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> It implies no choice, it implies that your life is controlled by chemicals. This implication would be correct. Hormones and other chemical messengers heavily

> It implies no choice, it implies that your life is controlled by chemicals. This implication would be correct. Hormones and other chemical messengers heavily influence brain "states" such as moods. The brain learns to make decisions that maintain homeostasis through the development of somatic markers, which represent body states that are composed of nerve and chemical activity. Even nerve impulses themselves are initiated by chemicals. And of course the structure of your brain and body are dictated by, you guessed it, chemicals. (Specifically deoxyribonucleic acid.) "Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. Edit: to more directly address your point about overcoming addiction. The brain's reward and drive systems are indeed very complex, and I do think that the suggestion of an "ultimate" goal is a gross oversimplification. On the other hand, if someone were able to maintain a permanent high (with no need to re-dose, find more drugs, find money to pay for drugs, etc), then perhaps it would indeed be impossible for them to overcome their addiction. From the addict's perspective, part of the problem with getting high is that the inevitable "low" may be worse, especially when tolerance and dependence kick in, followed by withdrawal.

danharaj 9y ago
> This implication would be correct. Hormones and other chemical messengers heavily influence brain "states" such as moods. The brain learns to make decisions that maintain homeostasis through the development of somatic markers, which represent body states that are composed of nerve and chemical activity. Even nerve impulses themselves are initiated by chemicals. And of course the structure of your brain and body are dictated by, you guessed it, chemicals. (Specifically deoxyribonucleic acid.) This is dualism. Not as naive as cartesian dualism, but dualism nonetheless. The brain is electrochemical activity. There is no factorization of this system into brain states and chemicals that act of them, nor any other such factorization such as binning hormones into such states and describing neuron depolarization as acting on these states. So, for example, moods are not separate from hormonal activity in the brain. The brain is only controlled by chemicals in the sense that it is chemicals. There is no reason why chemicals cannot exhibit what we call choice. In fact, they do. Saying that a brain makes a choice is the same as saying chemicals make a choice. If you say that chemicals control the brain, well, then I'll say that the brain controls the chemicals. > "Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. This is the same dualism. Saying that a brain is an elaborate stimulus-response system doesn't say anything about what choice is, because now we can just ask how an "elaborate stimulus-response system" exhibits choice. There is no separation between "hypercompetent rationalizing system" and "true intentions". These splits don't make sense in such a non-linear, self-interacting system. Choice is only an illusion if you call a brain's ability to represent itself (imperfectly of course) an illusion, but what does that mean? Brains clearly encode representations of themselves and this gives rise to the incredible complexity of their behaviors. That is an indisputable physical phenomenon. External to a brain, you can describe it with the laws of physics and a large scratch pad to do calculations (take your time it'll be a while). But crucial to what a brain is is that there is an internal point of view, the one of the brain's own dynamics. That point of view has many properties, such as emotion, and choice and all other sorts of phenomena. Yes, this point of view reduces to physics and chemistry, but it also arises from physics and chemistry. In particular the reduction one can infer from the laws of physics is essentially out of reach. It is computationally and logically intractable; one is forced to resort to qualitative descriptions in order to say anything useful, and one starts arriving at concepts like... choice. When someone makes a point about psychology and uses the hypothetical reduction to chemistry as a premise, usually they're going to say something trivial or even false.
- iamnothere 9y ago
  The concept of "choice" as most people use it when describing consciousness tends to be synonymous with so-called "free will," and it is a metaphysical concept rather than a descriptive one. It implies the existence of some kind of non-physical "choosing" mechanism that is unbound by the law of physics. I have no problem with the concept of choice as you have expressed it, as shorthand for an immensely complex set of processes. This is similar what I was referring to when I mentioned "moods" and "states." I do realize that brain processes can't be accurately represented by fuzzy concepts such as these, but they are occasionally useful for discussion. > The brain is electrochemical activity. There is no factorization of this system into brain states and chemicals that act of them, nor any other such factorization such as binning hormones into such states and describing neuron depolarization as acting on these states. At a macro level, a higher than normal quantity of cannabinoids will cause the brain to act differently, with certain predictable characteristics. You could even give it a name as shorthand: "stoned." At a micro level, you could describe the effects of the chemicals on receptors. In between, you can talk about the effects on various brain structures and how that affects behavior. That's what I'm getting at.
lkrubner 9y ago
"hypercompetent rationalizing system" If true, can you state which chemicals are in charge of the hypercompetent rationalizing system? What happens when these chemicals are absent or their delivery is absent? More so, if you really feel the mind is entirely the product of chemicals, can you describe what is happening when someone faces a tough choice, one which, up to the last second, could go either way? Are you suggesting probabilistic outcomes for normally deterministic chemical processes?
- coldtea 9y ago
  >More so, if you really feel the mind is entirely the product of chemicals, can you describe what is happening when someone faces a tough choice, one which, up to the last second, could go either way? Are you suggesting probabilistic outcomes for normally deterministic chemical processes? Huh? You're seem to be the one to suggest "probabilistic outcomes for normally deterministic chemical processes". If personal choice is not an illusion/rationalization (as the parent suggests), then it's real. By which means such a real agent would come into play in an otherwise deterministic universe? Or are you saying the universe is not deterministic?
