Creation Vs. Evolution = Free will Vs. determinism

MrJack, I don't have the quote but somewhere in one of Antonio Damasio's books on the brain he describes a study where people are asked to move to choose something and report when they are aware or conscious that they have chosen and then they move and do it. The thing is that the experimenter were monitoring nerve potentials and the "decision" for the nerve to fire occured before the awareness of the decision. This is part of Damasio's discussion of the unconscious. So who decided? and how? and what then is the function of self awareness? And even moe difficult is "what is consciousness"? "what is conscious phenomena"?I think it's time I checked out Damasio's books again and reread them.I couldn't find the quote from Wittgenstein that I wanted but it's the one where he asks that you imagine a butterfly and then change nothing about it except that it is ugly. Well, in issues of choice let's say you hated eating raw liver, now try to imagine that you love the flavor and really want to eat raw liver. You could possibly force yourself to eat it, say for a large sum of money, but could you change your feelings about it?So do we have any choices? If so what would they be and can we really know if they are "our" choices?lfen

This reminds me of an episode of 'The Prisoner' in which No.6 (The Prisoner) is put in a drugged state and conditioned, amongst other things, to take flapjacks for breakfast by being electrocuted when he tries to eat anything else. When he subsequently is offered a choice, having no conscious memory of the conditioning, he automatically chooses the flapjacks.I realise that the scenario is fictional, and I am dubious of the extent to which you could effectively produce such effective conditioning unbeknownst to the subject, but given such a situation where you have just 'voluntarily' chosen the flapjacks from a wide array of food would you then believe that you liked flapjacks? Would you be able to consciously distinguish your liking for flapjacks from that of foods you had not been conditioned to like?TTFN,WK

No. The key phrase is 'we don't know'. I can agree with this statement. edit typoThis message has been edited by 1.61803, 07-27-2004 01:45 PM

But I think you are compelled to acknowledge choices coming from nothing, not only because having it come from any material would predetermine the outcome, which wouldn't make sense, but also because anything besides nothing would most probably mean to enter valuejudgements into science. Because we all know that values apply to choices.In the common language that we all use choices are acknowledged. So both in science and common language we talk as though things can turn out one way or another. The idea that it is not true has no standing other then a rather farfetched prejudicial notion of materialism. Everything predetermined from the start of the universe, this speck of dust here... in a place as was predetermined at the start of the universe. Of course for the really bizarre beliefs you have to look to the culture around modern science, there is simply no comparison among traditional beliefs that are even remotely as bizarre.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I'm not so sure it such boils up. I have been able to notice that B.Russel's THOUGHT (which then could up to near today contain the carrer of Quine etc etc) IN A DISMISSAL OF A MATH proof WAY of Cantor ADMITS LOGICALLY (RUSSEL KNOWS HE MIGHT HAVE INVERTED THE WRITING BUT DOUBTS IT...)that he might have 'priveldged' not order. Gladhysve is correct to doubt this (mine) use of his work if there is NOT a relation between order complexity and life but should his notion of deceleration of biologial change exist (AND I WILL WRITE that iT DOES)then the nexus is between how defined acceleration and hence any slowing of evolutionary discourse (DUE TO HUMANS WRONGLY SPEEDING UP THE TALK) is. It would be possible by using ONLY THE HISTORY OF PHYSICS LITERATURE to show that this possibilty has either been excluded from evolutionary discourse philosophically or else the ICR conversion mechanism criticism and lack of application of Georgi's classic phenomenology are lexically but not grammatically necessarily the same thing! It may be that the test of it will ONLY be with purely random inputs if the voice gets this loud but I just dont know. Yes Will Provine in his personal conversion did not think that we had any FREE will but he like GOULD would likely have said that Aggasiz's difference between size and kind relation was obsolete. Freely thinking both creationism and macrokinetics seems to remand lingo that did not necessarily but might sufficently restict the reality to the e/c side. Again, I can say I dont know.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 07-29-2004 12:01 PM

The only sentence in this entire post that makes a lick of sense.

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

With all respect Syamsu, "modern science" has proponents and opponents of determinism. It need not be a anti-religous issue. Causality and Freewill can divide a room of scientist just as well. Slandering science for suggesting causality/materialism is pointless. (Save perhaps for getting under Wounded King's skin.)

You don't want to do that, there's barely room for me in here.

