(December 22, 2014 at 7:57 am)whateverist Wrote: What is the meaning of meaning? What are you smoking?

Nothing at the moment, but if I get the opportunity, Cohiba Siglo II, or generally Sumatras.

That being said, you make my question sound sillier than it is. I'm not asking "what's the meaning of meaning", I take that as a given and ask: how do we even define the notion of something "being really real" in the case of such abstract things as "meaning" with capital M, as in, the meaning of life etc.

(December 22, 2014 at 6:50 am)Alex K Wrote: @bennyboy
What does existence even mean, in your use, for abstract things such as "meaning"?

Good question. My resolution to this question is to accept that supervenient systems are not dependent on their parent systems for context.

So in other words, what is true in a human life does not need to be rooted in any of the determinism (or indeterminism) of the atomic or subatomic worlds. It is true, for example, that a hammer is a solid object with a single, continuous surface. That it is composed of 99.9999999% empty space means little-- it still hurts when I hit my hand with it.

My "Mom" is real-- as a comfort-giver, as a loving supporter, etc. But you'll find no comfort or loving support anywhere in the subatomic world, and you won't even find "Mom-ness" in the arrangement of the brain and other organs. They are qualities that exist only in the context of our waking human lives.

"Free will" is no less real than ideas about Mom. In our human experience, free will is incontrovertible. We exercise it constantly, every day, by thinking about our desires and making conscious decisions. That you can't find free will in the (supposedly) deterministic processes of a functioning brain means little to me, because that is not the context in which free will means anything.

This is a mistake people make-- trying to fit the context of waking life into the context of atomic or subatomic structures. Their order in the chain of supervenience has nothing to do with their meaning in their OWN contexts.

In short, you accept the reality of emergent phenomena on the level on which they appear without the desire to go all reductionist on them?

That also means you define them by their "phenomenology" ("a chair is whatever is recognized by the human brain as something that conforms to the general consensus of what a chair is"). Am I completely lost here or is that the direction in which you're going here?

Is this free will?

Monkey saves life

(December 22, 2014 at 9:09 am)bennyboy Wrote: My "Mom" is real-- as a comfort-giver, as a loving supporter, etc. But you'll find no comfort or loving support anywhere in the subatomic world, and you won't even find "Mom-ness" in the arrangement of the brain and other organs. They are qualities that exist only in the context of our waking human lives.

Then they exist within the subatomic world - as demonstrably as you found comfort and loving support in the collection of stuff you call mom.

Quote:"Free will" is no less real than ideas about Mom. In our human experience, free will is incontrovertible.

Agreed, but that doesn't make our ideas (or experiences) any more real. Many of our experiences are demonstrably -not real-...many of our ideas are hilarious bullshit. I distinctly remember being a pillowy fog last night. This dreaming business is also incontrovertible in human experience. A metal pole is colder than the air, on a chilly day - also incontrovertible in human experience. Are these two just as real as free will, and for the same reasons? How real is that...then?

Quote: We exercise it constantly, every day, by thinking about our desires and making conscious decisions. That you can't find free will in the (supposedly) deterministic processes of a functioning brain means little to me, because that is not the context in which free will means anything.

Bit of begging. We experience it, but whether or not we actually exercise it will be difficult to pin down - and is a point of contention. I experienced being a fog. Did I exercise my fogginess? I don't know whether or not we haven't "found free will" (the frontal lobe and primary motor cortex seem to be doing the lions share of the free willing™ whenever we happen to look).....but if we find that the brain isn't actually doing anything we would describe as free will and yet we have the experience..that wouldn't surprise me. It would mean a lot, but it would have little effect, I suppose.

Quote:This is a mistake people make-- trying to fit the context of waking life into the context of atomic or subatomic structures. Their order in the chain of supervenience has nothing to do with their meaning in their OWN contexts.

Waking life occurs within and by the "context of atomic and subatomic structures" - so I don't see the problem. Non-waking life happens there (and by the same) as well. We understand that our experiences aren't always indicative of reality, and we have no trouble distinguishing between the illusion of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat - and a man actually pulling rabbits out of hats - even though the experience is identical. Having an experience is not, by brute force, any indication of the accuracy of it's contents. It's not the existence of the free will experience that I doubt (so no amount of "you use it every day" will alter my view of it) - it's the veracity of that experience. Am I actually doing what I think I'm doing...can it be done, and if so, how?

(December 22, 2014 at 9:18 am)Alex K Wrote: In short, you accept the reality of emergent phenomena on the level on which they appear without the desire to go all reductionist on them?

That also means you define them by their "phenomenology" ("a chair is whatever is recognized by the human brain as something that conforms to the general consensus of what a chair is"). Am I completely lost here or is that the direction in which you're going here?