  - psyc 9y ago
    My understanding of the consensus in quantum mechanics, is that the wave function evolves deterministically, but the state of the universe falls out of the wave function non-deterministically. So the probabilities evolve deterministically, but the empirical state of all the 'particles' doesn't. Second-order determinism, not first-order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#Other_matters_of_quantum_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#Other_matters_of_q...
colordrops 9y ago
> Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. You are wording things in a derogatory way. If you said "unless you believe the world is rooted in subjective experience, or is non-deterministic", your argument would lose its strength (which is rooted in shaming), because there are many great thinkers and arguments along those lines.
- LolWolf 9y ago
  Not that I agree with the GP, but non-determinism doesn’t imply free will in the usual strong sense of the phrase (e.g. that there is some intrinsic notion that humans can directly dictate their own actions). Non-determinism (as in QM non-determinism) still has deterministic evolution, since specifying the wave-function at any one point in time is enough to specify it for all of time via evolution by the Schrödinger equation. So, this notion would require something stronger than QM non-determinism, or a different definition of free will.
  - Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
    > specifying the wave-function at any one point in time is enough to specify it for all of time via evolution by the Schrödinger equation. Scientifically this is not very correct when you consider the chaos theory, which has been widely accepted by physicists for many decades now. The problem is in practical application (and we live in a practical world, right?). The thing is that in theory, yes you can have some equation or elaborate mathematical model about the world and calculate everything. But once you start doing it, you immediately will see that it is impossible to calculate anything to such precision that this would work, the world is so big and complex that to calculate an X amount of world into the future, you would need Y (>X) amount of world to host those calcaultions. This is only the tip of the iceberg of why that is impossible. So in practice, it is impossible to "specify it for all of time". This is not just some logical trick, this is an important difference. It's the same principle that applies in the Turtle-Achilles paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes). In the perfect logical world of perfect science and nice beautiful theories and equations - Achilles can never possibly reach the turtle. And yet in the physical reality that we live in it's obvious to anyone (and is truthful) that Achilles will easily reach and overrun the turtle. On a related note, what is your definition of free will? People with similar SamHarris-esque arguments seem so happy that they have proven that there is no "free will", and yet it seems they have a difficult time defining what it is they have proven? Isn't this a problem if they are trying to be scientific? Would a perfect scientist ever entertain such vague concepts? "intrinsic notion that humans can directly dictate their own actions" is very vague. Specifically, I can't see any place where even perfect determinism would conflict with this notion: a human is a very complicated deterministic neural network, that analyses the world and does some actions. This whole network processes information, and makes decisions based on that information. Based on that information it does directly dictate it's own actions. Of course those actions are going to be in part based on external information, but in part on the structure and form and function of the network itself. You're not going to find any single neuron that decides everything, but it's very clear that the whole network decides things. Do you have a disdain for the fact that actions are being based on external stimulus? That this somehow is a problem for free will existing? But of course we would want them being based on external stimulus, that surely must be a part of being sentient? Reacting to something that happens in the world, not just blindly "choosing" random things for the sake of choosing? And of course "based on external stimuli" - does not mean that the way it's going to react to them it "pre-determined" by something. The network can choose to react to stimuli from right now, or from yesterday, or from some other part of memory, or even from it's own thoughts or definitions. Those are also stimuli. It's obvious to any sentient human that sometimes we do react and act based on such things, not simply on currently active external stimuli.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wsy 9y ago
If you believe the world to be deterministic, I think you have to remove a lot of terms from your language, such as 'learning', 'illusion', 'rationalizing', 'purpose', and 'social'. It is hard for me to understand what a 'rationalizing system' could even mean in a deterministic world. Would there be an experimental outcome that could prove your hypothesis about it wrong?
- iamnothere 9y ago
  It's true. These words are useful shorthand for common behaviors, and I have nothing better to offer that won't be encumbered with a non-deterministic history. Frankly I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Here I am jumping on the word "choice" because of its metaphysical implications, but then I'm turning around and using other words that are just as muddy. Discussing this stuff is a real challenge because of the hidden implications buried in most of our language. > Would there be an experimental outcome that could prove your hypothesis about it wrong? Good question. The answer is that I haven't given it enough thought yet. I suspect that it may not be possible to prove or disprove the hypothesis in live humans because our brains are simply too complicated, with an enormous number of feedback loops. How do you test a subject from a known state when it is impossible to recreate a specific state? But then, how do you prove that we're not living in a simulation? When the door is open for metaphysical interpretations, then all we have is intuition and conjecture. It is possible that we're all made of fairy dust, but there's no way to prove or disprove that.
  - Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
