I seem to remember you made the exact opposite argument in favor of solipsism, when someone argued something ala "why would one follow the boring rules of nature if this was all a creation of my mind".

Does everyone that believes in "the mind" believe that it is the "mind" that is the active agent?

No, my argument about solipsism is more a brain-in-a-vat argument. If we assume that physical reality exists, and if we assume that it exists as it appears to us, then we quickly reach the conclusion that human behavior is a physical phenomenon that arises through physical mechanisms.

I just don't think it's safe to assume that physical reality exists. The model of reality is just a model.

We really have no other choice than to assume it exists and go along with it.

I am a machine.


Thank goodness. Being a machine allows me to do things.

I scanned through the Frankfurt part. It reminds me of an example Craig gives:

Scientist (S) wants Jim(J) to kill George(G), but doesn't want to force him. J has indicated he might want to do it. So S plants an electrode in J's brain which he can use to force J to shoot G. Then, if J decides to shoot G without S using the electrode, he has done so freely, even though he had no actual choice.

Here:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...s/newcomb.html

Is a very good discussion by Craig on Newcomb's Paradox, which explores the issue of God's foreknowledge and free will.

Input-process-output.
senses/information-brain-decision/behaviour

The point of contest is wether or not the brain, or processing step, is mechanical in the strict sense or not. Correct?

Good point. I agree.

I dont quite grasp how one would think that a non-brain 'mind' exists but that the physical brain is all that does things.

Ghehe, from one of my favorite games; Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri.
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
* Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 (Subject termination advised)

I agree with Nielsio, we have no way of finding out, so we have to go along with reality.

But you are arguing as if the mechanisms are known and they are not, which is a huge gap in your reasoning. That everything is "physical" doesn't change zilch. I don't even understand the point of stating it, because it doesn't mean anything. It's as meaningless as saying "not everything is physical". The point is everything, not what you decide to call it.

And thb, I still don't think your argumentation on solipsism and free will is compatible. All I would have to say is "the world is a result of your mind having free will" and it would seem it collapses. Not that I believe that, but as an argument to prove lack of internal consistency it should be sufficient.

I think there is overwhelming evidence that our cognitive processes are the result of our brain. My cognitive processes, specifically, are an exception as they exist a priori. But they're easy to fit into the physical model. I can as readily view the workings of my mind as the product of my brain as view the workings of my left arm as the product of my body. Neither is justifiable from a strictly ontological perspective, but the model that enables them is ontologically justifiable. Nielso may have put it a bit simplistically, but he illustrates the functional value of working with an "external world" well enough. I can pretend the world around me doesn't exist, but only until I start to get hungry and cold.

As for everything being physical, that's not what matters. What matters is that there is even more overwhelming evidence that our brains work based on chemical reactions as that our cognitive processes work based on our brains. Those chemical reactions are known to be largely deterministic. The only other premise I need is that you can't get indeterministic results from a deterministic process. Given that, the fact that deterministic chemical reactions create the brain, which creates cognition, implies that cognition itself is also deterministic. What you want to classify as "physical" is irrelevant. I only bring it up because I do make the distinction (based on my solipsism).

There is nothing in my experience to indicate free will. The idea of free will is something I encounter only as an aspect of the external world. That is why I approach the idea based on my model of the external world. More and more people are certainly growing up in environments that strongly promote an indoctrination into free will being an ontological necessity. But for me (despite being raised in such an environment) it didn't "take."

Your cognitive processes - without trying to sound new ageish - are the result of the universe. If you limit it merely to your brain you're much more of a dualist than I am.

At the very least you should include your body and immediate surroundings, because that has as much directly measurable empirical effect as that of your brain.

As far as Nielsio is concerned, I agree with him - he has no free will.

Yes, so now suddenly the rules of nature IS an indicator again. When I make this argument against solipsism it is suddenly void because I can't know the "soliptic" decision behind those rules.