The brain itself is a complex conglomerate, and the idea that it is a singular "thing" is only an idea, not representative of any non-arbitrary physical reality. I'd argue the concept of "thingness" is itself no less illusory than free will: we are imposing the idea of individual unity onto a collection of practically infinitely many particles, none of which imply unity, and none of which we can even directly perceive.

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(December 22, 2014 at 11:06 am)Rhythm Wrote: Then they exist within the subatomic world - as demonstrably as you found comfort and loving support in the collection of stuff you call mom.

Free will exists / does not exist in this same way. It's a label for part of our human experience, and it is meaningful to us, so it "exists within the subatomic world." But it cannot be found there outside the context of experience. You can't find "comfort particles" floating around the universe, nor any particular collection of particles representing "comfort," except those ones we dub so. Well, any thing which exists only because we say it does must be called illusory IMO.

Quote:Agreed, but that doesn't make our ideas (or experiences) any more real. Many of our experiences are demonstrably -not real-...many of our ideas are hilarious bullshit. I distinctly remember being a pillowy fog last night. This dreaming business is also incontrovertible in human experience. A metal pole is colder than the air, on a chilly day - also incontrovertible in human experience. Are these two just as real as free will, and for the same reasons? How real is that...then?

You are pretty sure the pole exists. But where does "pole-ness" exist? How do you know it's a pole at all? The thing is-- it's only a pole in the context of your human experience of it. That idea of unity-- that this particular collection of QM wave functions collectively represent a "thing," is itself of and from the mind exclusively. It is therefore illusory, in the same way that free will is.

Quote:It's a label for part of our human experience, and it is meaningful to us, so it "exists within the subatomic world." But it cannot be found there outside the context of experience. You can't find "comfort particles" floating around the universe, nor any particular collection of particles representing "comfort," except those ones we dub so. Well, any thing which exists only because we say it does must be called illusory IMO.

You won't find "Ferrarri particles" floating around either-and yet there are Ferrarris. I have labels for all sorts of experiences......labeling them does not seem to make the content of those experiences any more accurate. You found comfort particles(despite your insistence that there is no such thing)...why wouldn't there be free will particles? I would call the experience of free will illusory - but I do think that "something" is happening, that we are attempting to refer to that something when we say "free will". That part, in my estimation - isn't illusory at all.

Quote:You are pretty sure the pole exists. But where does "pole-ness" exist? How do you know it's a pole at all?

Same way you do. It's an object that fits a description. Pretty simple stuff..."pole-ness" is stretching...don't you think?

Quote:The thing is-- it's only a pole in the context of your human experience of it.

It's a pole because that collection of atoms in that structure and that arrangement fit the description of a pole. That by which we call a rose.

Quote: That idea of unity-- that this particular collection of QM wave functions collectively represent a "thing," is itself of and from the mind exclusively. It is therefore illusory, in the same way that free will is.

Yep, you find ideas in minds(might be a waste to look anywhere else for them). They don't seem to be illusory.

The general idea here seems to be that by attempting to make the mundane(pole-ness) seem more mysterious - something mysterious (free will) might seem more mundane. Meh....

(December 22, 2014 at 10:53 am)IATIA Wrote: Is this free will?

Monkey saves life

I love watching stuff like that.

What if we have to give up "praiseworthiness" ?

The response to this generally goes one of two directions. Either an appeal to consequences: we can't give up praiseworthiness because that would be bad. Or, an unsupported defense of an abstract: We can't give up praiseworthiness because it's real, I can feel it! Ultimately, if we dispense with free will, we're not going to be able to retain everything but free will, and just pivot everything around. Some things will change, such as praiseworthiness or the motivations for punishment. Some things may have to be relinquished, like moral desert. The desire to retain the familiar in the face of the strange is nothing more than an appeal to emotion. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If free will has to go, it's going to drag whole constellations of concepts out of their familiar orbits. This is just how it has to be.

(December 22, 2014 at 8:48 pm)Rhythm Wrote: You won't find "Ferrarri particles" floating around either-and yet there are Ferrarris.

If there are no people to see the Ferrari, but rather a troupe of monkeys, is it still a Ferrari, or even a car? Or is it just a bunch of hard, shiny red stuff? You insist that the Ferrari exists. But it exists AS A FERRARI only to people. Do you think a snake looks at your mom and sees hugs and apple pie? Do you think amoeba look at your life and are jealous of your liberty?

ALL these things are real only as ideas, and all these ideas are based on the context of the human experience-- what it feels like to live a human life. And this "what it's like" very clearly includes the sense that we are free agents, making willful decisions about how to live our lives.