Interesting that I've said that about 50 times to you, and this is the first time you've retreated to this position.
Free-will is not, by definition, magic any more than behavioral freedom is. The concept of free-will you've created may be.
I agree that we have "will" dependent on our genetics and experiences. But nothing else. There is no "free will" that exists independent of deterministic laws.
I am not arguing against choice in it's raw defintion. I'm arguing against choice as a product of "Free will". Choice as a product of determined will certainly exists, though it's not free.
Let me ask you a simple question, considering this new tact of yours:
Can I, as a conscious individual, actively observe my behavior and make choices between various paths based on my own desires?
Interesting that I've said that about 50 times to you, and this is the first time you've retreated to this position.
Free-will is not, by definition, magic any more than behavioral freedom is. The concept of free-will you've created may be.
Let me ask you a simple question, considering this new tact of yours:
Can I, as a conscious individual, actively observe my behavior and make choices between various paths based on my own desires?
All of that is irrelevant. Don't worry about finding examples.
Some thing, any thing that is not constant is affected by some thing else.
E.g. a raw egg, does not become a fried egg out of it's own volition.
If you want to find examples how one thing can become something else without any interference, then be my guest, but they don't exist.
Can I, as a conscious individual, actively observe my behavior and make choices between various paths based on my own desires?
Yes, based on their own desires, which they cannot choose. They can affect their desires in way, but they cannot sit down and draw up a list of everything they want to desire. Because what they want to desire, is not their choice. How can you justify desire as a personal choice, by saying that I desire what I desire, and based on free-will, I desire what I desire to desire, and infinitely so..
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
All of that is irrelevant. Don't worry about finding examples.
Some thing, any thing that is not constant is affected by some thing else.
E.g. a raw egg, does not become a fried egg out of it's own volition.
If you want to find examples how one thing can become something else without any interference, then be my guest, but they don't exist.
"Without any interferece"??? What do you think free-will is? Non-interference?
Can I, as a conscious individual, actively observe my behavior and make choices between various paths based on my own desires?
Yes, based on their own desires, which they cannot choose. They can affect their desires in way, but they cannot sit down and draw up a list of everything they want to desire. Because what they want to desire, is not their choice.
Hehe...so now I can choose, but I cannot control the standards by which I make a selection? That's not a choice, friend.
How can you justify desire as a personal choice, by saying that I desire what I desire, and based on free-will, I desire what I desire to desire, and infinitely so..
Our desires are the products of many factors. They all have roots. We desire food because we're biologically built to desire food. We desire life because we're biologically build to want to live. But how we acquire that food and how we seek that life are not biologically defined, nor are they entirely dependent on external factors. Furthermore, those desires are often contradictory, meaning we must select one over the other. There is no reason to resort to the recursive choices of desire in your straw-man above. One need only recognize that we can evaluate our desires, regardless of their roots, and judge them based on the standards we hold (biological, learned, and chosen).
"Without any interferece"??? What do you think free-will is? Non-interference?
Hehe...so now I can choose, but I cannot control the standards by which I make a selection? That's not a choice, friend
Our desires are the products of many factors. They all have roots. We desire food because we're biologically built to desire food. We desire life because we're biologically build to want to live. But how we acquire that food and how we seek that life are not biologically defined, nor are they entirely dependent on external factors. Furthermore, those desires are often contradictory, meaning we must select one over the other. There is no reason to resort to the recursive choices of desire in your straw-man above. One need only recognize that we can evaluate our desires, regardless of their roots, and judge them based on the standards we hold (biological, learned, and chosen).
I fail to see how you are not totally agreeing with me. Also, how can the determination to choose be chosen? A choice chooses a choice chooses a choice and so on to infinity? Makes no sense. Choices are determined, and therefor are not free choices, but are determined choices, and ultimately not choices at all, in the sense that it exists outside of determinism.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
no, they werent. they were the only intelligent things you said that night.
Really? So when I said you are a myopic piece of shit, that was intelligent?
