Effect of consciousness on evolution

[d63]

You clearly don't understand the implications of free will being an illusion, never have, at least not since we started this discussion and apparently you never will.

And you clearly don’t get the energy that would be wasted on such an illusion in evolutionary terms, the inefficiency of it: never have, and, clearly, never will.

[d63]

Only one law in the land, brother:




Don't be an A-Hole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[d63]

Shit!


Just spilled Jager on my shirt.


And I've got to go to work tonight.



Perhaps I should change it.

[iambiguous]

So, there are neuroscientists who give us reasons for believing in free will but you can assure us they are not good or logical reasons. Why? Because they do not coincide with the reasons given by those neuroscientists who insist we do not have free will.

I don't believe in free will because I have looked at the evidence. Not because someone said something. For me, free will is a logical impossibility, therefor, I think it's pretty easy to deduce that I don't think there are any good arguments for free will out there, regardless of who is arguing.

Okay, as long as you acknowledge the existence of folks who insist, "I do believe in free will because I have looked at the evidence. For me, determinism is a logical impossibility, therefore, I think it's pretty easy to deduce that I don't think there are any good arguments for determinism out there, regardless of who is arguing."

And I argue that you argue that none of us have the autonomy needed to do any of this of our own free will. If we hear them and realize free will is nonsensical or hear them and realize it is not it is all just more matter moving ineluctably under the bridge.

You clearly don't understand the implications of free will being an illusion, never have, at least not since we started this discussion and apparently you never will.

Okay, as long as you acknowledge the existence of folks who insist, "you clearly don't understand the implications of determinism being an illusion, never have, at least not since we started this discussion and apparently you never will."

And I have no more autonomy in going with most people then you have not going with with. Thus, in a world without free will what does -- what can -- it really mean to "think for yourself"?

See my point above.

Ditto.

So, the difference between us being that I am more than willing to acknowledge the possibility I might be wrong while you are more than willing to acknowledge the possibility you can never be.

But that is [according to me] more a reflection of human psychology than...neuroscience?

Not that [according to you] either one of us have a bloody thing to do with this exchange. Freely, for instance.

[d63]

We got another taste of this future in May 2002 when it was reported that scientists at New York University had attached a computer chip able to receive signals directly to a rat’s brain so that one can control the rat (determine the direction in which it will run) by means of a steering mechanism (in the same way one runs a remote-controlled toy car). This is not the first case of the direct link between a brain and a computer network. There already are such links that enable blind people to get elementary visual information about their surroundings directly fed into their brain, bypassing the apparatus of visual perception (eyes, etc.). What is new in the case of the rat is that, for the first time, the “will” of a living animal agent, its “spontaneous” decisions about the movements it will make, are taken over by an external machine. Of course, the big philosophical question here is, How did the unfortunate rat “experience” its movement that was effectively decided from outside? Did it continue to “experience” it as something spontaneous (i.e., was it totally unaware that its movements are steered?) or was it aware that “something is wrong,” that another external power is deciding its movements? Even more crucial is to apply the same reasoning to an identical experiment performed with humans (which, ethical questions notwithstanding, shouldn’t be much more complicated, technically speaking, than in the case of the rat). In the case of the rat, one can argue that one should not apply to it the human category of “experience,” while, in the case of a human being, one cannot avoid asking this question. So, again, will a steered human being continue to “experience” his movements as something spontaneous? Will he remain totally unaware that his movements are steered, or will he become aware that “something is wrong,” that another external power is deciding his movements? And, how, precisely, will this “external power” appear— as something “inside me,” an unstoppable inner drive, or as a simple external coercion? 21 Perhaps the situation will be the one described in Benjamin Libet’s famous experiment: 22 the steered human being will continue to experience the urge to move as his “spontaneous” decision, but due to the famous half-a-second delay he or she will retain the minimal freedom to block this decision.

untab

Zizek, Slavoj (2012-05-04). Organs without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences (Routledge Classics) (Kindle Locations 719-720). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.

This brings up an interesting question. If such a thing were done to a human, and the person did do as they were extraneously told to do, would this necessarily exclude the possibility of a participating self? Once again, we are talking, when we talk about a participating self, about an emergent property that engages in a feedback loop with the physiological infrastructure from which it emerged. So even if the individual did make a certain action when a certain part of their brain was stimulated, all that could mean is that it does so as well when the participating self stimulates it.

[d63]

I think I'm falling in love with Kindle.....


Almost love at first sight.

[Amorphos]

will a steered human being continue to “experience” his movements as something spontaneous? Will he remain totally unaware that his movements are steered, or will he become aware that “something is wrong,”

I expect that the rat was aware of being steered, fortunately nature is not as cruel as man. In other words, these things have become manifest in balance, one serves the other and there is a relationship.
This is not different to being put in an ultimate prison, where thence being put in a cage, then that the cage is robotic and can manoeuvre one around according to another’s will ~ like a remote controlled vehicle. Bit like a fair-ride.

I cannot see how this serves nature, it would be utterly pointless and groundless, species don’t behave like robots, and there is no controller!

I have made threads on this before; there is no determined universe, its an illusion.

[d63]

will a steered human being continue to “experience” his movements as something spontaneous? Will he remain totally unaware that his movements are steered, or will he become aware that “something is wrong,”

I expect that the rat was aware of being steered, fortunately nature is not as cruel as man. In other words, these things have become manifest in balance, one serves the other and there is a relationship.
This is not different to being put in an ultimate prison, where thence being put in a cage, then that the cage is robotic and can manoeuvre one around according to another’s will ~ like a remote controlled vehicle. Bit like a fair-ride.

I cannot see how this serves nature, it would be utterly pointless and groundless, species don’t behave like robots, and there is no controller!

I have made threads on this before; there is no determined universe, its an illusion.

We're not even sure there is such a thing as causality outside of an abstract model we use to explain things: a way of organizing phenomena and events.