On Jun 4, 10:14 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 6/4/2012 6:54 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > On Jun 4, 8:57 pm, Stathis Papaioannou<stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> If you want to think that, fine. If it upsets you, I'm sorry. If it > >> upsets you and therefore you conclude that it's not true, then your > >> thinking is fallacious. > > There's nothing upsetting about it, I just don't understand how we can > > talk about deciding that we are powerless to make decisions. I'm > > trying to figure out how that makes sense to anyone. > > Brains are made of the same stuff as everything else (up and down quarks, > electrons, > photons). We have no reason to believe that this stuff obeys different laws > when it's in a > brain, from which we conclude that whatever brains do it's determined by > these same laws. > I'm happy to call that 'free will' so long as your not coerced (however you > want to draw > the coerced/not-coerced line). In which case, since we're not coerced, we > are not > powerless, we're just deterministic (mostly).
If top level properties were determined by low level properties, then there would only be one level of description. It would be like saying that since the Taj Mahal is made of bricks, the shape of it must be determined by the laws of masonry alone. The bottom line is that we know for a fact that we are conscious, so that consciousness' association with the brain and it's molecules can only mean that molecules, or large enough groups of molecules are able to feel and think. It is our understanding of quarks and electrons that is primitive, not matter. 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.