Remind me to insult you more, if that's what you think intelligence is.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Beautiful.
Don't make me love you more than I already do, farfromglorified.
I've only gone partway through this, but it's enthralling.
And I've come to love articles that use the word "empirical" nearly excessively.
"The only acceptable point of view appears to be one that recognizes both sides of reality--the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical--as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously. ...
The introduction into neuroscience and neuropsychology of the extensive use of functional brain imagining technology has revealed, at the empirical level, an important causal role of directed attention in cerebral functioning. ...
It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that there is at least one type of information processing and manipulation that does not readily lend itself to explanations that assume that all final causes are subsumed within brain, or more generally, central nervous sytem mechanisms. The cases in question are those in which the conscious act of willfully altering the mode by which experiential information is processed itself changes, in systematic ways, the cerebral mechanisms utilized. There is a growing recognition of the theoretical importance of applying experimental paradigms that employ directed mental effort in order to produce systematic and predictable changes in brain function. ... These willfully induced brain changes are generally accomplished through training in, and the applied use, of cognitive reattribution and the attentional re-contextualization of conscious experience. Furthermore, an accelerating number of studies in the neuroimaging literature significantly support the thesis that, again, with appropriate training and effort, people can systematically alter neural circuitry associated with a variety of physical and mental states that are frankly pathological. A recent review of this and the related neurological literature has coined the term "self-directed neuroplasticity" to serve as a general description of the principle that focused training and effort can systematically alter cerebral function in a predictable and potentially therapeutic manner.
From a theoretical perspective, perhaps the most important aspect of this line of research is the empirical support it provides for a new science-based way of conceptualizing the interface between mind/consciousness and brain. Until recently, virtually all attempts to understand the functional activity of the brain have have been based at least implicitly on some principles of classical physics that have been known to be fundamentally false for three quarters of a century. According to the classical conception of the world, all causal connections between observables are explainable in terms of mechanical interactions between material realities. But this restriction on modes of causation is not fully maintained by the currently applied principles of physics, which consequently offer an alternative conceptual foundation for the scientific description and modeling of the causal structure of self-directed neuroplasticity.
The advantages for neuroscience and neuropsychology of utilizing the conceptual framework of contemporary physics, as opposed to that of classical physics, stem from five basic facts. First, terms such as "feeling", "knowing", and "effort", because they are intrinsically mentalistic and experiential, cannot be described exclusively in terms of material structure. Second, in order to explain the observable properties of large physical systems that depend sensitively on the behaviours of their atomic constituents the founders of contemporary physical theory were led to introduce explicitly into the basic causal structure of physics certain choices made by human beings about how they will act. Third, within this altered conceptual framework these choices are described in mentalistic (ie: psychological) language. Fourth, terminology of this kind is critically necessary for the design and execution of the experiments in which the data demonstrating the core phenomena of self-directed neuroplasticity are acquired and described. Fifth, the injection of psychologically described choices on the part of human agents into the causal theoretical structure can be achieved for experiments in neuroscience by applying the same mathematical rules that were developed to account for the structure of phenomena in the realm of atomic science.
...basically...classical physics is an approximation to the more accurate quantum theory, and that this classical approximation eliminates the causal efficacy of our conscious efforts that these experiments empirically manifest."
Classical physics eliminates the causal CAPACITY TO PRODUCE A DESIRED EFFECT of our conscious efforts that these experiments empirically manifest. Classical physics and mechanics is INCOMPLETE in actual understanding of such dynamics!
I LOVE this article...so far anyway....
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I fail to see how you are not totally agreeing with me.
You do not believe in the conscious actor. That's why. We agree that free-will is not magic. However, you're trying to pretend the magician, the hat, and the rabbit don't exist because magic doesn't exist.
Also, how can the determination to choose be chosen?
By evaluating it before action, of course.
A choice chooses a choice chooses a choice and so on to infinity? Makes no sense.
