Totally different point, I think. "Local" applies to only certain problems or competing theories whereas "global" is basically Hume's problem of induction and Descartes' radical skepticism concern.

(god this thread keeps being ****ing awesome, especially for those of us new to this material)

That definition is pretty non-standard. It sounds like you are describing whatever people are saying they describe as a feeling of free will. [Forrest Gump voice]That's all I have to say 'bout that[/Forrest Gump voice]

Maybe you could just use someone else's definition then. Or, better would be to describe what you call consciousness as "nebulous concept that Aaron has number three" or NCTAHNT. Unfortunately, if you have your own definition of words, it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation.

Simply because philosophical discussion requires clarity. Also, because if you write a book about what you mean for one word, I will get bored and wander away. If you drop all of the side-text of what consciousness implies to you, you should be left with a workable definition. Not much point in talking if no one knows what you are trying to say. Pick a definition out of the dictionary, if need be.

There are two types of fatalism.

One is that everything has a determining or number of determining causes and that because of this the future is going to proceed in a definite way. In other words, if you knew everything, you would know exactly what will happen tomorrow. In other words, the future will inevitably happen in a certain way.

The other definition of fatalism would better be described as defeatism, in which the future will happen in a particular way regardless of your actions. This implies that you should give up on trying to effect the future. To me, this would make sense only if you knew the future would happen in a specific and particular way (which you don't), or if you believed something silly like the idle argument.

Very often, people try to tie the two together.

The easiest way to understand is to think about how science works to determine the validity of a theory.

We can do experiments. This is, based on making predictions as to what will happen if a theory is true. So, for instance, if we had a theory about that stated, "panic attacks in people are caused by too many golf balls in their diet." I can take a set of people with panic attacks and refuse to allow them to eat their normal diet of golf balls. I can take another set of people and allow them to eat whatever they wish.

If the first group stops having panic attacks, I can reasonably put that as evidence in favor of my theory.*

This can be done with all scientific theories. You make a prediction. You test that prediction

Now, try to think of an experiment involving free will. Hmmm. OK, we take a group of people and we remove their free will. Where did I put my scalpel? Ahhhh, I found it! The elusive free will gland! Ok, so I remove it from Durka, since he has one. Wait, Durka, come back! This will benefit of philosophers everywhere!**

Understood?

*This works for any scientific theory of merit. Even thought. For examples on thought process research, see http://psych.la.psu.edu/directory/fa...s/carlson.html and start reading his stuff. This includes research on consciousness and control. Hmmm. Research on consciousness.

*No Durkas were harmed in the making of this post.

Hah! I found Carlson's book online!

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=78444791

He mentions Searle and Dennett in the first chapter.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

As much as you would like to pretend it's easy, it's not.

Edit: If the question of consciousness were resolvable in a single sentence, I don't think the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would spend about 10-12 pages on it. I hope you read all the way to the conclusion.

Edit #2: According to my print preview, it's actually about 50 pages long.

It sounds like your second definition presupposes free will. Is it just me or does this second definition seem non-nonsensical (for reasons other than you expressed)? Does anyone actually used this definition? (outside of drum circles that is)

I have read it. Darn near have it memorized. It is not 50 pages for a single definition though. Bob the random philosopher said it means this <insert short amount of text> which implies <long amount of text>. (of course, it is better organized in my head than it is in the SEP - I organize internally by specific theory)

Since you are claiming that consciousness implies free will, I am asking you to explain what YOU mean by consciousness. Unless you want to discuss the whole of the stanford text (which I would probably enjoy, but would be unfair to you), you need to have some clarity of what YOU mean.

To prove my point:
I believe that ethics could not exist without determinism. Now try to have an discussion with me.

The second sense is basically meaningless IMO...it implies freedom

FWIW, I made my post without reading yours...nihan for spotting the same thing.

