something else.

You wrote:

Life has already evolved out of inanimate matter, here on earth, a few billion years ago. You don't really doubt that, do you?

That is probably the correct supposition, but until we know and can do it ourselves, it is still speculation. You state this as a fact. It isn't. (I could probably work falsifiability in here somewhere, but I don't use that standard as fundamental.)

You wrote:

It is the special structure and the processes that it generates that give life its unique features.

Here we almost agree. What is the "it" that does the generating? Something unidentified? I do agree that life includes a "special structure and the processes," and that it is made up of inanimate material, but it is more than the sum of the parts we presently know about.

You stated from an earlier post:

From a purely physical viewpoint there is nothing special about life, even if it does exhibit features that are not found elsewhere.

How do you define "special" then? "Features that are not found elsewhere" don't count as special? How's that for a skyhook?

And the other skyhook. If a unique life does not come into existence on birth, nor leave it on death, then it must always have existed and will always exist. Correct? Somehow, that sounds an awful lot like some mystical force to me.

I could go on, but I only have one difference on my mind left (so far). In your software/hardware analysis, you are saying that merely a configuration of 0 and 1 are all that goes into software, say something like the Windows operating system. I say that the human intelligence that designed that configuration is very much a force. (Please don't transpose this analogy to the intelligent design of the universe realm, as I am not a proponent of that. To me, the "human" element in the software equation would correspond to the "life" element in the universe equation as regards processes of inanimate matter, not some master designer.)

Bill,

I think we are basically talking about the same thing. There is a nitpick, though, and I have seen that the results of ignoring it lead to amazingly strange places (like the implication that life is a nonessential detail of inanimate matter). The purpose of an identification is not to state how it came into being, merely state that it exists. That is why you identify something. Then you can start studying it and dealing with it. Life is a specific form of existing and it is conditional. How and why that is so is a whole other question, which is what science is for.

The error I see being committed constantly is that people are erasing the identification itself because they start discovering the parts of what is identified. Thus the identification, "living beings are special existents that depend on certain processes to continue existing" becomes merely "life is a process of inanimate matter." The "life" got defined out of the equation. That is wrong.

Michael

Post 147

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 3:23pm

Kurt,

Create any object that is self-replicating that is not already alive.
Create any living thing from a non-living thing.
Understand what the nature of mind truly is.
The ability to create an artificial intelligence.
The ability to agree on a definition of consciousness or intelligence or what "self-aware" means.

Funny, I'm pretty confident that on new years eve (Dec 31. 2005) I figured out #3 and #5. I'm currently writing a paper on it. #4, #2, and #1 will soon follow. Give me 5 years. We'll make a bet on it, eh? How about I receive $1,000,000.00 USD if 1-5 all happen within 5 years, I pay out $1,000,000.00 through the rest of my life (indentured servant) if 1-5 are not accomplished? Anybody else want to join the bet?

Post 148

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 10:24pm

William,

Regarding teleology, does Binswanger have any comments about QM or the nature of time? I read some of Penrose' interesting thoughts on consciousness, which affirmed something I've suspected; I'm not the only one to doubt our "psychological" arrow of time isn't illusory in some respect.

Which brings up free will. If I indeed have free will, even to choose a state of mind, but causality has predetermined everything, can't I be a smart-ass and choose to change the state of mind that fate predetermined to be otherwise?

This instability, oscillation, is a characteristic of neural system which Penrose points out could well be sensitive to quantum (1-graviton) signal levels.

And if there is indeed free will, are not our wills a force of nature? Don't we change nature according to our will? It would then follow that, perhaps as a force like gravity is associated with mass, a similar force is associated with brains that have minds which have free-wills?

Mass tells space how to warp. Space tells mass how to move. The *value* of a parameter at a point (identity) determines the relationship, governs exchange, (action) between points. Identity determines action, actions lead to identity. But the laws governing the nonlinear system dynamics are *universals*, are consistent and unchanging.

