RE: Full circle
November 16, 2014 at 11:30 pm
(This post was last modified: November 17, 2014 at 12:28 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(November 16, 2014 at 12:34 pm)IATIA Wrote: As much as any theistic or atheistic theory.
Are you using "theory" in the colloquial sense?
(November 16, 2014 at 1:08 pm)IATIA Wrote: Of course it does.
Either we have no free will and are simply a product of biochemical reactions, which makes this all moot or we have free will that must fall outside these reactions.
If we have free will, where does it come from. What physiological process could possibly invoke free will?
Quantum states, maybe?
I can't say exactly why, but I think this is an oversimplification. Perhaps it's because I see the human brain as a chaotic system, much like planetary weather.
(November 16, 2014 at 1:54 pm)IATIA Wrote: How can a thought initiate a chemical reaction? What initiated the thought?
We reprogram -- i.e. reinitiate chemical reactions -- on a daily basis in our brains; we do that of our own volition. It's called learning. I decide to learn a song from Rush. Based on what? Determinism? Maybe I happened to be driving by the 7-Eleven and some guy in the next car had "Tom Sawyer" cranked.
Did the arrangement of atoms in my head force me to choose that? How so?
It seems as comprehensible, and as apparent, to say that I decided to because the song reminded me of a time in junior high school when (coincidentally) it happened to be playing just as I was taking my first tongue-kiss.
Tell me, why do you assume that randomness and materialism cannot coexist?
(November 16, 2014 at 8:57 pm)IATIA Wrote: No, you did not answer the question.
"What would you consider a 'philosophical argument' that is not an "idea I pulled out of my ass".
You generalized, but did not pose any single example.
As to proof or evidence: Proof of what? Evidence of what?
Proof and evidence in a philosophical environment are fleeting at best.
Do you have any proof that my assumptions are not correct?
Do you have any proof that reality even exists?
Do you have any proof that we are not 'Brains-in-a-vat"?
Do you have any proof that god exists?
Do you have any proof that god does not exist?
Can you even prove to me that you are nothing more than a figment of my imagination?
I know that I cannot prove to anyone but myself that I exist and I have no idea what exactly that existence is, ergo these discussions.
"I think, therefore I am" or any semblance thereof is proof of nothing.
These questions render discussion meaningless.
