Natural Selection Seems Insufficient

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Looks like we have to add "reflexes" to the INCONCEIVABLY long list of things someone is ignorant of.

That's how hunger works?  Reflexes like - a knee jerk from a rubber mallet? 

Ok let me get this straight. I'm just a domino. A passive observer. At the moment of hunger, the universe just so HAPPENS to intervene.  (Oh lucky me!). It issues me a series of knee-jerk stimuli, and I can no more halt these effects than I can keep my leg steady from the rubber mallet.

This series of knee-jerk stimuli cause me to INVOLUNTARILY do the following:
- I don some attire.
- I grab my wallet and my keys
- I enter the car and drive to the grocery store
- I purchase the list of items in my favorite recipe.
- I come back home and cook it, and eat it.

 And since I'm just a passive domino, I'm just as SURPRISED by each of these activities as I am by a sudden knee jerk. I had no control, I couldn't have stopped the process if I wanted to. Each activity was a deterministic push/ impetus outside of my control.

That's how it works, huh? Ok. Got it.

That doesn’t take into account the cost of the telescope.

Boru

[Deesse23]

That's how hunger works?  Reflexes like - a knee jerk from a rubber mallet? 

.......

That's how it works, huh? Ok. Got it.

You didnt get it, you never did, since page one. You are utterly confused. You dont even know know where you are, your head is spinning, and its not your god moving it around, its forum members causing this, without being "tangible", ever. Almost inconceivable, isnt it?

Nobody was talking about hunger. YOU were quoting some random bullshitter that piano music "comes from the hands". I pointed to reflexes, of which you still havent got the faintest clue. You are vaccinated and completely immune to learning and making personal progress. You actually do behave as if there is not a single atom of consciousness in your body, not a single one, with the faintest speck of consciousness.

[Angrboda]

@OakTree500
@Angrboda
@Deesse23
@Fake Messiah
@Paleophyte



This post is another effort to explain why species would not survive deterministic metaphysics.

Modern science is tunnel-visioned, it wants to explain everything as mechanical causality. For example spark-plug-explosions in a car  push down the pistons attached to a crankshaft, thereby cranking up rotational momentum. The wheels begin to spin, and the car moves.  Domino effect.

When I attend a movie theater (see post 320), is it by such a fully deterministic domino effect?

You might respond: "Yes. Deterministic forces CAUSE you to desire to see a movie, and those desires, in turn, cause you to visit the theater."

Nope. That explanation utterly fails. A desire is just a subjective hunger (internal feeling). It is not a domino effect that pushes your body toward the theater. In a determinism, therefore, you cannot proactively react to your hunger, you cannot INITIATE an effort to satiate, your body is just a passive domino.  No amount of movie-hunger will push your body to the theater. Just like, even if a car mentally hungered to translocate, it won't actually move until the pistons fire, pushing that body of matter. That's the problem here.

In terms of push-pull cause-effect (an effect COMPELLED by laws of nature), probably the MAXIMUM the universe could compel you to do is coerce a simple knee jerk reaction from you.  When a doctor hits my knee with a rubber mallet, I am caught off guard, I am genuinely SURPRISED by the involuntary knee jerk suddenly COMPELLED of me. Which is completely different than voluntarily attending a movie. I am never SURPRISED that I found myself in a theater. I am not a passive domino who was knee-jerked into that auditorium. Rather, I proactively move myself (I voluntarily self-locomote) wherever my hunger is inclined to go. In word, I INITIATE. This is not mere push-pull determinism.

I think I see the issue here. You imagine that in determinism, the hunger signals the free will of my self to initiate an action. But in most forms of determinism, there is no self with a will independent of things like the desire to eat food -- in determinism, the desire to eat food is part of the 'I', there is no 'desire to eat food' and an 'I '; the desire is a part of my willing process and causes me, to initiate actions consistent with that desire. There is no 'I' independently existing that reflects on hunger, the hunger itself is a component of the determined 'I'. Otherwise the passage highlighted in blue is just a bare assertion because according to determinism, the opposite is true, the hunger initiates the action because the hunger is a part of my self.

In REALITY, mammals consistently do precisely that - they go wherever they want. When my cat hungers to go outside, it heads to the door, but pauses there and looks back at me until I open it. Even then it doesn’t head outside. It protrudes its head through the crack, looks around and, if it dislikes what it sees, it reverses direction back into the apartment. None of this is an involuntary knee-jerk compulsion that leaves the cat SURPRISED at the final outcome. On the contrary, the cat proactively DICTATES its outcome according to whatever it wants. Clearly a deterministic domino-universe is not in control - the cat itself is in control.