    > Discussing this stuff is a real challenge because of the hidden implications buried in most of our language. This fact alone says a lot. This is a very big and deep profound thing. The language is an innate ability of humans to optimize and find tools (words) that work in the reality that we live in. We don't just make up words for no reason, and we don't make up overcomplicated words that do not fit the reality that we live in. We strive for choosing the perfectly fitted, perfectly abstract, perfectly functional words that correlate to how life works. If there is ever a better word for something, than some old word - the population will quickly start using the new word. The human society in general uses the words that work well. That fit the reality well. So then, if there are so many words with those implications in your (common!) language, the one that you have chosen to use, the one that other people have chosen to use, is it really possible that all of those words are simply illusions with nothing behind them? Isn't it more logical that those words exist because there is something underlying them in the actual reality that we live in? Maybe the fact that those words seem so "unclean" to you is that the representation of reality that you are trying to argue for simply lacks many chunks of what's actually going on? Because in many people's reality those words are not "unclean". They are the most clean ones, they are very good tools that work really well. If you disagree with that - it would say that you basically don't trust your language, your ability to speak and think. It would mean that you don't trust your ability to find words (as tools), and by extension, to find good logical intellectual structures (of which words are an example of) that fit the reality. If you say those words don't fit the reality, that would mean that you don't trust that your way of finding words and logical structures applies to reality. That's a big problem then, right? You would need some other way first to even construct your language, before you can ever hope to use it to communicate to other in truthful and meaningful way?
Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
> "Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. This is ultimately a very big argument that is hard to have over the text. But I have had this way of looking at things earlier in my life, and I've rationalized it in about the same way that you do in your post, and have now had more life experience that showed me that it is a dead-end. Choice is only as much of an "illusion" as everything else: as science, as physical objects, as chemicals, as determinism. Once you start getting deeper into nature of things, you'll see that those concepts are not much better, not any less illusory than "choice". So anything being an "illusion" does not say so much about nature of things, because everything is. The ultimate difference is in your personal life. If you see yourself as "elaborate stimulus-response system" - you'll have a hard time making hard choices and changing your life to the way you want it to be. (Do you even believe in wanting anything then? Besides just what you can rationalize with evolution (sex and food)?) If you allow other categories, you'll find that your mind and yes, soul have many more resources and much more energy to create extraordinary things in your life and in lives of people around you (ie, in the consensus reality). One difficulty is that this difference is sometimes hard to logically talk about because of how unconscious people are. To quote Jordan Peterson (highly recommended) - people say that they like determinism and science, - and yet they act is they were sentient moral beings with choice. There is one thing that people say and think - and another that they do. For example, many people might be thinking about determinism and chemicals, and yet in their personal life they make choices like helping others, like building a better future, like sacrificing instant pleasures or even all bodily pleasures in order to achieve some higher goals, which will not even bring them any of those stimulus-response-based evolutionary candies. Just because someone is not conscious about being sentient, does not mean they are not sentient. (There are different definitions of the word `sentient`, of course, but this is the one that I am proposing is the most useful one.)
- iamnothere 9y ago
  Thanks for the discussion, even though it is indeed a difficult one to have over a web forum! I think our positions may be more similar than either of us assumed. > One difficulty is that this difference is sometimes hard to logically talk about because of how unconscious people are. To quote Jordan Peterson (highly recommended) - people say that they like determinism and science, - and yet they act is they were sentient moral beings with choice. There is one thing that people say and think - and another that they do. For example, many people might be thinking about determinism and chemicals, and yet in their personal life they make choices like helping others, like building a better future, like sacrificing instant pleasures or even all bodily pleasures in order to achieve some higher goals, which will not even bring them any of those stimulus-response-based evolutionary candies. This is exactly the case. It would be crippling to live any other way! So much of how we think and act is more or less automatic, including our mental framing of reality and "choice." Attempting to oppose those processes is a constant battle without any real benefit. (But it is still important to understand this condition of reality while dealing with other people, designing systems, and so on!) Interestingly, because we also can't really "choose" (under my definition of "choice") how we see ourselves or our reality, our beliefs about choice and creativity and so on are really driven by the information that we take in and internalize. Approaches like Peterson's are actually really valuable because of that. They provide a solid, constructive, prosocial framework for living, which hopefully is read widely and taken up by people in their day-to-day lives. Same goes for the stoics, most religions, secular humanism, and so on. All the more reason to read widely! I should also recommend The Elephant in the Brain (Simler/Hanson), which synthesizes existing research to show how people are not merely ignorant of their true motives - rather, they actively deceive themselves as to what those motives are in order to better hide them from others. It complements this line of discussion rather well, and helps add depth to the notion that we don't really have control over our internal thought processes.

