Does Evolution Have An Objective?

So you think consciousness rather than choice is the illusion? Are you not a conscious being? It isn't at all irrelevant if one considers (rightly or wrongly) choices to be acts of conscious volition rather than deterministically predefined acts that operate independently of conscious will. Would you consider yourself to be equally responsible for an act of crime undertaken whilst unconsciously sleepwalking as you would if undertaken whilst fully conscious?Whether you agree with it or not can you understand why someone would very probably claim that "I didn't know what I was doing" in such a situation?Yet deterministically speaking there is no real difference between the two acts at all is there?

Let me clarify, I did not explain myself well. I do not think that consciousness itself is an illusion, I do think that much of what we experience through consciousness is an illusion. Our impression of conscious decision making is largely illusory, for example, and the reasons we give for why we did things are usually post hoc justifications rather than the actual reasons why we did things. Experimental work on people with brain injuries provides some particularly striking examples of this. I just don't accept the separation you're trying to draw here. You are both your conscious and your unconscious, one cannot reasonably be said to cause the other to act. Your decisions are being made by you - whether consciously or not - and so I consider them choices made by you. Hmm... interesting point. I would not consider those to be situations of equal responsibility, no. Yes, there is. Someone who is awake has their full cognitive capabilities available to them, and thus can consider and be aware (both consciously and unconsciously) of what is going on around them. They can thus be considered fully responsible for their actions. While sleepwalking someone is operating with a small portion of their mind/brain active and is probably not at all aware of what they are actually doing.An interesting side point to this tangent on culpability is to consider cases where people act under the influence of chemical substances that alter cognition. We usually consider them to be still fully responsible for their actions.

And it is exactly this that myself and (I believe CS) are referring to when we talk about freewill being illusory as a result of determinism. I know. I am not disputing the validity of the evidence. I just don’t like the consequences of that evidence. It feels to me as if I am consciously, freely and spontaneously choosing what to do. This is the illusion of freewill I am talking about. I am not for one moment disputing that the self is made up of both the conscious and unconscious. What I am disputing is your use of the term choice as being valid to acts that lack conscious volition or where conscious volition is an illusion. How is being aware different from being conscious in this context? Are you not just equivocating with a subtle change of words here? But previously you said that consciousness was largely irrelevant to choice now you seem to be saying that we cannot be held responsible for our choices unless we are conscious and aware when we make them.This doesn’t seem to add-up. We might hold them responsible for getting themselves into that state in the first place. But anyone sleepwalking or who is acting under the influence of drugs as a result of being spiked would be acting under diminished responsibility in the eyes of the law.

But it has nothing to do with determinism! It's exactly as true if the universe is stochastic, or if Catholic Scientists's third option is correct. It's just what psychology teaches us about how we make choices. Okay. What do you think about the nematode example? Does C. elegans choose? Do flies? Does a cat or a dog? Aware as in "knows about, can take into account, etc." not aware as in consciously aware. We really do need a better vocabulary to discuss these things! We're our conscious and unconscious minds; all the bits we are aware of and the bits we aren't. When sleepwalking we do not have a considerable portion of that active, and aren't making decisions in the way we normally would. It isn't about conscious vs. unconscious; it's about cogent vs. uncogent.

But if that's all we have, then the word 'choice' is a perfectly valid word to describe it. The only alternative is to abandon the word 'choice' (since nothing has choice) and use a new word 'schmoice', which has all the same colloquial meanings but has some philosophical nuance to it. This seems less ideal than just acknowledging that choice refers to something different than we feel it means.

But when people use the word "choice" this isn't really what they mean is it? This is where the objections are stemming from. But by calling it "choice" we seem to be acknowledging that choice refers to something different to what we think we mean when we use the word "choice". That we don't mean what we mean. Which is absurd.If words obtain conceptual meaning through use then maybe we do need a different word to make the distinction between the concept of choice as a result of conscious volition (even if this is a fantasy concept) and those acts which are not the result of conscious volition. Why not retain the word "choice" for what we generally conceptually mean and invent a new technical term for acts that have the illusion of choice but which are wholly deterministic?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Sure it does... The internal state of my brain that determines when I'm going to sneeze is distinct from the "me" that consciously decides which shirt to put on in the morning. Its a part of me but its not the conscious decision making me.I've never conscioulsy decided that I'm going to sneeze at some particular point. I, me, don't choose to sneeze, it just happens as a result of the conditions, including some of the internal state of my brain, leading up to it.That's certainly different that, say, which shirt I put on this morning. I figured that since it was rainy and a little chilly that I should go with the long sleeve one. When I cogitate on it, the internal state of my brain changes, and then it pops into my head that I shouldn't choose that long sleeve shirt because it was itchy last time I wore it... Before I realized it, I was already ripping it out of the closet and angrily thinking: "Get that outta here".I suppose there different levels of involvement that I, me, put into decision making versus just reacting. I meant that thinking and making decisions can change the conditions that lead up to other thinking and decision making or even involuntary reactions. Even the deterministic aspects of our brains can be changed by the non-deterministic ones. Its simply the definition of the word that people are using here Dictionary:

quote:

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Choose
—verb (used with object)
1. to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference: She chose Sunday for her departure.