I just want to be clear that I'm specifically saying it's not arbitrary. If we assume that the Big Bang is the ultimate cause of all events, then it's true that the Big Bang caused the proving of the Pythagorean theorem. But if it's true that P proved the Pythagorean theorem, then that only applies to one event and not to other events like proving Fermat's last theorem (unless you want to get nitty and challenge that 'proved the Pythagorean theorem' is an arbitrary event – but that's a separate conversation imo) . In at least this sense, it's not arbitrary to demarcate a proximate cause.

I'm just saying that if you think that P proved the Pythagorean theorem is as arbitrary as saying P's parents proved the Pythagorean theorem (which is as arbitrary as saying the Big Bang proved the Pythagorean theorem), then if you believe the sentence “P's parents proved the Pythagorean theorem” you would be unable to infer whether P's parents proved the Pythagorean theorem (ie they were mathematicians too and did the proof) or whether P proved the Pythagorean theorem.

I agree that it's fine to say this if libertarianism is true, but I think you will still be jumping through hoops if you apply your earlier idea. If you chose to eat a hot dog, you'd become the cause of a series of deterministic reactions. For example, the journey of the hot dog from the icebox to your stomach probably triggers some fluctuation in the temperature of the room, which might cause one extra drop of water to form or not form on the brim of a glass. And while you'd be correct if you insisted that you were the cause of that event, isn't it at least generally more explicative to say - in the sense that now you'd be talking about physical regularities - that the fluctuation in the temperature caused the event?

It looks like your debate with all-in flynn has out paced me so I'll just make one comment here - As you've said, you are making something like Searle's Chinese room argument. But the Chinese room argument is not an argument for free will. It's an argument against or challenge to a variety of views: functionalism, computationalism, turing, etc.. I'm no authority, but my sense of the subject is that there are many determinists who are not functionalists, so you'd have to come up with some auxiliary argument that consciousness requires freedom.

Also Searle is an agnostic about free will. Perhaps he leans libertarian, but he is definitely a mysterian about it ie he thinks that people can't yet understand how free will works. But I think the philosophical value of that point is very limited... imo it's Kantian noumenalism in a different dress.

thanks

Let me translate it for you. It means that nobody is really quite sure what consciousness is. I can't pin down a single definition because I don't believe that there is anywhere near an adequate understanding to allow us to do so.

A starting place for a definition would be "wakefulness" but I find that that description is sufficient (no surprise there). What I mean by consciousness is some conglomeration of the various ideas of consciousness presented, not any particular one. I think the following sentence of the conclusion paragraph describes my position well enough:

I have no idea what you're saying. It's not arbitrary in that not anything can be said to have proved the Pythagorean theorem, but it's arbitrary in that there is no well-defined object which can be considered to be *THE* cause of the proof of the Pythagorean theorem unless you assume that the big bang is actually the start of all things and declare that the big bang did it.

This is true. I don't disagree with this at all. What's going on is a process of arbitrary circle-drawing. In a long and complex chain of dominoes, if one particular arrangement is identified as the "proving the Pythagorean theorem" you cannot identify a single domino or even a cluster of dominoes and say *THIS* is what caused those dominoes to fall over, unless you go back to the very first domino.

Huh?

In context, I was talking about consciousness and nothing too specific about free will. I was trying to highlight how one considers the "thinking process" and how it relates to our notion of consciousness.

Having re-read it, I see that I might have been thinking of something slightly different. I thought the Chinese room had to do with not being able to tell the difference between a person in the room who knows Chinese and a man with a bunch of rules to follow to respond in Chinese (without knowing the meaning of the symbols). The inability to distinguish a Chinese man from a man mindlessly following instructions would be equivalent to the inability to distinguish consciousness from not-consciousness based purely on stimulus-response. That is, there is no question that can be asked of the Chinese room to verify whether the man inside is Chinese.

The second definition is used as an false argument against hard determinism.

The argument in all its glory (sorry, gonna get all aristotley being all socratesey on you all first):

...


So, you are saying that everything is determined? That there is no free will?

Yes.

Wait, you actually believe that everything is caused by previous events?

Yes.

Even you?!? So, you don't really have any free choice in things at all.

No.