danharaj 9y ago

> This implication would be correct. Hormones and other chemical messengers heavily influence brain "states" such as moods. The brain learns to make decisions that maintain homeostasis through the development of somatic markers, which represent body states that are composed of nerve and chemical activity. Even nerve impulses themselves are initiated by chemicals. And of course the structure of your brain and body are dictated by, you guessed it, chemicals. (Specifically deoxyribonucleic acid.) This is dualism. Not as naive as cartesian dualism, but dualism nonetheless. The brain is electrochemical activity. There is no factorization of this system into brain states and chemicals that act of them, nor any other such factorization such as binning hormones into such states and describing neuron depolarization as acting on these states. So, for example, moods are not separate from hormonal activity in the brain. The brain is only controlled by chemicals in the sense that it is chemicals. There is no reason why chemicals cannot exhibit what we call choice. In fact, they do. Saying that a brain makes a choice is the same as saying chemicals make a choice. If you say that chemicals control the brain, well, then I'll say that the brain controls the chemicals. > "Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. This is the same dualism. Saying that a brain is an elaborate stimulus-response system doesn't say anything about what choice is, because now we can just ask how an "elaborate stimulus-response system" exhibits choice. There is no separation between "hypercompetent rationalizing system" and "true intentions". These splits don't make sense in such a non-linear, self-interacting system. Choice is only an illusion if you call a brain's ability to represent itself (imperfectly of course) an illusion, but what does that mean? Brains clearly encode representations of themselves and this gives rise to the incredible complexity of their behaviors. That is an indisputable physical phenomenon. External to a brain, you can describe it with the laws of physics and a large scratch pad to do calculations (take your time it'll be a while). But crucial to what a brain is is that there is an internal point of view, the one of the brain's own dynamics. That point of view has many properties, such as emotion, and choice and all other sorts of phenomena. Yes, this point of view reduces to physics and chemistry, but it also arises from physics and chemistry. In particular the reduction one can infer from the laws of physics is essentially out of reach. It is computationally and logically intractable; one is forced to resort to qualitative descriptions in order to say anything useful, and one starts arriving at concepts like... choice. When someone makes a point about psychology and uses the hypothetical reduction to chemistry as a premise, usually they're going to say something trivial or even false.

