Sunday School

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

PopeBeanie wrote:

Must not the feeling of free will at least be a product of determinism? A legitimate product of evolution? And very useful, fortunately, if not more pleasurable than the feeling of having no control at all.

That’s the way I see it. Nature has endowed us with free will that we can use to navigate contingent circumstances as they come up. A squirrel has free will, within its little squirrel world. It can decide whether or not to make a dangerous-looking jump, for example.

Except you don’t really know that do you? That decision may have been made before the critter knew it would jump. The squirrel’s conscience was informed at some point. Yeah, I’d say a squirrel has some level of self-awareness.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

That decision may have been made before the critter knew it would jump. The squirrel’s conscience was informed at some point. Yeah, I’d say a squirrel has some level of self-awareness.

Well, it has to respond to real events in real time, so I’m guessing it has free will.

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

That decision may have been made before the critter knew it would jump. The squirrel’s conscience was informed at some point. Yeah, I’d say a squirrel has some level of self-awareness.

Well, it has to respond to real events in real time, so I’m guessing it has free will.

Doesn’t follow, oversimplification. Ever stick your hand on a hot burner?

We know what parts of the brain account for consciousness. Seems that electrical activity in those areas can actually lag the parts of the brain that make decisions.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Ever stick your hand on a hot burner?

I could choose to leave my hand on the burner.  I’d be an idiot, but I could do it.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Well, it (the squirrel) has to respond to real events in real time, so I’m guessing it has free will.

The squirrel does not respond as if it were giving careful consideration to its next move. It reacts to real events in real time. That reaction is entirely instinctive. That instinct is highly tuned and the reaction is faster than any considered choice could ever be. That instinct is the result of Evolution only and not in any way a ‘free will choice’.

You don’t have a choice to leave your hand on the hot stove if you accidentally put it there. You would instinctively pull it away from the heat before you “decided to”. The only choice you might have is to put it back on the hot stove. And you would only do that if you wanted a Darwin Award more than you want your hand.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Few yrs ago was hiking during winter along a ridge and there was a dusting of snow that concealed ice. Feet came out from under and i was about to fall down a cliff. Arms slammed the trail with legs dangling and pulled myself up onto trail without any conscious thought. Heart did not even have a chance to respond to hormones and i was up and safe. Thank you momma nature.

[UnseenParticipant]

Here’s why emergence is bogus when used to defend free will.

In legitimate examples of emergence, the phenomenon preexists the explanation. The flocking of birds or schooling of fish are an emergent phenomenon. Emergence, based on a set of rules so simple even fish and small birds can obey them*, explains the behavior. Flocking and schooling was a real observable phenomenon in need of explanation. Flocking and schooling are worldly phenomena two or more people can observe simultaneously.

By contrast, free will exists as a feeling we seem to have, like deja vu, which we all recognize is an illusion. If it exists and if emergence explains it, then it obeys rules like the rules birds and fish follow in flocking and schooling.

But here’s the catch: If free will exists as an emergent phenomenon, then if is determined by a set of rules. Determinism strikes again!

* The set of rules explaining bird flocking behavior are typically described as “separation,” “alignment,” and “cohesion,” where each bird essentially tries to avoid colliding with its neighbors, fly in the same direction as nearby birds, and maintain a certain proximity to the group as a whole; essentially, each bird adjusts its movement based on the position and direction of its close neighbors.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by  Unseen.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

I read the article about Jordan Peterson and I really don’t agree with it. I’ve listened to a lot of his stuff and read some of his other books and I think that article is a really bad representation of who he actually is and what he actually says. Just my opinion.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@Belle Rose, what is it you get from Jordan Peterson?  I have sympathy with him and I don’t think he’s a right wing nutcase.  But I can never understand what he’s talking about, beyond his 10 rules for young men, which I think are a good idea.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

@simon he used to be a professor and clinical psychologist. His lectures are all over YouTube. This article looks like it’s talking about his new book, and even just reading it I can tell what it’s about because I’ve seen his lectures. The person who wrote that article clearly had a bias against him which you can tell immediately. They took a page from an interview he did in the past back in like 2018 on the gender pay gap which the interviewer was also bias in the exact same way. It’s recycled mumbo jumbo.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I agree that people are biased against him, because he’s not straight-ahead woke, and people just hate that.  But what kind of wisdom or knowledge have you gained from his lectures and books?  To me, he says a lot of stuff without ever actually saying anything.  I recognise that this could be because his belief system is new to me, therefore it goes over my head.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

The squirrel does not respond as if it were giving careful consideration to its next move. It reacts to real events in real time. That reaction is entirely instinctive. That instinct is highly tuned and the reaction is faster than any considered choice could ever be. That instinct is the result of Evolution only and not in any way a ‘free will choice’.

That’s true, but a squirrel, or a cat, will still appear to deliberate over whether to take a difficult jump.  It makes its mind up; it chooses deliberately.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

By contrast, free will exists as a feeling we seem to have, like deja vu, which we all recognize is an illusion. If it exists and if emergence explains it, then it obeys rules like the rules birds and fish follow in flocking and schooling.

Everything obeys rules, but that doesn’t in itself imply complete determinism.  My free will is constrained by rules: I will never be able to do exactly what I like.  As for the rest, I can employ free choice.

As people have been saying, physical evolution has given me the faculty of limited freedom of choice.

[_Robert_Participant]

JP has a problem. His fan base are mostly disillusioned young males lost in the wake of female independence. So, they revert to the good old Christian days and ways. When even the least desirable young males could attract female attention. Trouble is, JP is an atheist. So, when he talks about god and the virtues of religion, it’s just a word salad of disingenuous nonsense.

So, he’s also the anti-woke hero. However, underneath the excesses of wokeness, the motives are good. It is just egalitarianism. So, is he against egalitarianism, or just the overshoot? Hard to tell. Because much of the anti-woke crowd and many of his fans would be fine with the old racist, sexist agenda.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

So, is he against egalitarianism, or just the overshoot?

He’s definitely against the overshoot.  I don’t pin him as anti-egalitarian.  I was following him from the early days of the trans-pronoun crisis in Canada, when I was in the middle of a breakdown.  Those opponents being “pummeled”?  That was mainly me.  I thought they were ridiculously up their own arses and self-important and over-zealous.

If he’s trying to appeal to “disillusioned young males lost in the wake of female independence” – that’s not a bad thing.  Donald Trump does the same, but in a really crude, simplistic, dumbass way.  JP is making a genuine attempt to build an alternative philosophy.  But I can’t make head or tail of it.

What the young men presumably want is a way to fit into society and live a productive life, instead of being “doomers”.  A big part of this is puzzling out that very strange species, the females.  What do women want?  A bad boy?  A nice guy?  Then the narcissistic resentment kicks in and Elliot Rogers ends up shooting up a shopping mall.

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