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The whole thing is hopelessly bogged down in linguistic vaguery to the point of making the key questions quite meaningless. What is 'consciousness'? Is it "th

The whole thing is hopelessly bogged down in linguistic vaguery to the point of making the key questions quite meaningless. What is 'consciousness'? Is it "the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings" as the first hit on Google suggests? If so, can we then define 'awake', 'aware', or even 'one' without circular reasoning? Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating instructions of the mind? This quickly leads to another linguistic quagmire called 'free will'. If we agree that everything in our heads is governed by the laws of nature, we can agree that there are one of two possible reasons for any 'decision' we make: it was facilitated by a direct cause or it was random. There can be no other actor. Assuming a direct cause following our operating instructions, does this mean that there is no free will? To answer that we have to open up the word 'choice'. Choice: "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities." We loop around to the beginning. You define 'decide' or 'choose' any way you want to. Tell me free will is real or fake. I don't care. All I know it there are no external actors in my head and things are either 100% predictable or random. Everything else here is a very roundabout argument about the way we use English. Boring.

fvdessen 8y ago
The philosophical distinction between deterministic and random is not that clear as the randomness itself could be determined by a hidden process, as in "god is rolling the dices". Likewise the distinction between deterministic and predictable is not that clear either, as you can have a fully deterministic process that is not replicable or predictable. (Think of chaotic systems) In the end I think that the question of free will is not a scientific one but a moral one, as it is from the basis of free will that we can derive concepts such as personal responsibility.
- alex_young 8y ago
  God rolling the dice would seem to be a rather confined manipulation since the rules of the dice are bound to be consistent over time. If God is a random number generator, that seems like a pretty pointless thing to be preoccupied by.
deltron3030 8y ago
> What is 'consciousness'? It could be just experience, and different synonyms for that word (sensing, feeling, measuring, knowing etc.). if we analyze things, we tend to categorize, but reality seems to be fluid like analog signals, you can't really tell were the boundaries are, maybe because they don't really exist. our minds are similar to digital aliasing, or steps (categories). > Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating instructions of the mind? Maybe because consciousness isn't the right word, because in reality it would include "unconsciousness", or non awareness too. Your brain is an interpreter of "reality", and this might include stuff that isn't considered real. It might be just an extrapolation of reality, an intuition. > This quickly leads to another linguistic quagmire called 'free will'. If we agree that everything in our heads is governed by the laws of nature, we can agree that there are one of two possible reasons for any 'decision' we make: it was facilitated by a direct cause or it was random. There can be no other actor. I'd say experience and expectation based on experience. Experience is another of those words that can mean many related things. It could be something you have heard or seen, something like famliarity, or something that isn't based on your immediate interaction with the world. You could call it inputs. > Assuming a direct cause following our operating instructions, does this mean that there is no free will? To answer that we have to open up the word 'choice'. >Choice: "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities." You can relate this to experience (and it's synonyms). You can't choose something you're not aware of, or what you haven't sensed or measured in a way. If you jump straight ahead and make a choice quickly, or take your time to analyze is also based on "experience". > You define 'decide' or 'choose' any way you want to. Tell me free will is real or fake. I don't care. All I know it there are no external actors in my head and things are either 100% predictable or random. Everything else here is a very roundabout argument about the way we use English. Boring. It's all relative, free will is reducible based on experience and situation, position, options etc. You act or choose based on what you think is best, and this could just mean what's best for you based on your experience, or just what feels comfortable and easy and is the nearest thing you can grab.
goatlover 8y ago
> Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating instructions of the mind? Because that's not what's being debated. You can use words any way you want, if you don't care about communicating, or you just want to dismiss an argument. But philosophically, consciousness means subjective experience. When I experience seeing red or being in pain, that has nothing to do with the abstract concept of "operating instructions". Now there might be the functional equivalent for that concept implemented by the brain when we have subjective experiences, at least on a computational view of the mind. But that's not equivalent to the experience itself. A red experience is not an operating instruction, because you can't write a red experience down, nor can you program the algorithm for that, or put it into an equation, but you can do so with an instruction. It's a category mistake to conflate an experience with a functional concept.
- red75prime 8y ago
  > But that's not equivalent to the experience itself. How do you know that? What would be different, if it is not the case? Forget for a moment about category errors, and take that at face value. Informational processes are the experience. What would be different?
LoonyBalloony 8y ago
External factors created your head.