iamnothere 9y ago
The concept of "choice" as most people use it when describing consciousness tends to be synonymous with so-called "free will," and it is a metaphysical concept rather than a descriptive one. It implies the existence of some kind of non-physical "choosing" mechanism that is unbound by the law of physics. I have no problem with the concept of choice as you have expressed it, as shorthand for an immensely complex set of processes. This is similar what I was referring to when I mentioned "moods" and "states." I do realize that brain processes can't be accurately represented by fuzzy concepts such as these, but they are occasionally useful for discussion. > The brain is electrochemical activity. There is no factorization of this system into brain states and chemicals that act of them, nor any other such factorization such as binning hormones into such states and describing neuron depolarization as acting on these states. At a macro level, a higher than normal quantity of cannabinoids will cause the brain to act differently, with certain predictable characteristics. You could even give it a name as shorthand: "stoned." At a micro level, you could describe the effects of the chemicals on receptors. In between, you can talk about the effects on various brain structures and how that affects behavior. That's what I'm getting at.

lkrubner 9y ago

"hypercompetent rationalizing system" If true, can you state which chemicals are in charge of the hypercompetent rationalizing system? What happens when these chemicals are absent or their delivery is absent? More so, if you really feel the mind is entirely the product of chemicals, can you describe what is happening when someone faces a tough choice, one which, up to the last second, could go either way? Are you suggesting probabilistic outcomes for normally deterministic chemical processes?

coldtea 9y ago
>More so, if you really feel the mind is entirely the product of chemicals, can you describe what is happening when someone faces a tough choice, one which, up to the last second, could go either way? Are you suggesting probabilistic outcomes for normally deterministic chemical processes? Huh? You're seem to be the one to suggest "probabilistic outcomes for normally deterministic chemical processes". If personal choice is not an illusion/rationalization (as the parent suggests), then it's real. By which means such a real agent would come into play in an otherwise deterministic universe? Or are you saying the universe is not deterministic?
- psyc 9y ago
  My understanding of the consensus in quantum mechanics, is that the wave function evolves deterministically, but the state of the universe falls out of the wave function non-deterministically. So the probabilities evolve deterministically, but the empirical state of all the 'particles' doesn't. Second-order determinism, not first-order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#Other_matters_of_quantum_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#Other_matters_of_q...

colordrops 9y ago

> Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. You are wording things in a derogatory way. If you said "unless you believe the world is rooted in subjective experience, or is non-deterministic", your argument would lose its strength (which is rooted in shaming), because there are many great thinkers and arguments along those lines.