What? Clearly, you make choices. I saw you pick the blond over the brunette just a few minutes ago.

You should leave my proclivities out of this. That was at least 3 hours ago. And, perhaps, I should also decline my proclivity for exaggeration. I do make choices and do not finish in just a few minutes. Those choices are because of who I am and what is happening.

That is free will.

No it isn't. I am who I am because of things that have happened to me. I didn't freely choose my parents. I didn't freely choose my schooling. I didn't freely choose anything that has happened to me. For all these things please be thankful that I am not adding the ad nauseum that is obvious for those things that have happened to those before me. I do choose based on those things though.

Completely?

Yes. What else would help me make my choices?

Well, your free will could.

Ahh, it would also chuck a fair amount of wood, right?

What?!?

Nevermind. How would this humonculous make the decision for me? Would it do so randomly? Or would it do so for some cause?

Well, of course, it could not do so randomly. That would add nothing except for, well, randomness. Of what use or meaning would that have?

I agree that randomness would add nothing of value. It could be that way, but we would not be able to tell.

We could run some chi-square analyses.

That might be fun, but it would not show anything of value. Chi-square is only a goodness of fit test. I do say that the earlier blond would have a p<.00001 as far as goodness of fit though.***

You liked?

Indeed.

So, what will happen tomorrow is destined to happen?

In a matter of speaking, yes, that is exactly so. I will make choices because of who I am, and everyone else will as well. Tomorrow's events are going to happen. They will happen because of today's and yesterday's events.

(the bs begins)
So, that means that it doesn't matter what you do.* The future is already set.** No matter what you do, it is going to happen.* You might as well just give up, since you can't effect it.***

(at this point in the normal state of the world, the determinist becomes determined to find the blond again, leaving the antagonist to his own devices. Despite the apparent impossibility of this not being the case, we will leave the protagonist in the scene. For sake of realism, imagine that our protagonist is not ready for another go at the blond)

No, it does matter what I do. If I were to choose differently, then the future would be different.

But you said that the future is certain

I did. However, I do not know the future. I can imagine how it would be if I just gave up and laid down. I can also imagine it if I do not. The choices I make are partly due to these imaginings.

(the antagonist decides that the brunette is kind of hot. Partially because he does not want the protagonist's dripping touching his stuff. Mostly it was because, well, it was actually the drippings thing)

*False. This would only be relevant in the event that the future were known and that you were not part part of the causal chain.

**True

***I believe you have witnessed the first chi-square joke ever.

It does presuppose free will. That was my point.

You're insisting that there is no distinction to be made between an ultimate cause and a proximate cause. I'm saying that there is a non-arbitrary distinction and drawing it.

The answer to the question 'what is the ultimate cause of the proof of the Pythagorean theorem?' is the Big Bang. The answer to the question 'what is the proximate cause of the proof of the Pythagorean theorem?' is P. You are missing the point if you are saying that P is not THE cause of the proof because I'm not saying that P is THE cause of the proof (in the sense of ultimate). I'm saying that P is the proximate cause and giving an argument that there's a non-abitrary distinction.

See above. You are saying you have no idea what I'm saying in quote 1 but are saying that you don't disagree with quote 2, but it's the same point made in a different way.

You're going to have to explain what you don't find clear about what I wrote. Presumably you think that choices occur in a universe with some determinism. Presumably you think that a choice can trigger a chain reaction of physical deterministic events. Presumably your choice of eating a hot dog will trigger a bunch of deterministic events... suppose that when you took the hot dog out of the fridge, the cool air in the fridge caused a slight temperature fluctuation in the room that caused a water droplet to form on a glass. So now you have a choice about how to explain what caused the water droplet to form on the glass. You can say you are THE cause of the water droplet forming on the glass or you can say that the temperature fluctuation is the proximate cause of the water droplet forming on the glass. I'm not denying that there's a sense in which you are THE cause of the water droplet forming on the glass, but I am saying that your contention that it's arbitrary circle drawing to say that the temperature fluctuation is the proximate cause is unwarranted.