It doesn't make any sense, and you're the only one who's saying it. First and foremost, choices can never extend to infinity because your existence as an agent don't extend to infinity. Secondly, all preferences have roots. But they can have contradictory roots and you as a conscious actor may select between them.
Choices are determined, and therefor are not free choices, but are determined choices, and ultimately not choices at all, in the sense that it exists outside of determinism.
Ok, so I can't choose. Gotcha. Thank you for returning to a semi-consistent position.
Let me point out that there are no citations in this article to actual studies. There is no way of verifying any of it.
Secondly, synaptic plasticity is very well known, training does affect the brain, but only in a material sense. Dendrites move around to connect with other neurons. They do this physically. It's to do with the firing of electrical and chemical synapses which are also physical. There is nothing in the brain that can be monitored that is not physical. That's the whole point of living in a physical reality. And there is no activity that suggests there is anything metaphysical going on in the brain.
That sounds an aweful lot like field theory which has been repeatedly debunked. Also considering that "field" is an EM field which consists of Electrons, which are bits of physical matter. Everyone way you slice it, there is nothing non-physical. Thoughts are objective when put under an electron microscope, they are bits of matter interacting with larger bits of matter.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Let me point out that there are no citations in this article to actual studies. There is no way of verifying any of it.
Secondly, synaptic plasticity is very well known, training does affect the brain, but only in a material sense. Dendrites move around to connect with other neurons. They do this physically. It's to do with the firing of electrical and chemical synapses which are also physical. There is nothing in the brain that can be monitored that is not physical. That's the whole point of living in a physical reality. And there is no activity that suggests there is anything metaphysical going on in the brain.
That sounds an aweful lot like field theory which has been repeatedly debunked. Also considering that "field" is an EM field which consists of Electrons, which are bits of physical matter. Everyone way you slice it, there is nothing non-physical. Thoughts are objective when put under an electron microscope, they are bits of matter interacting with larger bits of matter.
but what causes the brain neurons to move and reconnect? the same theory you use to refute god applies here. if the brain controls all, what's controlling the brain?
You do not believe in the conscious actor. That's why. We agree that free-will is not magic. However, you're trying to pretend the magician, the hat, and the rabbit don't exist because magic doesn't exist.
By evaluating it before action, of course.
It doesn't make any sense, and you're the only one who's saying it. First and foremost, choices can never extend to infinity because your existence as an agent don't extend to infinity. Secondly, all preferences have roots. But they can have contradictory roots and you as a conscious actor may select between them.
Ok, so I can't choose. Gotcha. Thank you for returning to a semi-consistent position.
I absolutely believe I exist as a conscious actor/agent. Where you got the impression I didn't, I don't know.
Ok, so let's suppose that we each have a choice between an apple or an orange. Why would I make a choice any different than yours? If it's because I like oranges better than apples, why do I like oranges better than apples? If it's because I'm Vitamin C deficient, then you have a causal chain leading up to my decision. If it's because for years I've consistently eaten more oranges than apples, it's all because of a causal chain of events. If I choose orange and you choose apple for absolutely no reason, then it's magic.
What you descirbe, Cognitive Dissonance, is not void of determination, it's part of cognitive determination.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Let me point out that there are no citations in this article to actual studies. There is no way of verifying any of it.
Do you want to know why this article is meaningful to me? Because I can discern information. The points stand on their own as evident--the ones I'm fixated on, anyway. It's called sense, comprehension and understanding the subject matter. I can interpret information as it stands. Particularly when I have the empirical experience to support what they say.
Secondly, synaptic plasticity is very well known, training does affect the brain, but only in a material sense. Dendrites move around to connect with other neurons. They do this physically. It's to do with the firing of electrical and chemical synapses which are also physical. There is nothing in the brain that can be monitored that is not physical. That's the whole point of living in a physical reality. And there is no activity that suggests there is anything metaphysical going on in the brain.