LolWolf 9y ago
Not that I agree with the GP, but non-determinism doesn’t imply free will in the usual strong sense of the phrase (e.g. that there is some intrinsic notion that humans can directly dictate their own actions). Non-determinism (as in QM non-determinism) still has deterministic evolution, since specifying the wave-function at any one point in time is enough to specify it for all of time via evolution by the Schrödinger equation. So, this notion would require something stronger than QM non-determinism, or a different definition of free will.
- Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
  > specifying the wave-function at any one point in time is enough to specify it for all of time via evolution by the Schrödinger equation. Scientifically this is not very correct when you consider the chaos theory, which has been widely accepted by physicists for many decades now. The problem is in practical application (and we live in a practical world, right?). The thing is that in theory, yes you can have some equation or elaborate mathematical model about the world and calculate everything. But once you start doing it, you immediately will see that it is impossible to calculate anything to such precision that this would work, the world is so big and complex that to calculate an X amount of world into the future, you would need Y (>X) amount of world to host those calcaultions. This is only the tip of the iceberg of why that is impossible. So in practice, it is impossible to "specify it for all of time". This is not just some logical trick, this is an important difference. It's the same principle that applies in the Turtle-Achilles paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes). In the perfect logical world of perfect science and nice beautiful theories and equations - Achilles can never possibly reach the turtle. And yet in the physical reality that we live in it's obvious to anyone (and is truthful) that Achilles will easily reach and overrun the turtle. On a related note, what is your definition of free will? People with similar SamHarris-esque arguments seem so happy that they have proven that there is no "free will", and yet it seems they have a difficult time defining what it is they have proven? Isn't this a problem if they are trying to be scientific? Would a perfect scientist ever entertain such vague concepts? "intrinsic notion that humans can directly dictate their own actions" is very vague. Specifically, I can't see any place where even perfect determinism would conflict with this notion: a human is a very complicated deterministic neural network, that analyses the world and does some actions. This whole network processes information, and makes decisions based on that information. Based on that information it does directly dictate it's own actions. Of course those actions are going to be in part based on external information, but in part on the structure and form and function of the network itself. You're not going to find any single neuron that decides everything, but it's very clear that the whole network decides things. Do you have a disdain for the fact that actions are being based on external stimulus? That this somehow is a problem for free will existing? But of course we would want them being based on external stimulus, that surely must be a part of being sentient? Reacting to something that happens in the world, not just blindly "choosing" random things for the sake of choosing? And of course "based on external stimuli" - does not mean that the way it's going to react to them it "pre-determined" by something. The network can choose to react to stimuli from right now, or from yesterday, or from some other part of memory, or even from it's own thoughts or definitions. Those are also stimuli. It's obvious to any sentient human that sometimes we do react and act based on such things, not simply on currently active external stimuli.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

wsy 9y ago

If you believe the world to be deterministic, I think you have to remove a lot of terms from your language, such as 'learning', 'illusion', 'rationalizing', 'purpose', and 'social'. It is hard for me to understand what a 'rationalizing system' could even mean in a deterministic world. Would there be an experimental outcome that could prove your hypothesis about it wrong?

iamnothere 9y ago
It's true. These words are useful shorthand for common behaviors, and I have nothing better to offer that won't be encumbered with a non-deterministic history. Frankly I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Here I am jumping on the word "choice" because of its metaphysical implications, but then I'm turning around and using other words that are just as muddy. Discussing this stuff is a real challenge because of the hidden implications buried in most of our language. > Would there be an experimental outcome that could prove your hypothesis about it wrong? Good question. The answer is that I haven't given it enough thought yet. I suspect that it may not be possible to prove or disprove the hypothesis in live humans because our brains are simply too complicated, with an enormous number of feedback loops. How do you test a subject from a known state when it is impossible to recreate a specific state? But then, how do you prove that we're not living in a simulation? When the door is open for metaphysical interpretations, then all we have is intuition and conjecture. It is possible that we're all made of fairy dust, but there's no way to prove or disprove that.
- Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
  > Discussing this stuff is a real challenge because of the hidden implications buried in most of our language. This fact alone says a lot. This is a very big and deep profound thing. The language is an innate ability of humans to optimize and find tools (words) that work in the reality that we live in. We don't just make up words for no reason, and we don't make up overcomplicated words that do not fit the reality that we live in. We strive for choosing the perfectly fitted, perfectly abstract, perfectly functional words that correlate to how life works. If there is ever a better word for something, than some old word - the population will quickly start using the new word. The human society in general uses the words that work well. That fit the reality well. So then, if there are so many words with those implications in your (common!) language, the one that you have chosen to use, the one that other people have chosen to use, is it really possible that all of those words are simply illusions with nothing behind them? Isn't it more logical that those words exist because there is something underlying them in the actual reality that we live in? Maybe the fact that those words seem so "unclean" to you is that the representation of reality that you are trying to argue for simply lacks many chunks of what's actually going on? Because in many people's reality those words are not "unclean". They are the most clean ones, they are very good tools that work really well. If you disagree with that - it would say that you basically don't trust your language, your ability to speak and think. It would mean that you don't trust your ability to find words (as tools), and by extension, to find good logical intellectual structures (of which words are an example of) that fit the reality. If you say those words don't fit the reality, that would mean that you don't trust that your way of finding words and logical structures applies to reality. That's a big problem then, right? You would need some other way first to even construct your language, before you can ever hope to use it to communicate to other in truthful and meaningful way?

