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riverc0il 
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 Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject:
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| MadArchitect wrote: |
| Didn't you (or Wegner) just suggest that there is no reason to suppose a causal relationship between "I think..." and "it happens"? And from a deterministic perspective, why would an illusion of control even be necessary? It seems a waste of resources if we don't actually have some measure of control. |
An illusion of control is not necessary but Wegner proves it is there through research that suggests decisions are made before we are conscious of them. As far as a waste of resources, I think it is more a matter of interpreting our consciousness, thus the illusion... there is no illusion if you are conscious of the disconnect between what we think is happening versus what actually is. I may have misunderstood your comment? There is definitely a link between "I Think" and "it happens" but the causal aspect is where the illusion comes into play. "I Think" is not necessarily the cause but rather the "feeling of consciousness." Essentially, this perspective would suggest that "I Think" is just experiencing the act of a decision that has already been made. |
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MadArchitect
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:04 pm Post subject:
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| riverc0il wrote: |
| An illusion of control is not necessary but Wegner proves it is there through research that suggests decisions are made before we are conscious of them. |
What do you mean "is not necessary"? Is not logically necessitated by the premises?
My understanding of the cognitive situation is that decisions are made more or less automatically, but that conscious thought gives us veto power over the decisions that are made. That's the picture derived from Michael Gazzaniga's survey of the current state of research, given in "The Ethical Brain", at any rate. If we do have some form of veto power over the autonomic decision making process, essentially making conscious choices by forcing that system to reiterate the process of formation until it returns a decision we won't decline, then there's no reason to conclude that conscious control is proven illusory, correct?
| Quote: |
| As far as a waste of resources, I think it is more a matter of interpreting our consciousness, thus the illusion... there is no illusion if you are conscious of the disconnect between what we think is happening versus what actually is. |
The illusion, if it exists, is pretty secondary to what I mean by "waste of resources". If consciousness is not a faculty for making decisions, then what is it? The alternative I suggested earlier in this post is that it's a critical faculty for evaluating decisions made at a pre-conscious stage. If it isn't that, then I'm not sure what function consciousness serves. It would almost start to look like one of those Enlightenment monstrosities -- a faculty that agnoizes over circumstances without having any impact over them. But what useful purpose is there to feeling or experiencing anything if that feeling is not part of a system of interaction?
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| "I Think" is not necessarily the cause but rather the "feeling of consciousness." Essentially, this perspective would suggest that "I Think" is just experiencing the act of a decision that has already been made. |
Exactly -- but what is gained by "experiencing the act of a decision that has already been made?" Our bodies direct a lot of resources towards thought. If all that is achieved by that faculty dead ends with the experience, then how do we explain the evolutionary persistence of thought? It seems like a supremely wasteful allocation of resources if there isn't some output. How would experiencing decisions that have already been made, without somehow turning that experience around so that it has an impact on future decisions, affect our chances of passing on our genes to our progeny? At essence, my question may be, What does it mean to experience if experience is only the aftermath of decisions that are in no sense free? |
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Robert Tulip 2
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| Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:16 am Post subject:
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| I am a fan of Einstein's comment that God does not play dice. By this he meant that even if we cannot perceive the ultimate quantum causal mechanism, that does not mean it does not exist. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle was more about the limits of human knowledge than the nature of causality. Quanta may well be deterministic, but the act of viewing them changes their behaviour, so we can never know. On Dennett and the relation between physics and biology, there was a great article in New York Review of Books, discussed at http://www.bautforum.com/questions-answers/66524-complementarity-bohr- v-einstein.html arguing that the complementarity of the particle and wave theories of quantum mechanics - neither is reducible to the other - has an analogy in a similar complementarity within biology between molecular chemistry and the biology of organisms. Niels Bohr held that organisms have their own level of causality which cannot be understood or explained in terms of physics. Hence organisms operate as free beings, regardless of whether there is an ultimate unknowable fate at the quantum level whereby their decisions are determined. |
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