That sounds an aweful lot like field theory which has been repeatedly debunked. Also considering that "field" is an EM field which consists of Electrons, which are bits of physical matter. Everyone way you slice it, there is nothing non-physical. Thoughts are objective when put under an electron microscope, they are bits of matter interacting with larger bits of matter.
I'm not looking to limit truths in ways that cause them to be distorted. I understand this subject matter very well, in more than objective ways, therefore in WHOLE and KNOWING ways.
Show me where field theory is debunked. You claim Godel has been thoroughly debunked, so I know better than to trust your claims. Using bias to back one theory at the expense of another proves foolish. And it distorts understanding.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
but what causes the brain neurons to move and reconnect? the same theory you use to refute god applies here. if the brain controls all, what's controlling the brain?
Electrical synapses. Electromagnetism. The behavior of dendrites is somewhat independent of our behavior as a whole. We don't control the way our heart beats, yet it is controlled by our brains.
Try it, try to will your heart to stop beating. Good luck genius.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Do you want to know why this article is meaningful to me? Because I can discern information. The points stand on their own as evident--the ones I'm fixated on, anyway. It's called sense, comprehension and understanding the subject matter. I can interpret information as it stands. Particularly when I have the empirical experience to support what they say.
I'm not looking to limit truths in ways that cause them to be distorted. I understand this subject matter very well, in more than objective ways, therefore in WHOLE and KNOWING ways.
Show me where field theory is debunked. You claim Godel has been thoroughly debunked, so I know better than to trust your claims. Using bias to back one theory at the expense of another proves foolish. And it distorts understanding.
Well shit, all I have to say is:
I understand this subject matter very well, in more than objective ways, therefore in WHOLE and KNOWING ways.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Electrical synapses. Electromagnetism. The behavior of dendrites is somewhat independent of our behavior as a whole. We don't control the way our heart beats, yet it is controlled by our brains.
Try it, try to will your heart to stop beating. Good luck genius.
When I redirected my synapses, who was doing the redirecting? I was beyond my synapses. I am also the ocean as well as the drop of water.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I understand this subject matter very well, in more than objective ways, therefore in WHOLE and KNOWING ways.
Excepting one problem, your knowing stops short of mine. You cannot prove a negative. You cannot effectively state that you "know" a negative. I can claim I know a positive.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Excepting one problem, your knowing stops short of mine. You cannot prove a negative. You cannot effectively state that you "know" a negative. I can claim I know a positive.
That makes no sense. Subject matter isn't proven or disproven based on it's polarity to the context of the discussion.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
When I redirected my synapses, who was doing the redirecting? I was beyond my synapses. I am also the ocean as well as the drop of water.
The synaptics changes occur whether you try to make them or not. All you have to do is be for your brain to change. It happens all the time, uknowingly. Your trying to change it on the quantitative level makes no difference. Cognition affects plasticity.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
That makes no sense. Subject matter isn't proven or disproven based on it's polarity to the context of the discussion.
In our debates you talk about my knowledge being a impossibility, when you don't know it yourself. Yet you claim you understand wholly. I can wrap my head around determinism and embrace and understand it and arrange it in it's neat place in my worldview, being realistic. You are unable to go beyond that. If you cannot include my view also, you don't have "whole" and "knowing". You have lack and limits. You're way of resolving this is to deny my view. Suit yourself if you choose to delete portions of reality thusly adhering to ignore-ance.
How can you assess something you don't see, or understand?
I'm okay with it if you choose to adhere to the classical physics only. However, I cannot limit myself so.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
In our debates you talk about my knowledge being a impossibility, when you don't know it yourself. Yet you claim you understand wholly. I can wrap my head around determinism and embrace and understand it and arrange it in it's neat place in my worldview, being realistic. You are unable to go beyond that. If you cannot include my view also, you don't have "whole" and "knowing". You have lack and limits. You're way of resolving this is to deny my view. Suit yourself if you choose to delete portions of reality thusly adhering to ignore-ance.
How can you assess something you don't see, or understand?