The cat as a willful thing does not exist apart from the desires that move it according to typical determinism. The desire to go outside initiates the cat's journey toward the door, and when it gets to the door and perceives inclement weather, the desire to go outside is replaced with a desire to avoid going outside, and that desire, being a part of the cat's self, initiates the appropriate actions. There is no 'cat' and a 'desire' -- there is just a bundle of desires that we call a cat.

Although Merleau Ponty wasn’t a panpsychic (he never claimed that ALL matter is innately conscious) he DID insist, and famously defended his belief, that the entire human body is innately conscious. He pointed out, for example, that the brain, in human motility, doesn't have to command each muscle, limb, and digit to move to each spatial coordinate X, Y, Z. Hence Ponty described playing piano as "knowledge in the hands." My point is that even something as simple as ingesting food or water involves complex motility because X,Y,Z coordinates VARY. Since the brain cannot even CONSCIOUSLY manage to calculate and provide the X,Y,Z coordinates for motility, how will a domino-effect BLINDLY do it?  Utter nonsense.

When I look at the world, my eyes each receive a 2D image from the surrounding world. My brain, without my willing it, presents the impression of viewing a 3-dimensional world to my awareness. This 3D image is created by subconscious processes which take the two 2D images from our eyes and by calculating from light and dark, it calculates what 3D world would produce such 2D images to the eyes and it presents that to the mind. We do not consciously calculate a 3D world from the 2D images presented to our eyes, the brain does it below the level of consciousness. Similarly when we do some coordinated activity, the brain calculates the muscle movements needed to accomplish the action below the level of consciousness, so that our awareness is only of the upper level processes to perform X or Y action. Because the brain itself exterior to consciousness is talented, there is no need for our bodies to be consciously imbued with skills. Ponty's view doesn't align with psychology.

To summarize, since a deterministic universe isn't skilled at eliciting involuntary reactions - it can barely accomplish a simple knee jerk much less handle X,Y, Z coordinates - it cannot deterministically coerce us do complex things such as hunt and gather food, care for our offspring, follow a recipe, attend a movie, perform carpentry, conduct engineering, repair an automobile, or play a piano. In fact NONE of these activities are involuntary knee-jerk reactions that SURPRISE us. A blind domino-effect won't consistently induce these behaviors, much less CONCIDENTALLY induce them at the exact same moment we hunger for these activities. To believe in that kind of coincidence is idiocy.

As a part of the universe, our brains and the selves they embody very much can accomplish these things. Without some evidence or argument to the contrary, this is just a bare assertion that can be rejected without having to provide a reason. Until you provide evidence or argument for what you claim here, this is just ipse dixit.

Rather I proactively self-locomote as to self-determine my trajectories. Period.

This is a view of the self that is foreign to determinism. You are importing the notion of free will into a decidedly non-free-will-worldview and complaining when your imposition creates absurdities.

Finally, self-locomotion seems to be a necessary postulate. Otherwise the entire metaphysics lacks a First Mover.

The first mover is a separate issue. It does not necessarily require free will as far as we know, so this objection is moot. Without better evidence or argument, the notion that there is a need for free will is unsupported and like your above objections, can be rejected without cause as it is just speculation without support.

[Jal]

That's how hunger works?  Reflexes like - a knee jerk from a rubber mallet? 

.......

That's how it works, huh? Ok. Got it.

You didnt get it, you never did, since page one. You are utterly confused. You dont even know know where you are, your head is spinning, and its not your god moving it around, its forum members causing this, without being "tangible", ever. Almost inconceivable, isnt it?

Nobody was talking about hunger. YOU were quoting some random bullshitter that piano music "comes from the hands". I pointed to reflexes, of which you still havent got the faintest clue. You are vaccinated and completely immune to learning and making personal progress. You actually do behave as if there is not a single atom of consciousness in your body, not a single one, with the faintest speck of consciousness.

Nobody was talking about hunger? Funny I was talking about it, and you were responding to my post.

Merleau Ponty was a random bulshitter? Funny the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would tend to disagree. Don't let that word "philosophy" fool you - he was also renowned for his knowledge of science. 

My response to you was apropos. You insinuate to be so much smarter than I am - and yet you don't see how my response challenges your "reflexes" theory of piano? Because it challenges a reflexes-theory of just about everything we do. In reflex action, such as a knee jerk, you're not in conscious control. That is not the experience of the pianist, for example he can accelerate, decelarate, or desist.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You didnt get it, you never did, since page one. You are utterly confused. You dont even know know where you are, your head is spinning, and its not your god moving it around, its forum members causing this, without being "tangible", ever. Almost inconceivable, isnt it?

