Human Intelligence is an Illusion

[ignoramus]

The theory proposes that both nature and nurture are purely predetermined by an entity that operates as the sum of all physical laws. Our sense of self is a side-effect of this entities choices as they are made manifest through the actions predetermined for us. There are those that say there is no god (divine intelligence). But this is the idea that there is no man (human intelligence). And the neat thing is, the data backs it up.

By an entity?
Do we really need to complicate things by adding an "extra" entity? Remember Occams Law?
How does that possibly help or explain anything. Unless someone is just using a creative "god of the gaps" example.

[GrandizerII]

Imagine a master painter creating a masterpiece one brush stroke at a time. Each movement of his hand meticulously chosen to create the desired effect. Yet, what if each of those motions was chosen for him before he was consciously aware of the choice and only took credit for it upon the moment of that awareness? Experiments by Libet, Soon, Fried, Haynes and others suggest exactly that. So let us presuppose that what we think of as free will is in fact the product of natural laws acting upon the brain at a subconscious level and then appearing as conscious choice the moment before it's acted upon. Free will would therefore be an illusion. If this is true, then it would logically follow that all characteristics of, or stemming from free will would then also be illusions, including, but not limited to, human intelligence, and personal identity. And if one considers this at least plausible, then what we have defined as intelligence comes not from us, but from the sum of natural laws acting upon us. Therefore, by our own benchmark of intelligence, the sum of these laws qualifies, and therefore they can not technically be considered natural at all.


The sum of all physical laws must either be considered to have intelligence or the word "intelligence" must be considered meaningless. For if we consider intelligence to be, at it's source, the product of purely natural phenomena, then it loses all meaning. I propose the former to be the case. And I call this new found "god" The Puppetmaster as it predetermines everything people think and do and does not bestow upon its robotic  creations free will, but merely the vain illusory perception thereof.


... Your thoughts?

You call it "god" if you want. To me, they're still a sum of all physical laws.

And intelligence is a product/correlate of the brain, I would say. So by that reasoning, it's not an illusion.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Experiments suggest that our brains decide what we're going to do it before we're conscious of it.

Who's "we"?

Our brains.

[ignoramus]

What the difference between the subconscious and conscious thought? About a fraction of a millisecond of lag. The speed of thought. Everything has a speed limit.

[The__Chameleon]

What the difference between the subconscious and conscious thought?  About a fraction of a millisecond of lag. The speed of thought. Everything has a speed limit.

The latency is not a fraction of a millisecond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Oyi1T-HmU

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"Recently, we demonstrated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that the outcome of free decisions can be decoded from brain activity several seconds before reaching conscious awareness."

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0021612

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Allow me to use an allegory. There's an elephant and a mirror. When the elephant first looks in the mirror he sees what he thinks is another elephant and thinks (for the sake of argument) "there's a handsome elephant". He attributes the quality of handsomeness to be possessed by another elephant. After examining this phenomenon more closely he comes to discover that it is not another elephant that he sees as "handsome" (and I am translating from elephant here, lol) but in fact himself, and he thinks, "I am a handsome elephant". The illusion of free will is like the converse of this scenario. What we see as being ourselves (our conscious being or ability to choose freely) is a reflection of something behind us pulling our proverbial strings. Deterministic evolutionary processes have programmed our brains and actively drive the decisions we make well before those choices enter the realm of conscious awareness and we (our conscious sense of self) take false credit for initiating those processes. We look at the resolved decisions made and think "I am an intelligent being" but the mirror is angled toward the evolutionary processes that make our choices for us seconds in advance. If we recognize this we must then correct our assertion by thinking "There is an intelligent being". For what is the conscious self if not the initiator of the choice? Cogito, Ergo sum is invalidated. There is no "I" in the conscious self-deterministic sense.

[The__Chameleon]

If decisions are made in the brain before we are conscious of having made them, then "we" didn't make them, our brains did this unconsciously,

No because you are your brain. You are more than just the conscious part of your brain. Think about it, you must be, otherwise what are you conscious of?

You are conscious of your body right? If I stab you then you feel pain. If you weren't also your body then you wouldn't be feeling pain.

> But this is a deterministic reaction to physical stimuli. I do not consciously contemplate the pain and consciously choose a course of action.