I'm okay with it if you choose to adhere to the classical physics only. However, I cannot limit myself so.
By that logic a muslim could assert that your thoughts are not whole, because you don't recognize Allah as being part of that whole.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
The synaptics changes occur whether you try to make them or not. All you have to do is be for your brain to change. It happens all the time, uknowingly. Your trying to change it on the quantitative level makes no difference. Cognition affects plasticity.
And here you prove you do not understand the fullness of self-directed neuroplasticity. And that article explains how given your paradigms, you are unable to understand it. Unfortunately you want to tune out this information. Suit yourself.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
By that logic a muslim could assert that your thoughts are not whole, because you don't recognize Allah as being part of that whole.
Oh, but I do recognize Allah, and everyone's beliefs and experiences as part of that whole. Undeniably. It's called integrated holistic (whole) theory.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Oh, but I do recognize Allah, and everyone's beliefs and experiences as part of that whole. Undeniably. It's called integrated holistic (whole) theory.
So, you believe in the Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, Aliens, The Eagle Spirit, the Fox Spirit, the Spirit of the Wind, the Spirit of the mountain, Zeus, Apollo, Achilles, Oden, Midas, Multiple dimensions, String Theory, Desitny theory and so on.
You accept all contradictory beliefs as reality? How?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
So, you believe in the Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, Aliens, The Eagle Spirit, the Fox Spirit, the Spirit of the Wind, the Spirit of the mountain, Zeus, Apollo, Achilles, Oden, Midas, Multiple dimensions, String Theory, Desitny theory and so on.
You accept all contradictory beliefs as reality? How?
Because truth is truth. It stands alone when one is really willing to see it. Therefore when one is truly willing to see the truth, at ALL costs, non-truth falls away. Everything IS. No-thing is Not! Anyone's perception is what it is. It is their personal way of filtering the seemingly external reality and beyond. It's all the very same thing, no matter how you look at it. Atheism is the very same as theism, depending on how you look at it and what you see. You mock non-duality, but yet you don't understand it. It's truth. Just because people see it differently illustrates the vast differences in people. If one can come to simply accept all differences, it's very easy to differentiate and embrace EVERYTHING. It's very easy to understand this in myriad ways when one has understanding of the full value of the subjective ALONG with the objective understanding. As that article states. While you are busy trying to tear down what is, you are learning in your own way--ulitmately you find the truths. I first look to see what exists, and let the rest fall away. When you seek to understand someone and to hear them and what they experience, only then do you come to understand. When you seek to make them wrong, you prove your own need to grow and learn the hard way.
I have numerous quick objective systems that give me understanding. For example, having studied personality type, I can relate to all kinds of people, and understand them objectively, whether I like them or not. Therefore I don't need to get dysfunctional and due to subjective preference delete people's perspectives due to my own preconceptions, and preferences. I know true understanding is about embracing and learning. The resolved paradoxes and contradictions is 100% about resolving one's own issues, not changing others and the world in order to find sense.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Because truth is truth. It stands alone when one is really willing to see it. Therefore when one is truly willing to see the truth, at ALL costs, non-truth falls away. Everything IS. No-thing is Not! Anyone's perception is what it is. It is their personal way of filtering the seemingly external reality and beyond. It's all the very same thing, no matter how you look at it. Atheism is the very same as theism, depending on how you look at it and what you see. You mock non-duality, but yet you don't understand it. It's truth. Just because people see it differently illustrates the vast differences in people. If one can come to simply accept all differences, it's very easy to differentiate and embrace EVERYTHING. It's very easy to understand this in myriad ways when one has understanding of the full value of the subjective ALONG with the objective understanding. As that article states. While you are busy trying to tear down what is, you are learning in your own way--ulitmately you find the truths. I first look to see what exists, and let the rest fall away. When you seek to understand someone and to hear them and what they experience, only then do you come to understand. When you seek to make them wrong, you prove your own need to grow and learn the hard way.