Erlich_Bachman 9y ago

> "Choice" is a powerful illusion driven by our hypercompetent rationalizing system, whose purpose is to hide our true intentions in order to help us better operate in a social world. In the end, we are just elaborate stimulus-response systems, that is unless you believe in a "soul" or pseudoscientific quantum magic. This is ultimately a very big argument that is hard to have over the text. But I have had this way of looking at things earlier in my life, and I've rationalized it in about the same way that you do in your post, and have now had more life experience that showed me that it is a dead-end. Choice is only as much of an "illusion" as everything else: as science, as physical objects, as chemicals, as determinism. Once you start getting deeper into nature of things, you'll see that those concepts are not much better, not any less illusory than "choice". So anything being an "illusion" does not say so much about nature of things, because everything is. The ultimate difference is in your personal life. If you see yourself as "elaborate stimulus-response system" - you'll have a hard time making hard choices and changing your life to the way you want it to be. (Do you even believe in wanting anything then? Besides just what you can rationalize with evolution (sex and food)?) If you allow other categories, you'll find that your mind and yes, soul have many more resources and much more energy to create extraordinary things in your life and in lives of people around you (ie, in the consensus reality). One difficulty is that this difference is sometimes hard to logically talk about because of how unconscious people are. To quote Jordan Peterson (highly recommended) - people say that they like determinism and science, - and yet they act is they were sentient moral beings with choice. There is one thing that people say and think - and another that they do. For example, many people might be thinking about determinism and chemicals, and yet in their personal life they make choices like helping others, like building a better future, like sacrificing instant pleasures or even all bodily pleasures in order to achieve some higher goals, which will not even bring them any of those stimulus-response-based evolutionary candies. Just because someone is not conscious about being sentient, does not mean they are not sentient. (There are different definitions of the word `sentient`, of course, but this is the one that I am proposing is the most useful one.)

iamnothere 9y ago
Thanks for the discussion, even though it is indeed a difficult one to have over a web forum! I think our positions may be more similar than either of us assumed. > One difficulty is that this difference is sometimes hard to logically talk about because of how unconscious people are. To quote Jordan Peterson (highly recommended) - people say that they like determinism and science, - and yet they act is they were sentient moral beings with choice. There is one thing that people say and think - and another that they do. For example, many people might be thinking about determinism and chemicals, and yet in their personal life they make choices like helping others, like building a better future, like sacrificing instant pleasures or even all bodily pleasures in order to achieve some higher goals, which will not even bring them any of those stimulus-response-based evolutionary candies. This is exactly the case. It would be crippling to live any other way! So much of how we think and act is more or less automatic, including our mental framing of reality and "choice." Attempting to oppose those processes is a constant battle without any real benefit. (But it is still important to understand this condition of reality while dealing with other people, designing systems, and so on!) Interestingly, because we also can't really "choose" (under my definition of "choice") how we see ourselves or our reality, our beliefs about choice and creativity and so on are really driven by the information that we take in and internalize. Approaches like Peterson's are actually really valuable because of that. They provide a solid, constructive, prosocial framework for living, which hopefully is read widely and taken up by people in their day-to-day lives. Same goes for the stoics, most religions, secular humanism, and so on. All the more reason to read widely! I should also recommend The Elephant in the Brain (Simler/Hanson), which synthesizes existing research to show how people are not merely ignorant of their true motives - rather, they actively deceive themselves as to what those motives are in order to better hide them from others. It complements this line of discussion rather well, and helps add depth to the notion that we don't really have control over our internal thought processes.