fvdessen 8y ago

The philosophical distinction between deterministic and random is not that clear as the randomness itself could be determined by a hidden process, as in "god is rolling the dices". Likewise the distinction between deterministic and predictable is not that clear either, as you can have a fully deterministic process that is not replicable or predictable. (Think of chaotic systems) In the end I think that the question of free will is not a scientific one but a moral one, as it is from the basis of free will that we can derive concepts such as personal responsibility.

alex_young 8y ago
God rolling the dice would seem to be a rather confined manipulation since the rules of the dice are bound to be consistent over time. If God is a random number generator, that seems like a pretty pointless thing to be preoccupied by.

deltron3030 8y ago

> What is 'consciousness'? It could be just experience, and different synonyms for that word (sensing, feeling, measuring, knowing etc.). if we analyze things, we tend to categorize, but reality seems to be fluid like analog signals, you can't really tell were the boundaries are, maybe because they don't really exist. our minds are similar to digital aliasing, or steps (categories). > Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating instructions of the mind? Maybe because consciousness isn't the right word, because in reality it would include "unconsciousness", or non awareness too. Your brain is an interpreter of "reality", and this might include stuff that isn't considered real. It might be just an extrapolation of reality, an intuition. > This quickly leads to another linguistic quagmire called 'free will'. If we agree that everything in our heads is governed by the laws of nature, we can agree that there are one of two possible reasons for any 'decision' we make: it was facilitated by a direct cause or it was random. There can be no other actor. I'd say experience and expectation based on experience. Experience is another of those words that can mean many related things. It could be something you have heard or seen, something like famliarity, or something that isn't based on your immediate interaction with the world. You could call it inputs. > Assuming a direct cause following our operating instructions, does this mean that there is no free will? To answer that we have to open up the word 'choice'. >Choice: "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities." You can relate this to experience (and it's synonyms). You can't choose something you're not aware of, or what you haven't sensed or measured in a way. If you jump straight ahead and make a choice quickly, or take your time to analyze is also based on "experience". > You define 'decide' or 'choose' any way you want to. Tell me free will is real or fake. I don't care. All I know it there are no external actors in my head and things are either 100% predictable or random. Everything else here is a very roundabout argument about the way we use English. Boring. It's all relative, free will is reducible based on experience and situation, position, options etc. You act or choose based on what you think is best, and this could just mean what's best for you based on your experience, or just what feels comfortable and easy and is the nearest thing you can grab.

goatlover 8y ago

> Why isn't it acceptable to define consciousness as the operating instructions of the mind? Because that's not what's being debated. You can use words any way you want, if you don't care about communicating, or you just want to dismiss an argument. But philosophically, consciousness means subjective experience. When I experience seeing red or being in pain, that has nothing to do with the abstract concept of "operating instructions". Now there might be the functional equivalent for that concept implemented by the brain when we have subjective experiences, at least on a computational view of the mind. But that's not equivalent to the experience itself. A red experience is not an operating instruction, because you can't write a red experience down, nor can you program the algorithm for that, or put it into an equation, but you can do so with an instruction. It's a category mistake to conflate an experience with a functional concept.

red75prime 8y ago
> But that's not equivalent to the experience itself. How do you know that? What would be different, if it is not the case? Forget for a moment about category errors, and take that at face value. Informational processes are the experience. What would be different?

LoonyBalloony 8y ago

External factors created your head.