I have numerous quick objective systems that give me understanding. For example, having studied personality type, I can relate to all kinds of people, and understand them objectively, whether I like them or not. Therefore I don't need to get dysfunctional and due to subjective preference delete people's perspectives due to my own preconceptions, and preferences. I know true understanding is about embracing and learning. The resolved paradoxes and contradictions is 100% about resolving one's own issues, not changing others and the world in order to find sense.
That whole train of thought debunks it's self. If you are not trying to convince me or yourself or anyone else, of your perception of reality, then why even post it? Isn't my subjective perception that the world is better off with my line of thinking also truth?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
When you seek to understand someone and to hear them and what they experience, only then do you come to understand. When you seek to make them wrong, you prove your own need to grow and learn the hard way.
This is the piece of the puzzle you are missing Ahnimus: intent. If you are unconscious of what your true intentions are, you will not understand how you are creating your own reality in each moment. You have taken your intent out from in front of your eyes. And then you think you are seeing objectively. And you reap the consequences of what you unconsciously intend. Your higher self is in charge of your intent, until you can muster the energy to wake up and embrace the 3-d creations you are constantly molding, shaping and experiencing. When you wake up to your role as co-creator with reality, then you can learn to create peace, harmony, or whatever your greatest desires are, emanating from deep within your ground state. To align with your ground state is to have all the power in the world. Until you accept this, your Self will continue pulling you into virtua-living to teach you holographically. And as in biblical terms, this higher power cannot violate your will--but no worries, you give your active consent in each moment with ignorance, denial, pretending, obfuscating and obscuring the truth. You co-create, despite the smokescreen. You get exactly what you are looking for.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
That whole train of thought debunks it's self. If you are not trying to convince me or yourself or anyone else, of your perception of reality, then why even post it? Isn't my subjective perception that the world is better off with my line of thinking also truth?
It debunks itself in your logic when you are intending to prove negatives (which you can't). You create exactly what you want to see--distortion. However, in reality, what IS just stands on its own. If you intend to use logic to obscure truth, you'll get just that. have fun!
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Comments
Interesting that I've said that about 50 times to you, and this is the first time you've retreated to this position.
Free-will is not, by definition, magic any more than behavioral freedom is. The concept of free-will you've created may be.
Let me ask you a simple question, considering this new tact of yours:
Can I, as a conscious individual, actively observe my behavior and make choices between various paths based on my own desires?
All of that is irrelevant. Don't worry about finding examples.
Some thing, any thing that is not constant is affected by some thing else.
E.g. a raw egg, does not become a fried egg out of it's own volition.
If you want to find examples how one thing can become something else without any interference, then be my guest, but they don't exist.
Can I, as a conscious individual, actively observe my behavior and make choices between various paths based on my own desires?
Yes, based on their own desires, which they cannot choose. They can affect their desires in way, but they cannot sit down and draw up a list of everything they want to desire. Because what they want to desire, is not their choice. How can you justify desire as a personal choice, by saying that I desire what I desire, and based on free-will, I desire what I desire to desire, and infinitely so..
"Without any interferece"??? What do you think free-will is? Non-interference?
Hehe...so now I can choose, but I cannot control the standards by which I make a selection? That's not a choice, friend.
Our desires are the products of many factors. They all have roots. We desire food because we're biologically built to desire food. We desire life because we're biologically build to want to live. But how we acquire that food and how we seek that life are not biologically defined, nor are they entirely dependent on external factors. Furthermore, those desires are often contradictory, meaning we must select one over the other. There is no reason to resort to the recursive choices of desire in your straw-man above. One need only recognize that we can evaluate our desires, regardless of their roots, and judge them based on the standards we hold (biological, learned, and chosen).
no, they werent. they were the only intelligent things you said that night.
I fail to see how you are not totally agreeing with me. Also, how can the determination to choose be chosen? A choice chooses a choice chooses a choice and so on to infinity? Makes no sense. Choices are determined, and therefor are not free choices, but are determined choices, and ultimately not choices at all, in the sense that it exists outside of determinism.