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If there's only one possibility then there is no choice because that's what a choice means. I don't know how else to put it. I haven't seen that. But no, I wouldn't agree that a worm makes conscious decisions. On the other hand, I believe that you can bend the definition of the word "choose" to include some of the responses of the worms but that doesn't correspond to what we're talking about here. No, they don't. There was only one possible thing that could happen and it was happening no matter what. With only one possibility there's no choice. Impossible, there's only one possible outcome. Its been provided. Exactly!

But what psychology teaches us and what we internally believe ourselves to be doing are at odds with each other. The objections you are facing here are to do with your insistence that we apply that same word "choice" to acts that merely appear to be the result of conscious volition but which are in fact nothing of the sort. In general parlance "choice" is an act of conscious volition. I think most would apply that ability to cats and dogs as reasonably sentient creatures but not to things like plants. But drawing a definite line between entities able to make conscious choices and ones that are mentally incapable of that is a bit like trying to define the line between life and non-life. It is far from black and white.But but but but....If the evidence of psychology is correct the whole thing is an illusion anyway. Whether applied to us, cats, dogs, nematodes or anything else. The interesting question would then be whether other less intelligent creatures (e.g. cats and dogs) are fooling themselves in the same way that humans are. Again - This seems like a false distinction. Lack of consciousness and lack of awareness in terms of "knows about, can take into account, etc." are one and the same thing in this context aren't they? Is it possible to be cogent without being conscious? If not it would seem that consciousness must play a far more significant role in "choice" than you have thus far implied.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Your conciousness is entirely a part of the internal state of your brain; although the latter includes more than just consciousness. I see absolutely no reason to believe that any part of our brain is non-deterministic or - at least - that anything is happening, anywhere that doesn't rely on standard physics. That's perfectly compatible with the definition I'm using. You are choosing from various possibilities. Because you are deterministic you'd always make the same the choice but the possibilities remain and the only thing that determines which of them happens is you. Choices, not conscious decisions. Conscious decisions is a red herring. Why would it be a bending of it? This is what we're talking about here: if a C. elegans is making choices with a known and deterministic neural network that we have completely mapped and can almost completely predict and model the behaviour of, why can we not be making choices with our staggeringly more complex deterministic neural network? Perhaps you could restate for me then, because I missed it?

I'm using it describe what we're actually doing: which is still choosing. When I chose to eat Weetabix instead of Cornflakes this morning I did make a choice between the two options, and ended up eating the Weetabix. That's what we talking about when we say we chose something: we made a decision between two options.You want us to entirely reject the natural word for this process and use a different one because our intuitive notions of how it works are sloppy? I can't see what possible reason we would have for doing that. No, in general parlance, "choice" is the act of making a decision between available options hence the dictionary definition CS gave us. No, not at all. Right now, I know and take into account thousands of things, as my fingers move across the keyboard to type this, they are performing thousands of precisely co-ordinated movements, activating touch and proprio- receptors yet all I'm aware of is the letters appearing on screen as I check I am typing correctly. Obviously I am aware of these movements in the sense that my body is responding to and controlling them but consciously I could not tell you what exactly they are doing nor how they do it. It seems certain that significant parts of our brains are only active when we are in the state of consciousness, this does not mean that the consciousness itself is a vital part of the process. I doubt consciousness is completely pointless, otherwise I cannot imagine why we would have evolved it, but it is obvious from what we already know (and, indeed, from introspection) that conscious decision making is limited if it exists at all.

So when my =IF(,,) constructions make the choices they do, is each one individually conscious, or are they just carrying out the will of the entire Excel sheet?

Yes. And that is where the problem lies. Because when people talk about "choice" or exerting "free-will" they are talking about what it is they believe they are doing. They are talking about acts of conscious volition. They are NOT talking about unconscious deterministic predefined acts over which they exert little or no conscious control. Words derive conceptual meaning from usage. Whether "choice" as it is believed to be is a false concept or an illusion is irrelevant to the conceptual meaning of the term.I would suggest that a new technical term is required which specifically means acts that have the illusion of choice but which are actually wholly deterministic. "Determinoice" or "Path of reactive option". I am sure others can come up with a suitable term. From wiki on sleepwalking:

quote:

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In December 2008, reports were published of a woman who sent semi-coherent emails while sleepwalking, including one inviting a friend around for dinner and drinks.

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In terms of volition do you see any significant difference between her actions then and you typing now? If conscious volition plays no part in either scenario then deterministically speaking what is the difference between her actions and yours? So consciousness is largely irrelevant to choice but one cannot be held fully responsible for one's choices unless conscious. Can you see why that might seem like equivocation?

They are carrying out the (divine?) will of the collectively conscious entity that we know only as "Microsoft Office"........Don't tell me your spreadsheets don't sometimes act as if they had a mind of their own? The conclusion is obvious.

They're talking about the choices they actually make; I'm talking about the choices they actually make - where's the problem? I'm conscious; she's not. The difference between these two states is huge because of the way we're made. I would have thought this is trivially obvious to anyone who's ever dreamt.

Look at the complex entanglement you get when you try to enforce incoherent ideas into common language!It's simple. When there are multiple options for an agent, and that agent must decide between them, doing so is called choosing and what they choose is their choice.It doesn't matter that it 'seems to you' to be a non-deterministic process. Because they point to the same thing, so its pointless inventing a new word. There is the objective fact of choice, the thing we point to when we are discussing choice. Then there is 'what it seems to us to be' when we choose. Just because some people have difficulty discriminating between the two doesn't mean we should abandon a perfectly good word.