Its interesting how the nonlinear neural-net of our brain is a kind of metaphor of the nonlinear physics of the universe. But then again, any good control system, robot or simulation has a program running a model, a metaphor of the plant it controls.

Scott

Post 149

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 11:14pm

The Tower of Babel: That's what the discussion here seems to me
to have (rapidly) begun resembling since I last checked this list
a few days ago. The resemblance is one I've always found in my
about seven years' experience of reading (and, in the case of a
few lists, participating on) various vaguely O'ist-related elists
soon develops whenever issues of science/determinism/volition arise.
(It's less frequent that there's a participant on one of these
lists who proposes, as MSK has, the viewpoint that "life" is a
"substance," but this viewpoint isn't unknown on such lists.)

I think that it might help in an attempt at some sort of mutually
understood terminology if participants would give a one-sentence
definition of what they mean by "determinism."

I'll go first. The definition which I consider the best in
the context of scientific understanding of the term is one which
was originally used by Peter Van Inwagen in a book I haven't read
(though I've seen this book often referred to), his 1983 book
*An Essay on Free Will*. (As I understand his thesis judging
from what others have said about it, he's arguing against
there being a scientifically acceptable theory of "free will".)
His definition is adopted by Daniel Dennett in Dennett's
*Freedom Evolves* and is cited thus on page 25 of that book:

"Determinism is the thesis that 'there is at any instant
exactly one physically possible future' (Van Inwagen 1983,
p. 3)."

I believe that this is the definition which Dragonfly has in
mind when speaking of "determinism." I find it the clearest
and most succinct I've encountered, and it's the definition
I've adopted in my own usage.

Possibly the discussion would be helped if other participants
would provide a one-sentence definition of their meaning when
they speak of "determinism."

Ellen

PS: Oh, how I'd love to see a discussion of the possibility
C.S., picking up from Bob Mac, refers to in C.S.'s post 145.
Dennett glances on that possibility on page 430 (if I'm remembering,
I didn't double check, the page reference ) of *Consciousness
Explained*. He says that Penrose is horrified by the thought
of a transferable "program" from one entity to another of
what C.S. called "the mental functions," but if such an idea
were actually feasible...the prospects are "mind-boggling."
Take note, Dean Gore, with your ambitions (which I'm reading
with interest).

__

Post 150

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 12:21am

Ellen,

Just to be clear, I did not use the word "substance" to be a synonym of matter as we know it. I did mean it in the "substantial" sense, however, i.e., meaning something that has some kind of physical existence. I do not think that we have yet developed a means of properly measuring and manipulating that "substance" efficiently. The DNA genome stuff and molecular biology stuff I skimmed over do look very interesting. (I really wish I had more time for studying this, but I am involved in other projects right now - so becoming more familiar with all this stuff is on my "to do" list.)

Still, there is that matter of not being able to create life from scratch (or spontaneous creation). Is there any reason that the DNA approach should be the ONLY one, and does it always have to result in all these philosophical speculations about determinism?

To me, a good one-line definition of determinism is "a word that lands like a kick in the nuts and makes people lose their common sense while getting awfully wordy."

//;-)

Michael

Post 151

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 7:24am

...the answer I found for the three kingdoms of life is archea, eubacteria and eukarya.

DING! Correct!

But, "come in and out of existence"? "inanimated matter"? I don't know what kind of philosophy is this, but using these kind of phrases in discussing phenomenon of life would be laughable for biologists. Sorry, not much I can do here.

Post 152

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 9:22am

Ellen, to put my objection simply, were you trying to say that the Newtonian Laws of Physics preclude the possibility of Free Will? That is what I got from your statement, and that is what I objected to. I don't think there is yet an answer on the subject of Free Will, and certainly the answer does not come from the current laws of physics as they are known today.

Post 153

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 10:47am

MSk Wrote:

Bob: Organic matter has been experimentally created spontaneously from inorganic matter given the right conditions.

MSK: Where? I am unaware of it.

Finally I remembered the name. Stanley Miller conducted the experiments in the 50's. He attempted to mimic the early earth in the lab. He mixed inorganic chemicals from what was considered to be present on earth billions of years ago and then added lightning (electricity) and heat and sure enough some organic compounds emerged. Here's a summary.