Unconscious processes are natural processes since a vital component of intelligence (as many would define it) is conscious choice. Without it there is no distinction from any autonomic response in the body.

They are all arbitrary distinctions. Intelligence is also a natural process, regardless of whether it involves consciousness or not.

> If intelligence is natural, then nature is intelligent. Atheism presupposes that the only thing in the universe that is intelligent (as in capable of "free" thinking) is a human being. "Nature" therefore is something purely deterministic, mechanical, algorithmic. Something bound to a set of arbitrary laws or conditions, or something that arises from random chance without any form of mindful choice. If intelligence is an inherent component of nature, then this flies in the face of Atheism. There must therefore be a distinction between that which "thinks" and that which "naturally reacts". If you consciously consider how you are going to react to something, then in theory, you are determining the outcome, not "nature".

What I propose is that humans possess highly evolved instincts masquerading as free will.

What is free will? Will free from what? why do we need such a concept? Is it useful? Seems to be sending you round in circles trying to make sure there is a use for it.

> The term "free" as it refers to the notion of free will asserts that if it would be natural for us to choose one thing we have the capacity to freely choose something else instead. If the universe determines we should go left, we can consciously choose to ignore this prompting and choose to go right. It is the notion that we (our conscious sense of mind) are free from (independent of) "nature".

> I assert that what said people like to think of as free will isn't free because they are not conscious of their own decisions, therefore their conscious sense of mind has no authority, and furthermore, since they qualified the nature of their decision making as "intelligent" (free thinking) it means that since this thinking  is done by "nature" prior to the false sense of conscious authorship, nature is intelligent.

> If nature is an intelligent (free thinking, consciously self-deterministic) being (entity, agent, whatever) then to all intensive purposes nature is a god. In order to reject this possibility and still claim that nature is not intelligent one can claim that there is really no such thing as intelligence apart from the purely illusory sense of conscious authority over self. And in either case,  human intelligence is an illusion. The conscious mind is slave to nature, not in authority of it.

[I_am_not_mafia]

> The term "free" as it refers to the notion of free will asserts that if it would be natural for us to choose one thing we have the capacity to freely choose something else instead. If the universe determines we should go left, we can consciously choose to ignore this prompting and choose to go right. It is the notion that we (our conscious sense of mind) are free from (independent of) "nature".

So free will is free from our nature.

What is our nature? You mean free will is free from influence by instinct?

So basically what you are referring to is cognition vs emotion / instinct.

Both cognition, emotions and instincts are generated by the brain.

Why call it free will?

> I assert that what said people like to think of as free will isn't free because they are not conscious of their own decisions, therefore their conscious sense of mind has no authority, and furthermore, since they qualified the nature of their decision making as "intelligent" (free thinking) it means that since this thinking  is done by "nature" prior to the false sense of conscious authorship, nature is intelligent.

> If nature is an intelligent (free thinking, consciously self-deterministic) being (entity, agent, whatever) then to all intensive purposes nature is a god. In order to reject this possibility and still claim that nature is not intelligent one can claim that there is really no such thing as intelligence apart from the purely illusory sense of conscious authority over self. And in either case,  human intelligence is an illusion. The conscious mind is slave to nature, not in authority of it.

First define what you mean by intelligent, and what you mean by nature as a single being.

Is a weather system intelligent? A mountain range?

[brewer]

If intelligence and free will are an illusion then why does the OP keep typing?

Based on their argument/position sounds like it can only be due to a lack of intelligence.

[Fake Messiah]

> I assert that what said people like to think of as free will isn't free because they are not conscious of their own decisions, therefore their conscious sense of mind has no authority, and furthermore, since they qualified the nature of their decision making as "intelligent" (free thinking) it means that since this thinking  is done by "nature" prior to the false sense of conscious authorship, nature is intelligent.

So people eat and then turn that food into thinking/ intelligence does that mean that food is intelligent? Especially since eating some food makes some people cranky or less intelligent or more intelligent.

Indeed, people used to think that there are some entities in vine and alcohol that get freed in people's bodies.

[I_am_not_mafia]

If intelligence and free will are an illusion then why does the OP keep typing?

Based on their argument/position sounds like it can only be due to a lack of intelligence.

Or a lack of free will.