There is nothing in my experience to indicate that "will", neither free nor unfree, are meaningful concepts at all. Do you take my experience as a valid argument?

They only have an effect as inputs to the brain. Remove all sensory neurons and see how much effect . Hopefully we'll be able to temporarily disable sensation in the future, and we can get trip reports. Hormones are a bigger problem, but I'd bet that if you can completely isolate the effects of a hormone from the brain, then that hormone will not have any effect on your cognition. Physiological stimuli that result in cognitive responses are all routed through the brain prior to the response. The brain is both necessary and sufficient for cognition, and cognition can be described as a function of the brain. The sources and destinations of the inputs to and outputs from the brain are irrelevant. To the extent that we can isolate "the brain" as a distinct object, it is solely responsible for our thoughts and experiences.

The rules of nature are an indicator within the physical world. They are not an indicator outside of the physical world. The physical world exists inside my ontological reality, so using information from the physical world to refute my ontological reality is absurd.

That depends on what you're saying, and in which context you want it evaluated. You don't think volition is a meaningful concept? Or do you mean something by "will" other than volition?

that seems to cover it.

Err...no. That you can show that it is necessary for thoughts and experiences still won't make this follow. I hope you see the significant difference between the two statements.

But you use it to refute another ontological reality.


It is what it is. You don't know what it is, and I don't know what it is. We have some holistic model that doesn't really show us its nature either way.

The proposition that the brain is not sufficient for cognition is unfalsifiable. Thus far, every fully-functioning brain we've observed has appeared fully capable of cognition, and we have discovered no way to disrupt cognition without disrupting brain function. In other words, the empirical reality is that the brain is sufficient.

This will only be fully supported when we can explain cognition based on neurophysiology. But it's more than strong enough to support a belief already.

I don't accept the legitimacy of that ontological reality. It exists only with respect to the "external" world. And I don't try to make my ontological reality an obstacle to the "external" world. I've argued only recently that awareness is something that we must consider wholly physical, even though awareness is part of my underlying reality and I don't know that I can possibly believe that it's physical. The fact is, an empirical approach supports the conclusion that awareness is physical and in terms of my interactions with the "external" world I will assume that the same applies to my own awareness. I might bet my own life on my awareness being more than physical, but I wouldn't bet anyone else's life on it.

For the purposes of the model, "what it is" and "how it behaves" are the same thing.

Going from "solely" to "sufficient" still doesn't make "solely" correct. Besides throwing a brain into a vacuum is rather hazardous to its function regardless, so I'd say my case is pretty strong.

But you are not making an empirical claim, you are making a metaphysical one. "There is no free will" doesn't make any sense. If you are simply saying "there is no evidence for free will" then fine - it's all golden. I don't even believe in free will. But don't build an argument that sounds an awful lot like "there is evidence there is no free will".

Sure, the model doesn't yield any conclusive answer either way. "Das ding an sich und das ding fur mich" etc.

The mind is an illusion of control. The metaphysical equivalent of a non-interfering observer that has chosen to, forgive the poor analogy, roleplay the "thoughts" and actions of a particular brain. As such, it will roleplay the brain's belief in its own agency. Another analogy would be that the brain was a machine and the mind something almost liquid yet intangible that covered every part like a thin mold, transferring the movements of that machine into some other sort of output within its own system. This film would be a machine itself, one in need of inputs - a brain - and one that created outputs - experience. I would argue there is some limited interference with the operations of the brain machine, perhaps only systemic and very subtle, like an oiling, but that would be something for science to determine.

I'm not using the term "mind" as I normally would. Normally I would just define it (improperly or not) as the psychological understanding of the actions of the brain - sort of how programming code relates to hardware, 0s and 1s to transistors and electric impulses. Nothing metaphysical implied, of course. Here, I sense the term is being used in the way the more loaded term "soul" would normally be used, so I'm addressing this discussion from that definition.

By "solely" I mean that the direct cause of cognition is always the brain, never something else. And I said "fully-functioning." If we can throw a brain into a vacuum and preserve all its functions, then I think it's safe to predict that the brain will be capable of cognition.

