Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[drumdude]

Do animals have free will? Do bacteria have free will? Would free will exist without consciousness?

I don’t think instinctive behaviors in animals, including humans, demonstrate free will.

Regards,
MG

If an animal demonstrated altruistic behavior, would that be sufficient to indicate free will?

[IWMP]

Do animals have free will? Do bacteria have free will? Would free will exist without consciousness?

I don’t think instinctive behaviors in animals, including humans, demonstrate free will.

Regards,
MG

I think I can agree with that. Instinctive behaviours feel out of our control. The question I guess I was touching on is, are animals (not humans ) purely instinctive or do they have an element of choice too?

One thing that stands out to me as proof of choice was seeing 3 dogs have a threesome in the street one day, two big males and one small female standing on the wall watching the two males and getting involved. Was a bit weird. This was confirmed by kids in my class talking about the same dogs being gay.

[doubtingthomas]

Yes, throughout the thread I’ve mentioned that free will has its limits placed on it.

Regards,
MG

I see, sorry for not reading the thread, I usually don't have the time to read all of your nonsense.

[Gadianton]

I think epiphenomenalism is the high point of a position that is hard for me to accept. If nature went through the trouble of creating an entirely new ontology called mind, which feels pain and (seems to) perform calculations, then the point would seem to have the calculating part have a causal role in avoiding pain. I agree that nature doesn't care that so many chickens have been screwed over. That pain is punishment for losing the evolutionary battle. That we can fantasize about heaven and God's gift of chickens may be the ice cream for winning.

That I can fear the bear coming after me, but I only have the experience that I've chosen to run seems pointless. Why not just have a zombie world where higher life forms, just like bacteria, react to the bear and run but there's no fear, as well as no choosing? If the pain and choosing are both epiphenomenal, there is no drawback to removing both of them; it seems far more economical not to have them.

I could increase the level of skepticism and say that "self" and "pain" are also fictions. Hume rejected the idea that deception is the proof of a basic thinking thing, that we are a "bundle" that doesn't have such unified thoughts. Dennett rejects qualia -- pain -- in the same bundle-type observations from his survey of cognitive science. In that way, I could say belief in heaven, will, and pain are all on the same misguided footing. I guess I think that if it makes sense to talk about phenomenal consciousness, it makes sense to talk about free will. The Dennett position is roughly, mind is computation and choice is practical freedom -- nothing obstructing the pincers. This basic position is attractive to atheists or futurists who believe sophisticated robots could one day be sentient to the degree that people are.

[IWMP]

I think epiphenomenalism is the high point of a position that is hard for me to accept. If nature went through the trouble of creating an entirely new ontology called mind, which feels pain and (seems to) perform calculations, then the point would seem to have the calculating part have a causal role in avoiding pain. I agree that nature doesn't care that so many chickens have been screwed over. That pain is punishment for losing the evolutionary battle. That we can fantasize about heaven and God's gift of chickens may be the ice cream for winning.

That I can fear the bear coming after me, but I only have the experience that I've chosen to run seems pointless. Why not just have a zombie world where higher life forms, just like bacteria, react to the bear and run but there's no fear, as well as no choosing? If the pain and choosing are both epiphenomenal, there is no drawback to removing both of them; it seems far more economical not to have them.

I could increase the level of skepticism and say that "self" and "pain" are also fictions. Hume rejected the idea that deception is the proof of a basic thinking thing, that we are a "bundle" that doesn't have such unified thoughts. Dennett rejects qualia -- pain -- in the same bundle-type observations from his survey of cognitive science. In that way, I could say belief in heaven, will, and pain are all on the same misguided footing. I guess I think that if it makes sense to talk about phenomenal consciousness, it makes sense to talk about free will. The Dennett position is roughly, mind is computation and choice is practical freedom -- nothing obstructing the pincers. This basic position is attractive to atheists or futurists who believe sophisticated robots could one day be sentient to the degree that people are.

I think if nature doesn't care about the loss of chickens we can say it doesn't really car about the loss of humans either. I am not sure I would place nature in the same category as a divine creator. I agree that it is easy to see nature and animals as being different in that we can't perceive that it is conscious and we perceived it to be beneath us evolutionarily. But I wonder if that is the problem, we don't give it enough credit. We assume plants don't feel, don't think because they don't have brains. But unless we are a plant, we can't know.