Really? So when I said you are a myopic piece of shit, that was intelligent?
Remind me to insult you more, if that's what you think intelligence is.
no, i was talking about when you said i was an asshole. i was. it was the only time you said anything that had any basis in reality.
Don't make me love you more than I already do, farfromglorified.
I've only gone partway through this, but it's enthralling.
And I've come to love articles that use the word "empirical" nearly excessively.
"The only acceptable point of view appears to be one that recognizes both sides of reality--the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical--as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously. ...
The introduction into neuroscience and neuropsychology of the extensive use of functional brain imagining technology has revealed, at the empirical level, an important causal role of directed attention in cerebral functioning. ...
It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that there is at least one type of information processing and manipulation that does not readily lend itself to explanations that assume that all final causes are subsumed within brain, or more generally, central nervous sytem mechanisms. The cases in question are those in which the conscious act of willfully altering the mode by which experiential information is processed itself changes, in systematic ways, the cerebral mechanisms utilized. There is a growing recognition of the theoretical importance of applying experimental paradigms that employ directed mental effort in order to produce systematic and predictable changes in brain function. ... These willfully induced brain changes are generally accomplished through training in, and the applied use, of cognitive reattribution and the attentional re-contextualization of conscious experience. Furthermore, an accelerating number of studies in the neuroimaging literature significantly support the thesis that, again, with appropriate training and effort, people can systematically alter neural circuitry associated with a variety of physical and mental states that are frankly pathological. A recent review of this and the related neurological literature has coined the term "self-directed neuroplasticity" to serve as a general description of the principle that focused training and effort can systematically alter cerebral function in a predictable and potentially therapeutic manner.
From a theoretical perspective, perhaps the most important aspect of this line of research is the empirical support it provides for a new science-based way of conceptualizing the interface between mind/consciousness and brain. Until recently, virtually all attempts to understand the functional activity of the brain have have been based at least implicitly on some principles of classical physics that have been known to be fundamentally false for three quarters of a century. According to the classical conception of the world, all causal connections between observables are explainable in terms of mechanical interactions between material realities. But this restriction on modes of causation is not fully maintained by the currently applied principles of physics, which consequently offer an alternative conceptual foundation for the scientific description and modeling of the causal structure of self-directed neuroplasticity.
The advantages for neuroscience and neuropsychology of utilizing the conceptual framework of contemporary physics, as opposed to that of classical physics, stem from five basic facts. First, terms such as "feeling", "knowing", and "effort", because they are intrinsically mentalistic and experiential, cannot be described exclusively in terms of material structure. Second, in order to explain the observable properties of large physical systems that depend sensitively on the behaviours of their atomic constituents the founders of contemporary physical theory were led to introduce explicitly into the basic causal structure of physics certain choices made by human beings about how they will act. Third, within this altered conceptual framework these choices are described in mentalistic (ie: psychological) language. Fourth, terminology of this kind is critically necessary for the design and execution of the experiments in which the data demonstrating the core phenomena of self-directed neuroplasticity are acquired and described. Fifth, the injection of psychologically described choices on the part of human agents into the causal theoretical structure can be achieved for experiments in neuroscience by applying the same mathematical rules that were developed to account for the structure of phenomena in the realm of atomic science.
...basically...classical physics is an approximation to the more accurate quantum theory, and that this classical approximation eliminates the causal efficacy of our conscious efforts that these experiments empirically manifest."
Classical physics eliminates the causal CAPACITY TO PRODUCE A DESIRED EFFECT of our conscious efforts that these experiments empirically manifest. Classical physics and mechanics is INCOMPLETE in actual understanding of such dynamics!
I LOVE this article...so far anyway....
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
You do not believe in the conscious actor. That's why. We agree that free-will is not magic. However, you're trying to pretend the magician, the hat, and the rabbit don't exist because magic doesn't exist.
By evaluating it before action, of course.