Free will makes an empirical claim, and that claim is empirically false. My basis for rejecting free will is solely empirical. If people want to talk about a "free will" in a way that has no empirical implications, then I have no issues with them. So long as they want to use free will as the basis for criminal justice systems and psychotherapy treatments, they have introduced the claim into the empirical arena.

Right. So the fact that I can't disprove the thing in itself doesn't mean that I can't establish the model as internally inconsistent.

Well, yeah but it's a bit weird when your premises contradict your conclusion.


I'll have to admit I'm unaware as to what that claim is, so you will have to enlighten me. As I have said previously I find words such as "metaphysical" and "physical" to be buzzwords without significance. A sentence ala "non-physical affecting the physical" is therefore in my book very meaningless.

Which model? The only models we've touched here are some briefly mentioned brain chemistry ones.

Context matters.

The claim that many human actions in the physical world are not determined by physical principles, but are instead related to effects that cannot be observed.

Libertarian free will. A bit of a crude model, but that's the whole point.

Well, without my proposed context there wouldn't even be a brain there, fully functioning or not.

From an empirical standpoint its nonsense. Anyway what I'm saying is that going out and declaring determinism is jumping the gun on incomplete models. You keep saying free will works as an assumption to wrap one's head around things, and I'll say the exact same thing about determinism. I don't see the big deal.

Oh that. I'd say "volition" is just a stochastic process. We don't know the system well enough to say anything else. Heck, I don't even know if I buy linear causation.

I'm saying that if indeterminism exists in the human brain, it can be traced to the quantum level. There's ample support for that, unlike free will. And the big deal is, again, the justice system, psychotherapy, etc. When the obese are told things like "you have free will, just choose not to eat so much," there is a problem.

We know the system better than that. We know that volition works according to neural pathways, and that interrupting those pathways interrupts both volition and the experience of volition (depending on the pathway), and so on. "Volition" brings up over 2,000 results on PubMed, not too shabby.

Well, there is a problem if they don't eat less. It's not like they have incurable cancer, free will or not.

Nah, we don't know squat about why matter seems to be connected in the ways it is and there is absolutely no science or model as of yet that can even begin to explain in the slightest how pieces of matter can feel whole.

Current models of neural pathways are just a caveman's view of the night sky.

I am in two minds about the OP.

As creating a framework for modelling brain activity and understanding the sensation of free will the ideas in the OP make a sense. A rallying cry to the troops to motivate a new generation of neurologists maybe?

Unfortunately the OP seems to be going beyond that. Claiming some connection with underlying reality rather than a framework for better predicting brain activity. Here I think he is going off the track.

These are fine assumptions to make while developing models of physical effects. However to claim them true in some underlying sense is going a step two far. Confusing model with modelled is a fairly common fallacy.

There are a number of biopsychosocial factors that feed into their eating problems, it's not a matter of "free will." Cognitive therapy can help them, yelling at them to have better free will only makes them feel ashamed, which hurts them and everyone around them.

That's irrelevant. We know that neural pathways are responsible for cognition, and we know that they work according to the same chemistry as everything else. We can't explain how the atoms in a combustion reaction can "feel whole" enough to power a car engine, but that hardly means we should suggests spirits in the gas tank. The divide between micro and macro may sometimes seem mysterious to humans, but that is not evidence of some elan vital.

Er...some of them get their act together and sharpen up. I don't really get the "yelling" bit either. You can't tell someone to eat less or that they are eating too much without yelling it?


It's irrelevant? It's the point. You're debating as if models are reality. Why not just chose a fundamentalist religion and go with it. If you can't explain how a piece mass has volition or how it works or for that matter if it even has it, why on earth are you claiming to be able to explain its ramifications?

Throwing around the word "spirit" to make it sound like I'm making a religious argument, when all I am doing is arguing method 101 and stating that we don't know everything doesn't really get you anywhere.