In short, I would argue that nature's "NeuroSiri" is habit plus instincts, which I have already agreed reduce free will, but not to zero, for reasons already discussed, in my very first posts in this thread, and relating to the conscious mind's ability to change a previous decison, if there is the time and the motive. Call it anecdotal evidence if you like, but I supect it is part of the human condition- in my own experience, such delayed memory effects are most likely caused by temporary distractions, which may or may not have external causes.

DavidMcC wrote:In short, I would argue that nature's "NeuroSiri" is habit plus instincts, which I have already agreed reduce free will, but not to zero, for reasons already discussed, in my very first posts in this thread, and relating to the conscious mind's ability to change a previous decison, if there is the time and the motive. Call it anecdotal evidence if you like, but I supect it is part of the human condition- in my own experience, such delayed memory effects are most likely caused by temporary distractions, which may or may not have external causes.

The point of the NeuroSiri hypothetical is that it pops-up memories "at the last minute" that lead you to change your mind. This is not "habit plus instincts". It is some sort of unconscious background process that takes time to make connections and bring information into consciousness.

GrahamH wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:In short, I would argue that nature's "NeuroSiri" is habit plus instincts, which I have already agreed reduce free will, but not to zero, for reasons already discussed, in my very first posts in this thread, and relating to the conscious mind's ability to change a previous decison, if there is the time and the motive. Call it anecdotal evidence if you like, but I supect it is part of the human condition- in my own experience, such delayed memory effects are most likely caused by temporary distractions, which may or may not have external causes.

The point of the NeuroSiri hypothetical is that it pops-up memories "at the last minute" that lead you to change your mind. This is not "habit plus instincts". It is some sort of unconscious background process that takes time to make connections and bring information into consciousness.

In that case, it is what I used to refer to as an "idea", ie, something that pops up at the last minute, but can usually be consciously assessed before being acted on, if there is time.

EDIT: Of course, we could go round this loop indefinitely, because you can argue that the conscious assessment is coloured by emotional pre-dispositions, but that does not alter the fact that the original decision was not "set in concrete", as required by "no free will".

DavidMcC wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:In short, I would argue that nature's "NeuroSiri" is habit plus instincts, which I have already agreed reduce free will, but not to zero, for reasons already discussed, in my very first posts in this thread, and relating to the conscious mind's ability to change a previous decison, if there is the time and the motive. Call it anecdotal evidence if you like, but I supect it is part of the human condition- in my own experience, such delayed memory effects are most likely caused by temporary distractions, which may or may not have external causes.

The point of the NeuroSiri hypothetical is that it pops-up memories "at the last minute" that lead you to change your mind. This is not "habit plus instincts". It is some sort of unconscious background process that takes time to make connections and bring information into consciousness.

In that case, it is what I used to refer to as an "idea", ie, something that pops up at the last minute, but can usually be consciously assessed before being acted on, if there is time.

This is an interesting point. How do you "consciously access an idea"?

I can't simply decide to have an idea. I am at the mercy of whatever leads me to have ideas. I can focus my attention on a topic, I can take in information relevant to that topic. It seems this makes having a relevant idea more probable, but I can't choose an idea.

GrahamH wrote:. . . that lead you to change your mind. . .

Begging the question.

ughaibu wrote:

GrahamH wrote:. . . that lead you to change your mind. . .

Begging the question.

This is the way David framed his last minute memory scenario. He remembers something at the last minute and changes his mind because of it.

Maybe he is wrong and memories do not change minds. So what?

GrahamH wrote:This is an interesting point. How do you "consciously access an idea"?

Check what I wrote: "conscious assessment "
Assesss =\= Access.
Or perhaps you don't think the conscious mind can even assess an idea. In which case, what would it be for, exactly?

DavidMcC wrote:

GrahamH wrote:This is an interesting point. How do you "consciously access an idea"?

Check what I wrote: "conscious assessment "
Assesss =\= Access.
Or perhaps you don't think the conscious mind can even assess an idea. In which case, what would it be for, exactly?

So you did.

DavidMcC wrote:Or perhaps you don't think the conscious mind can even assess an idea. In which case, what would it be for, exactly?

Oh, you would not want to assume the existence of the 'conscious mind' and then ask what it would be for. No, not you, David. You're too rational for that.

Do you even understand what a tautology is? Do you understand why you're not even rubbing two sticks together, yet, let alone striking fire? A tautology is ONE STICK. You wrap your hand around it and yank furiously. Eventually something comes of it.

The conductor of an orchestra waves around one stick, but actually has other people playing along, instead of throwing tomatoes. We're not the audience, here, David. We're the orchestra. Don't pull a Harold Hill on us, again.

Wait. Don't tell me. The homunculus behind the moral action of free will is the conscious mind. Try all you like, David, but you have not yet done more than assume a conscious mind in order to assign functions to the brain activity you mention.