"The gases they used were methane (CH₄), ammonia (NH₃), hydrogen (H₂), and water (H₂O). Next, he ran a continuous electric current through the system, to simulate lightning storms believed to be common on the early earth. Analysis of the experiment was done by chromotography. At the end of one week, Miller observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. Perhaps most importantly, Miller's experiment showed that organic compounds such as amino acids, which are essential to cellular life, could be made easily under the conditions that scientists believed to be present on the early earth."

Post 154

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 10:57am

Michael:

Thus identifying an existent like "life" is the same as identifying an existent like "subatomic particle." You have to identify something that you observe before you can study it. That is the only way you can learn something about it. If you do the contrary, i.e., study it before you identify it, then you are not studying "it" at all. You are studying something else.

That I don't explicitly identify what "life" is, is while it's obvious and well-known what we mean by "life", there is no need to identify it. That doesn't mean that we know everything about life - of course we don't! - but that's the reason to study it. Now this may lead to a better and more sophisticated identification (like realizing that DNA plays an essential role in life on earth), but the bioscientists who made those discoveries had no problem in identifying what they were studying.

From a purely physical viewpoint there is nothing special about life, even if it does exhibit features that are not found elsewhere.

How do you define "special" then? "Features that are not found elsewhere" don't count as special? How's that for a skyhook?

Read better: I said "from a purely physical viewpoint". Self-replication is a special feature of life, but not in the physical sense. It's special in the organizational sense. One could say: it's the old physics applied in a new way.

And the other skyhook. If a unique life does not come into existence on birth, nor leave it on death, then it must always have existed and will always exist. Correct? Somehow, that sounds an awful lot like some mystical force to me.

You never cease to amaze me... where did I ever say something even remotely resembling that? I never said that a unique life doesn't come into existence nor that it doesn't leave it on death. I merely pointed out that "coming into existence" and "going out of existence" are far from unique for life. Snow crystals, fires and soap bubbles also come into existence and go out of existence.

Post 155

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 1:10pm

Hong,

I never stated inanimate matter goes into and out of existence. I stated that these are attributes of life. Maybe I misunderstood what you just wrote?

Dragonfly,

You just wrote about identifying life, "... there is no need to identify it."

ahem... Isn't that a bit subjective? There seems to be a lot of people around who have this "need." Anyway, I see we are having difficulty with the definition of "identify." How about going all the way back to the start of concept formation and pointing to something and saying, "That is what I mean." That's how you start identifying stuff. I look at some living creature like a dog and watch it be born and then die. "That is what I mean."

On the comparison of snowflakes, fire and soap bubbles to life in terms of having a temporary existence, I agree. They are individual formations that come into and go out of existence. Each one also has characteristics that the others do not have. So maybe I was a bit quick to say that this is unique to life.

However, the awareness (if you could call it that on a really low level) that comes with life that goes into and out of existence, that "thing" that causes it to strive to prolong its own existence, to seek nourishment and even reproduce, the whole package, is what I am trying to get at. As we talk, the concept of what I see being wrongly dismissed is getting clearer. It is sort of like how a sculptor does it. He sees a block of stone and the image within. Then he starts chipping away everything that doesn't belong to that image. The words we are using are sort of like the unwanted stone right now but let's keep chipping.

There is a HUGE essence difference between life and soap bubbles. (Now I suppose we can start disagreeing on what "essence" means.)

Bob,

I checked and came up with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment. It is a good introduction for a layman such as myself, since it seems like it is not biased. Here is a quote from the article:

"Far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them first."

From the standpoint of this statement, "organic" would not mean "alive," but would mean "a building block of life." If that is what it means, then organic amino acids were formed. Organic matter in terms of being alive was not. The spontaneous creation of the essence called life is still missing - all the way up to today.

Michael

Post 156

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 2:55pm

Kurt, you wrote:

"Ellen, to put my objection simply, were you trying to say that
the Newtonian Laws of Physics preclude the possibility of Free Will?"