Nobody was talking about hunger. YOU were quoting some random bullshitter that piano music "comes from the hands". I pointed to reflexes, of which you still havent got the faintest clue. You are vaccinated and completely immune to learning and making personal progress. You actually do behave as if there is not a single atom of consciousness in your body, not a single one, with the faintest speck of consciousness.

Nobody was talking about hunger? Funny I was talking about it, and you were responding to my post.

Merleau Ponty was a random bulshitter? Funny the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would tend to disagree. Don't let that word "philosophy" fool you - he was also renowned for his knowledge of science. 

My response to you was apropos. You insinuate to be so much smarter than I am - and yet you don't see how my response challenges your "reflexes" theory of piano? Because it challenges a reflexes-theory of just about everything we do. In reflex action, such as a knee jerk, you're not in conscious control. That is not the experience of the pianist, for example he can accelerate, decelarate, or desist.

You have yet to address the superiority of blueberry tarts to a 1968 Camaro RS 327. What are you hiding?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

To summarize, since a deterministic universe isn't skilled at eliciting involuntary reactions -

-snipped for brevity

How do you imagine autonomous models control themselves, then?  Do you believe that roombas have first moving elective free wills, that they wake up and decide to vaccuum.....that they even know that or how theyre doing it?   Or can you understand that "the deterministic universe" is extremely good at eliciting involuntary reactions?  So good, that we, the alleged/supposed/wishful first moving elective free willing highly sentient minds are beginning to have trouble telling the roomba from a person and the roombas in conversations as they outperform us at exactly those items you listed....

There's a whole practical field of engineering that demonstrates your belief about this to be false.  Have you considered how foolish and rhetorically fraught it is to allege that your god beliefs are pinned on an argument from incredulity that consumer electronics disprove every second of every day?

[Jal]

I think I see the issue here.  You imagine that in determinism, the hunger signals the free will of my self to initiate an action.
 But in most forms of determinism, there is no self with a will independent of things like the desire to eat food -- in determinism, the desire to eat food is part of the 'I', there is no 'desire to eat food' and an 'I '; the desire is a part of my willing process and causes me, to initiate actions consistent with that desire.  There is no 'I' independently existing that reflects on hunger, the hunger itself is a component of the determined 'I'.   Otherwise the passage highlighted in blue is just a bare assertion because according to determinism, the opposite is true, the hunger initiates the action because the hunger is a part of my self...

The cat as a willful thing does not exist apart from the desires that move it according to typical determinism.  The desire to go outside initiates the cat's journey toward the door, and when it gets to the door and perceives inclement weather, the desire to go outside is replaced with a desire to avoid going outside, and that desire, being a part of the cat's self, initiates the appropriate actions.  There is no 'cat' and a 'desire' -- there is just a bundle of desires that we call a cat.

You seem to think I am segregating conscious into different component parts, namely the hungry part and the free-will part, and somehow one part signals the other. The most famous form of segregation among Christians is known as trichotomy (viz. spirit, soul, and body), which is complete gibberish and idiocy and is rejected by 99.9% of professional theologians. Among professionals, the general consensus is that each technical term for the self describes a diferent perspective of that one self, thus it's not a different component. (Viz. mind, soul, spirit, will, emotions, conscience, heart, inner man). No, I would not make such a rookie mistake.

You say of hunger that the "desire is a part of my willing process and causes me, to initiate actions consistent with that desire." Please be careful how you use that word "initiate." In cause-effect determinisim, you CANNOT initiate anything. You're just a midstream domino. (Not to mention the unfathomability of innately unconscious particles becoming self-aware and hungry). Even if you feel desire/hunger, that's just a subjective feeling, it doesn't move your body, it doesn't take you to the grocery store. Bear in mind that I can feel hungry and fast for a week. I'm in control. Tell me, in which of your physiology classes did they teach that cause-effect isn't needed to move the body? That arms can move without ATP due to self-locomotion driven by desire?

In other words, you're in essence trying to surreptitiously add MY metaphysics as an auxilliarly addition to science's cause-effect determinism because the latter is clearly insufficient - hence the word "insufficient" in the title of this thread. In MY metaphysics, desire really CAN move the body, more precisely the body moves itself (self-locomotes). That's why I should be punished for assault if I punch someone in the face. Were it just domino cause-effect, no one should blame me for the punch. Subjectively I realize that I myself (i.e. my free will) am probably the one to blame for that violence.
whatever it wants. Clearly a deterministic domino-universe is not in control - the cat itself is in control.