It doesn't make any sense, and you're the only one who's saying it. First and foremost, choices can never extend to infinity because your existence as an agent don't extend to infinity. Secondly, all preferences have roots. But they can have contradictory roots and you as a conscious actor may select between them.
Ok, so I can't choose. Gotcha. Thank you for returning to a semi-consistent position.
How could that be possible
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Let me point out that there are no citations in this article to actual studies. There is no way of verifying any of it.
Secondly, synaptic plasticity is very well known, training does affect the brain, but only in a material sense. Dendrites move around to connect with other neurons. They do this physically. It's to do with the firing of electrical and chemical synapses which are also physical. There is nothing in the brain that can be monitored that is not physical. That's the whole point of living in a physical reality. And there is no activity that suggests there is anything metaphysical going on in the brain.
That sounds an aweful lot like field theory which has been repeatedly debunked. Also considering that "field" is an EM field which consists of Electrons, which are bits of physical matter. Everyone way you slice it, there is nothing non-physical. Thoughts are objective when put under an electron microscope, they are bits of matter interacting with larger bits of matter.
but what causes the brain neurons to move and reconnect? the same theory you use to refute god applies here. if the brain controls all, what's controlling the brain?
I absolutely believe I exist as a conscious actor/agent. Where you got the impression I didn't, I don't know.
Ok, so let's suppose that we each have a choice between an apple or an orange. Why would I make a choice any different than yours? If it's because I like oranges better than apples, why do I like oranges better than apples? If it's because I'm Vitamin C deficient, then you have a causal chain leading up to my decision. If it's because for years I've consistently eaten more oranges than apples, it's all because of a causal chain of events. If I choose orange and you choose apple for absolutely no reason, then it's magic.
What you descirbe, Cognitive Dissonance, is not void of determination, it's part of cognitive determination.
I'm not looking to limit truths in ways that cause them to be distorted. I understand this subject matter very well, in more than objective ways, therefore in WHOLE and KNOWING ways.
Show me where field theory is debunked. You claim Godel has been thoroughly debunked, so I know better than to trust your claims. Using bias to back one theory at the expense of another proves foolish. And it distorts understanding.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Electrical synapses. Electromagnetism. The behavior of dendrites is somewhat independent of our behavior as a whole. We don't control the way our heart beats, yet it is controlled by our brains.
Try it, try to will your heart to stop beating. Good luck genius.
Well shit, all I have to say is:
I understand this subject matter very well, in more than objective ways, therefore in WHOLE and KNOWING ways.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
That makes no sense. Subject matter isn't proven or disproven based on it's polarity to the context of the discussion.
The synaptics changes occur whether you try to make them or not. All you have to do is be for your brain to change. It happens all the time, uknowingly. Your trying to change it on the quantitative level makes no difference. Cognition affects plasticity.
How can you assess something you don't see, or understand?
I'm okay with it if you choose to adhere to the classical physics only. However, I cannot limit myself so.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
By that logic a muslim could assert that your thoughts are not whole, because you don't recognize Allah as being part of that whole.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
So, you believe in the Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, Aliens, The Eagle Spirit, the Fox Spirit, the Spirit of the Wind, the Spirit of the mountain, Zeus, Apollo, Achilles, Oden, Midas, Multiple dimensions, String Theory, Desitny theory and so on.
You accept all contradictory beliefs as reality? How?
I have numerous quick objective systems that give me understanding. For example, having studied personality type, I can relate to all kinds of people, and understand them objectively, whether I like them or not. Therefore I don't need to get dysfunctional and due to subjective preference delete people's perspectives due to my own preconceptions, and preferences. I know true understanding is about embracing and learning. The resolved paradoxes and contradictions is 100% about resolving one's own issues, not changing others and the world in order to find sense.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
That whole train of thought debunks it's self. If you are not trying to convince me or yourself or anyone else, of your perception of reality, then why even post it? Isn't my subjective perception that the world is better off with my line of thinking also truth?
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!