I'm saying that any system in which classical mechanics holds
is a determinist system. I'm not sure how you'd define "free will" --
if you've offered a definition, forgive me for not recalling it --
but I assume that at minimum you'd define "free will" as
contrary to the definition I gave in post 149 of "determinism."

To repeat that definition (quoting Daniel Dennett, *Freedom
Evolves*, pg. 25):

"Determinism is the thesis that 'there is at any instant
exactly one physically possible future' (Van Inwagen 1983,
p. 3)."

I assume that you'd consider "free will" at minimum to entail
more than one physically possible future. I assume that further
you'd consider "free will" to entail a purposeful selection
amongst alternatives of action, not merely an indeterminist
(due to a quantum event) "swerve" this direction rather
than that. I assume that what you'd want is for the organism
to be able deliberately to take, say, path A instead of B.

You added:

"I don't think there is yet an answer on the subject of Free Will,
and certainly the answer does not come from the current laws of
physics as they are known today."

I actually agree that there isn't "yet an answer." My point
is that if the answer is "yes" (that there is "free will"
as I described it above), this answer doesn't integrate
with "the current laws of physics as they are known today."
Holding that the brain isn't a determinist system could integrate
with current physics, but this still wouldn't give you "free will"
as described. Even if one holds a theory such as Penrose proposes,
that quantum effects in microtubules are sufficiently amplified
in the brain so as to allow for more than one possible brain
state S' at t2 resulting from brain state S at t1, this still
doesn't give you purposeful direction of behavior. It would
only give you occasional "Epicurean swerves" (a point which
apparently Penrose doesn't understand). And even if one holds
that the brain's functioning is subject to quantum effects,
one still, if one is talking in the context of current physics,
wouldn't claim that there's a breach in the conservation laws.
But in order to support the reality of purposeful selection
amongst alternate possible futures, one would have to propose
that the conservation laws are breached. (Where's the extra
energy coming from? And the change in momentum and angular
momentum?)

If I understand you correctly, Kurt, what you're claiming is
that "the current laws of physics as they are known today"
have no relevance to "the subject of Free Will." I'm saying
that they have enormous relevance: they preclude what I
assume you'd consider to be "Free Will."

(A detail of wording: I don't myself use the term "free will."
Instead I speak of "volition," but I've used "free will" here --
in quotes -- since that's the term Kurt used.)

Ellen

Edit: I wrote "Heraclitean swerves" originally;
I meant "Epicurean swerves."
___
(Edited by Ellen Stuttle
on 1/17, 3:55pm)

Post 157

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 4:07pm

Michael:

ahem... Isn't that a bit subjective? There seems to be a lot of people around who have this "need." Anyway, I see we are having difficulty with the definition of "identify." How about going all the way back to the start of concept formation and pointing to something and saying, "That is what I mean." That's how you start identifying stuff. I look at some living creature like a dog and watch it be born and then die. "That is what I mean."

But isn't that rather obvious and well-known? You point to a dog and say "this is what we're going to discuss." Fine! So now we've solved the "problem" of identification, and now we can study our object!

However, the awareness (if you could call it that on a really low level) that comes with life that goes into and out of existence, that "thing" that causes it to strive to prolong its own existence, to seek nourishment and even reproduce, the whole package, is what I am trying to get at.

Good! So let's study this organism and see if we can find out how this awareness is realized. Oh, and keep Occam's razor ready to weed out unnecessary hypotheses that may disturb our analysis. However, I think now is the moment that you should be going to study a bit that DNA genome stuff and molecular biology stuff that is on your "to do" list, before you continue. Have you read the Dawkins classics? They aren't very technical, but they give a good introduction to the field and will give you much food for thought. If you want to get at least some idea of what life entails, you should have these under your belt.

Post 158

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 4:41pm

Now we wait for the long line of LOLs followed by a statement to the effect that Splendid and Bill are basically on track, even if it did take them a long while to get there.

Post 159

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 4:41pm