I don't think this is really true that there are any proponents of determinism within science. There are no scientists who within all the science they accept, don't describe things turning out one way or another. It would almost certainly render them incapable of doing their job properly if they adhered to determinism strictly within science.After being criticzed for my own ideas about randomness coming from nothing being weird, and general disparagement of religious beliefs by many determinists, I think it is healthy to point out this big pink acrobatic elephant putting the speck of dust in it's place at the start of the universe, as what determinist beliefs are basicly all about.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Well you are obviously entitled to your opinion but you haven't provided one scintilla of evidence which would lead me to agree with it.Isn't this almost exactly the opposite of what you said on the other thread we discussed this? There you were claiming that evolutionary scientists were incapable of describing a situation where there was a choice of outcomes, perhaps you don't consider them 'real' scientists.You claimed previously that 'uncertainty is an integral part of current science', but failed to expand upon what you meant by this, could you explain in some detail? Were you referring to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Chaos theory or some feature of stochastic phenomena in science?There are religious determinists, there are atheist determinists, there are religious indeterminists and atheist determinists no particular view on the existence of god neccessitates believing in either determnism or indeterminism. There are accepted theological positions both in favour of and against the existence of free will. There are plausible scientific hypotheses for both a fundamentally deterministic or indeterministic universe. At the moment we are incapable of discriminating which is more likely. The mere fact that people experience feeling as if they have made a choice shows nothing other than that people commonly experience this feeling. Believing in determinism does not mean that we are automatically capable of accurately predicting everything. There is no mental disconnect neccessary between believing that the universe is deterministic and that, to the best of our ability to resolve, a situation may have a number of possible outcomes.TTFN,WK

Impressive Syamsu, nonsense from end to end.No-one is compelled to acknowledge that choices come from nothing simply because they cant describe exactly where they do come from. The fact that its having a material basis would predetermine the outcome, not neccessarily true but we'll allow it for the sake of argument, doesn't produce an argument against its having a material basis and would make perfect sense. You then come back to your old hobby horse of the evil of value judgements in science. I can't for the life of me see how you can possibly hope to argue that a deterministic philosophy would introduce 'value judgements' into science, what it woulkd actually do is give the lie to our perceptions that we prodcue meaningful value judgements which lead us to make informed choices of our own free will. Once again it is simply a question of Determinism Vs. Free will, the materialist/ athesist factors you are trying to introduce are totally redundant.TTFN,WK

Well, I am still after some such "determinism" that is determinable of a sort. But alas I am not "in" 'science.' Mark, I will respond, hold the horese first. WE NEED A SCIENCE of "kind of distance" In B. Russel's sense. Only after such can we actually have a scienitific discussion which could obviously oust c/e from any e/c once and for all. Croizat for instance could be read as to have created a METHOD against Agassiz's correlation (in turtles I KNOW to Kantian intuition)but first we must a have a first and a last which Gladyshev asserts one terminal of WHILE figuring out by Godel numbers of some other Calculus just what the STASTICS of strech and distance is (per vicariance etc or more reductionistic)IN THE THOUGHT OF transfinite enumerations DO NOT have the same quality to (for instance any Kaledscope of RECURRENT MUTATIONS)as the natural numbers do AS TO CORRELATIONS. I DEFINITELY DO PERCIEVE AND just about can say I also concieve for the nth time some order here which is just a number for aggasiz something near or ideal to FOUR"". This makes a different writing than Gould did on conditions of existence vs laws of growth. But Assume much more than we know just to get the words in.So if MY reading of Croizat trumps the NZ's than there might be the old style determinism IN the linear supposition of quantum Shrodinger MenTAL COPIES but this last is not recollectable to me but might exist in the OTHER END of some such equilibrium could it be ecomically existant beyond the mere definition I still attempt to write.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 07-30-2004 10:29 AM

couldn't have put it any better or worse myself... or could I ???... given that i don't really know who I am or Do I ???Off topic has anyone noticed the similarities between the kybalion and string theory ???

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It may be that the test of it will ONLY be with purely random inputs if the voice gets this loud but I just dont know.

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Brad,Is this voice you mention dictating your posts?lfen

NO,
Thanks for asking.
The prob. is that Georgi Gladyshev speaks about differences between Boltzman,Clausius, and TWO different directions of research in GIBBS but Shrodinger in a LECTURE on Statistical Thermodynamics discusses Gibbs in more than one "way" when the notion of "mental copy" is operative. I have not honed my understanding of Physics far enough to KNOW this but I dont doubt that some physicists and somescientists I might critcize for other reasons (F. Dyson etc) do or could know it. This is a matter of INTERPRETING equations, formulas and symbols but as I am having MORE problems than I THOUGHT were occuring here with the WORDS (let alone the signs for the numbers etc etc) this is not determining my own writings even yet, yet it was a fair question and I am glad you asked. Thanks. Brad.