On Oct 18, 10:00 am, benjayk <benjamin.jaku...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > Here’s a little thought experiment about free will. Let’s say that > > there exists a technology which will allow us to completely control > > another person’s neurology. What if two people use this technology to > > control each other? If one person started before the other, then they > > could effectively ‘disarm’ the others control over them preemptively, > > but what if they both began at the exact same time? Would one ‘win’ > > control over the other somehow? Would either of them even be able to > > try to win? How would they know if they were controlling the other or > > being controlled to think they are controlling the other? > > Complete control over anything is simply impossible. Control is just a > feeling and not fundamental.
It depends what you mean by complete control. If I choose to hit the letter m on my keyboard, am I not controlling the keyboard to the extent that it is controllable? > The closest one can get to controlling the brain is to make it > dysfunctional. It's a bit boring, but the most realistic answer is that both > would fall unconscious, as that is the only result of exerting excessive > control over a brain. > It's the same result as if you try to totally control an ecosystem, or an > economy. It'll destroy the natural order, as control is not a fundamental > ordering principle. I generally agree. The thought experiment is to make people consider the fallacy of exclusively bottom up processing. I don't think that you could actually control a brain, I'm just saying that if you could, how do you get around the fact that it violates the assumption that only neurons can control the brain. If my neurons control a machine that control another person's neurons, then what happens? How does either the master or slave know if they are controlling or being controlled? The point was to show that bottom up exclusivity fails, and that we must consider that our ordinary intuition of bi- directional, high-low processing interdependence may indeed be valid. > > It seems like you think of control or will as something fundamental, and I > don't see any reason to assume that it is. That's a reasonable objection. If it's not fundamental, what is it composed of, and why is there an appearance of anything other than whatever that is? >Honestly I that we think that we > have "free", independent will is just the arrogance of our ego that feels it > has to have a fundamentally special place in the universe. I used to think that too, but now I see that it's every bit as much of an egotistical arrogance to De-anthropomorphize ourselves. It's an inverted, passive aggressive egotism to perpetually look to other processes above and below our native level of individual cohesion to give credit or blame, while all the while hiding invisibly behind the voyeur's curtain. To think that we have no free will is to think that we cannot think one way or another that we have free will. It's circular, self-negating reasoning. "I think that I don't really think, because I think that I can explain that it's not necessary for thinking to happen at all". Doesn't really make sense if you step out of the system and observer your thinking, opinionated, controlling self pronouncing that it controls nothing, thinks for no reason, and has opinions for...for what again? What is an opinion doing in a cosmos which has no free will? Literally. What does an opinion do? Why are you here talking to me? What is making controlling you to do this more than you yourself? Should I imagine that my neurons care what I think? > That is not to say that we are predetermined by a material universe, rather > control is just a phenomenon arising in consciousness like all other > phenomena eg feelings and perceptions. Sure, but that's all that it needs to be. As long as we get the sensory feedback that we expect from our motives, then we might as well have free will. It just seems violate parsimony unnecessarily. Why does it make sense for consciousness to be completely dominated by the experience of control in a universe where that would be utterly meaningless? How would such an illusion even work in the sense of how does a feeling of will get invented in the first place? If you keep throwing dice long enough they will start hallucinating that they are an organism with a conscious will? Why? How? It's totally nuts and explains nothing. Once we understand that will is sort of a subjective fisheye view which radiates evanescent waves of influence over the entire band of micocosmic and macrocosmic phenomena, as well as being influenced by the same, we can see that free will doesn't have to be completely explained away nor does it have to be seen as a truly independent phenomena. It get's kind of meta, because the degree to which free will feels free is partially contingent upon your feelings about it - your courage and independence. If you don't want free will, you don't have to have it. If you do want it, you might not like the consequences. The universe will support whatever level of mundane skepticism or profound delusion that you invest in. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