That's fine, but I don't see how consciousness or the solution to the hard problem of consciousness relates to free will. I'm also claiming that most of the points you've made about meaning fail to demonstrate the relationship.

Under determinism, there distinction is arbitrary. I don't see any place where you're somehow defining something non-arbitrary.

No, I'm saying the exact opposite of what you're saying. I'm saying that you're engaged in a process of ARBITRARY circle drawing. You're trying to tell me that it's NOT ARBITRARY.

Suppose I was asked, "Why did that droplet appear?" If I answered, "It's because I opened the refrigerator door," would anyone disagree with that? If I answered, "There was a temperature drop in the proximity of the cup, causing condensation," would anyone disagree with that?

The distinction, however, is that you cannot trace backward ad infinitum. In fact, it can be traced back only as far as a particular freely-willed decision. I wanted a hot dog, which triggered a series of events which led to the water droplet. You could *NOT* trace this all the way back to the big bang, and therefore declare that the big bang did it (as you would be able to do in a deterministic universe).

Some conceptions of consciousness require intentionality. Intentionality is required for free will.

I don't know if I can make my point better, so if there's no lateral way to make progress on the issue then we can move on. Just keep in mind that my case is also that if it's arbitrary 'under determinism', it's equally arbitrary under libertarianism.

I wasn't referring to that, I was referring to the difference between your prolegomenon that 'you had no idea what I was saying' and then 'not disagreeing' when I was using two examples to make the same point.

You are making my case. Nobody would disagree that it's 'because you opened the refrigerator door' and nobody would disagree that 'the temperature drop in proximity of the cup caused condensation'. Nobody disagrees because there's a clear distinction between the kinds of causes being talking about: ultimate and proximate.

Your choice is the Big Bang. Your choice is THE ultimate cause of the condensation on the glass. If your choice is THE cause of the condenstation AND it's arbitrary to make proximal distinctions about non ultimate causes under determinism, then it's equally arbitrary to make proximal distinctions for deterministic events that are caused by choices. Are you actually willing to say that in a universe with free, rational agents who reason scientifically it is senseless to distinguish 'the moon caused the tides' from the 'protoplanetary disk caused the tides' from 'the big bang caused the tides'?

You are aware that even if intentionality is required for free will, it does not follow that free will is required for intentionality? At any rate, these links are so tenuous by any neutral survey of the philosophical terrain that one should avoid using the indicative.

The short answer is that we're talking past each other. In a deterministic system, you're right that THE ultimate cause is the big bang. In a libertarian view, THE ultimate cause may be "me." In the libertarian view, unless you can trace a free-willed decision between the creation of the earth and moon and the big bang, you're right to say that you can trace tides all the way back to the big bang. But not every event can be traced that far back. This is the fundamentally what the negation of determinism means.

<sigh>

Nowhere does it seem to me that you are asking for a particular direction to the implication. You're merely asking for a relationship between the two concepts. I have provided this.

Alright, I'm happy to leave it there from my side of things. If you want me to respond to a specific point you made let me know.

Ok, it was a low blow, but I do feel you were hovering on the other side of the implication in some of your earlier comments about symbols and thinking. As I say, I'm not an expert. I have some schooling in this stuff but I'm mostly reporting what I remember other people have said about it. My sense is that people who are inclined to affirm free will have a different set of views about intentionality from those who are inclined to deny free will. But it's also my sense that those who might be inclined to affirm free will have not been able to derive an argument for free will from their views about intentionality. I'll mention again Searle, also Thomas Nagel.

I can grant this.

This is a statement as fact of something which has not been demonstrated. Unless you mean that "if there is free will, there must be intentionality" instead of "if there is intentionality, there must be free will."

You meant, "not sufficient" correct?

That makes it impossible to discuss any implications for consciousness in the context of this discussion.

You make a statement. I refute it based on how I define consciousness. You state that that wasn't what you meant by consciousness. That gets boring fairly quickly.

Yes.

That's fine with me. I'm not here to entertain you.