I do believe there would be a drawback to removing a sense of choice, a feeling of pain. We could say they might be inconvenient. But without pain how would we know if something was wrong or if we were in danger?
If we felt like we didn't have choice, then we would need to remove the sense of identity, the feeling of existence. Because (lost my train of thought. Might come back to this).

I don't believe heaven, will and pain are on the same footing. Heaven is an idea that we hope for but can't grasp. Will is a confusion of something we think we might experience but can't explain in words that everyone agrees on because maybe everyone's experience of will and choice feels different. And I'm sorry, but as a person with chronic pain, pain is very real. If I've been suffering and it turned out I imagined it well, I'd wonder why I'm punishing myself. Physical pain, emotional pain, when can express the existence in those that people are able to relate to. They only thing here that might touch on what you are saying is that it is hard to quantise pain equally because the meaning of pain can be different. One of my children had sensory processing discrepancies and differences. She doesn't feel full. She drools, she is starting to react to pain more. She doesn't know when she is unwell unless she is really unwell. My son is very sensitive to pain. He almost over reacts. He is sensitive to texture and how food feels and minor injuries cause him a lot of distress. He screams if you wash his hair or brush his teeth and if you tell him to do it himself. He will pretend to do it and lie about it.

That doesn't mean pain doesn't exist. The difference lies in the neurons and the neurological system. The nerves and how they react to sensory input. With my daughter I am told to do things with her to increase her sensory perception. So reinforcing the nervous system by repetitive physical input such and rolling on the ground, chewing chew toys, compression and weight bearing.

Forgot what I was going to say again. I'm so tired.

Oh, we know there is physical evidence for the existence of pain. We can't prove the existence of free will other than by expressing observation and perception.
No real evidence for heaven.

Expressing pain is difficult in the same way as expressing what a colour looks like. The colour exists but when someone thinks of the colour blue, the colour they see can look very different to that of another person because of the structure of their eyes or the detection and translation that happens in their brains. Some people can't even visually recall colour but know it and recognise it. But we still think we are seeing the same thing as others because we can't see what they are seeing.

Perhaps this is like free will. We argue because we have a different level of sense of existence. Some people don't feel in control of their life. Some people feel totally in control and they apply the same expectations of existence to others because we assume will and choice to be a universal thing that should be equal and external to human consciousness. But how do we know?

Edit... If you want to go by the route that we don't really exist then it changes everything. It's possible to say self doesn't exist because we can't physically grasp what it means enough to stick it on paper and say this is what it is. But then in the frame of reference we are in, we can't see the mechanisms. A being outside of our frame of reference might be able to understand it better.

[MG 2.0]

Yes, throughout the thread I’ve mentioned that free will has its limits placed on it.

Regards,
MG

I see, sorry for not reading the thread, I usually don't have the time to read all of your nonsense.

No worries.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

It's possible to say self doesn't exist because we can't physically grasp what it means enough to stick it on paper and say this is what it is.

That doesn’t stop a lot of people from trying.

But then in the frame of reference we are in, we can't see the mechanisms. A being outside of our frame of reference might be able to understand it better.

Yep. That’s not rocket science. It’s something more.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

No real evidence for heaven.

Nothing determinative. Although if one believes in a creator God and has a high confidence level of that, it makes Heaven a little more believable.

Some folks believe in a form of heaven (astral plane and other ideas) but they don’t see God in it.

That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. A heaven of sorts without a creator? It just ‘is’?

Then of course you have those that find it more reasonable to throw both into the eternal abyss.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I don’t think instinctive behaviors in animals, including humans, demonstrate free will.

Regards,
MG

I think I can agree with that. Instinctive behaviours feel out of our control. The question I guess I was touching on is, are animals (not humans ) purely instinctive or do they have an element of choice too?

I think so. But if you throw in the idea of accountability, I don’t see that animals are accountable in any way. Just humans.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

I think I can agree with that. Instinctive behaviours feel out of our control. The question I guess I was touching on is, are animals (not humans ) purely instinctive or do they have an element of choice too?

I think so. But if you throw in the idea of accountability, I don’t see that animals are accountable in any way. Just humans.

Regards,
MG

Who/what are humans accountable to? I’m looking for the most base and fundamental level, not a middle man.