When I look at the world, my eyes each receive a 2D image from the surrounding world.  My brain, without my willing it, presents the impression of viewing a 3-dimensional world to my awareness.  This 3D image is created by subconscious processes which take the two 2D images from our eyes and by calculating from light and dark, it calculates what 3D world would produce such 2D images to the eyes and it presents that to the mind.  We do not consciously calculate a 3D world from the 2D images presented to our eyes, the brain does it below the level of consciousness.  Similarly when we do some coordinated activity, the brain calculates the muscle movements needed to accomplish the action below the level of consciousness, so that our awareness is only of the upper level processes to perform X or Y action.  Because the brain itself exterior to consciousness is talented, there is no need for our bodies to be consciously imbued with skills.  Ponty's view doesn't align with psychology.

Even on a conscious level, it would take a mathematical genious to do x-y-z calculations properly. When I do math, I REALLY have to concentrate as hard as I can. I have to function at the very zenith of conscious acuity. You're trying to tell me that the brain of every mamamal, subconsciously, is performing calculations too challenging even at full acuity? Even animal motility functions this way? You know that sounds preposterous, right?

I mean, how far will you science-minded people go in order to insist on a cause-effect deterministic metaphysics? Unto the deepest recesses of absurdity?

The first mover is a separate issue.  It does not necessarily require free will as far as we know, so this objection is moot.  Without better evidence or argument, the notion that there is a need for free will is unsupported and like your above objections, can be rejected without cause as it is just speculation without support.

It's not like have a million options here, if a piece of matter moves without being pushed>
(A) It happened randomly/ arbitrarily/ chaotically, no rhyme or reason for that particular direction and destination.
(B) It is self-locomotion by free will.

Which one of those two does our experience most strongly support?
(A) All reality is fully chaotic, all motility is purely chaotic, and everyone just spasms randomly.
(B) We typically exert some control, unless our nervous system is damaged, we freely chose our behavior.

[The Grand Nudger]

Existing systems leverage "cause-effect determinism" to initiate all sorts of action. Your house is full of them. You're using one. Isn't it funny how you have to concentrate really hard to do math? It doesn't. It's better at it than you are and spends less effort to be so.

The bloodgod is such a joker.

(anyway, you're missing option C - it happened deterministically...which seems like a hell of an oversight as you argue against determinism.)

[Jal]

Existing systems leverage "cause-effect determinism" to initiate all sorts of action.  Your house is full of them.  You're using one.  Isn't it funny how you have to concentrate really hard to do math?  It doesn't.  It's better at it than you are and spends less effort to be so.

The bloodgod is such a joker.

(anyway, you're missing option C - it happened deterministically...which seems like a hell of an oversight as you argue against determinism.)

Your extrapolation of household electro-mechanics to mammalian behavior is unrealistic. Or one might call it an unlikely analogy.

For example, computers do not make decisions, even if AI LOOKS decisional. A computer is just a flow of electricity through circuits, and these ON-OFF circuits are arranged strategically. So for example two circuits ON and OFF mean the binary number 10 which is 2 hence the computer could output  "2". This produces a consistent, predetermined result.  It's involuntary, it's unaffected by desires, feelings,and emotions. 

Mammals are not involuntary participants caught off guard, knee-jerked by surprise. My stomach is empty? Guess what, if the cook spiced the food a bit too much for my preference, I won't even eat it. I'm in control, I am not just a passive wire carrrying electric current through a computer circuit.

Or if there is a bad smell in the house, I lose my appetite.  How would you like it if your computer, your electricity, and all equipment in your house stopped working due to a  smell? In a cause-effect system, that is no concern. Whereas, in a libertarian system, our feelings, emotions, and sensations are a huge concern, "viz. Sally is dying from anorexia due to depression." 

What is the benefit of subjective feelings in an electro-mechanical system? I can't think of any. In fact, the last thing needed is that my car stop running on account of feeling depressed. Suppose I like the taste of pizza. What good is that going to do, if I am just a domino? As such, I won't be able to voluntarily move by body to the pizzaria. 

Determinism isn't a likely theory of real-life phenomenology.

[Jal]

I should have answered my own question. I asked, " Suppose I like the taste of pizza. What good is that going to do, if I am just a domino?

Answer: I could go to Dominos Pizza.