Cito di Pense wrote:Oh, you would not want to assume the existence of the 'conscious mind' and then ask what it would be for. No, not you, David. You're too rational for that.

Do you even understand what consciousness means, Cito?
You have to be conscious to even think that you might not be conscious, self-contradictory that that might be, Cito.
I'll tell you what, Cito, why don't you just go back to being unconscious? Unconscious people can't make posts any more than dead peole can, so it would save us all a lot of embarrassment.

I see what you did there.

Matthew Shute wrote:I see what you did there.

What did I do there, then?
AFAIK, I am only sticking with the proper meaning of consciousness, not the woo-based, made-up version favoured by some in the philosophy forum.

DavidMcC wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:I see what you did there.

What did I do there, then?
AFAIK, I am only sticking with the proper meaning of consciousness, not the woo-based, made-up version favoured by some in the philosophy forum.

This is a strange definition of woo, David. It's just that you keep flogging the crude tautology of 'conscious decision-making' as the ground of an argument for 'free will'. You take for granted that free will is generated by conscious decision making. That is, consciousness is assumed to be what is producing freely-willed decisions.

One does not have to regard consciousness as a mysterious force to see how shallow is your 'proof' of free will by means of a circular trip through the dictionary. Humans are (sometimes) conscious. Human decision-making is (sometimes) conscious. Ergo, free will. We've been over it a couple of times with you, pondering how people sometimes will themselves into making conscious decisions. It's a fucking circular argument. If you say they sometimes can't help it, it doesn't look good for FW. You end up saying that sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't, which is not the end point of an intellectual exercise.

It's not so much the triviality of the argument that shocks me, it's that you're backed into a corner, but still trying to represent this sham as an intellectual endeavour.

DavidMcC wrote:What did I do there, then?

You made a post, the content of which was tantamount to saying that anyone who questions your assumptions must actually share your assumptions, must also fail to understand this, and must fail to understand what consciousness is. Consciousness as defined by you, I might add.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_experience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zombie

Etc, etc. I shouldn't need to add that we cannot, on the basis that Cito di Pense questions the assumption ("consciousness exists"), ourselves conclude that he makes the opposite assumption - "consciousness doesn't exist".

AFAIK, I am only sticking with the proper meaning of consciousness, not the woo-based, made-up version favoured by some in the philosophy forum.

"Proper meaning of consciousness", he says breezily. Who decides what is the "proper meaning of consciousness", David? You? Consciousness has been a controversial and hotly-debated topic for centuries, but never mind all that. There was a "proper meaning" sitting there in DavidMcC's head all along! Oh, and it also really really exists. David says so. If only we'd asked.

When you speak of the "proper meaning of consciousness", do you think that you're not merely philosophising like anyone else in this forum?

When you speak of a "woo-based, made-up version favoured by some in the philosophy forum", presumably you mean any version that differs from your pet theory. Declaring that your favourite theory is "proper", and that any other pet theory is woo-based: that probably required about as little effort as it took to do your assuming in the first place.

Matthew, call me "arrogant" if you like, but, having clearly stated that I use the "C" word in the medical sense, I object to posters who persistently pretend that I mean it in the "woo" sense, when I have made it absolutely clear that I do not. Language should not be abused in order to make Cito-esque deliberate misunderstanding-based jibes. (Except, perhaps, in the "philosophy forum", where there does not appear to be any rules. )

EDIT: I do not expect everyone to accept my definition of C, but I do expect them to realise that what I mean by it is not what they mean.

FURTHER EDIT: I suspect that this is all a cynical word game, enabling certain posters to bring out the straw men and have a good go at them, with scorn, and all.

DavidMcC wrote:Matthew, call me "arrogant" if you like, but, having clearly stated that I use the "C" word in the medical sense, I object to posters who persistently pretend that I mean it in the "woo" sense, when I have made it absolutely clear that I do not.

That may be, but you also want to use 'conscious decision making' as a basis for your theory of 'free will', and 'conscious decision making' is a term from clinical psychology, and not from the medical professionals who assess the responsiveness of human organisms to their environment. When a hospital patient is deemed capable of 'making decisions related to his own care', it is a legal term and not a scientific one. If you want to say 'conscious decision making' sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't, then your insistence that you have a theory of free will comes off as 'arrogant'. The theory itself comes off as 'banal'.

Cito di Pense wrote:That may be, but you also want to use 'conscious decision making' as a basis for your theory of 'free will',...

What kind of decisions caused you to chose the wording of that post, Cito? Were you aware of your choice of words before you posted them, or not? If you were, then you were making conscious decisions.

DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:That may be, but you also want to use 'conscious decision making' as a basis for your theory of 'free will',...

What kind of decisions caused you to chose the wording of that post, Cito? Were you aware of your choice of words before you posted them, or not? If you were, then you were making conscious decisions.

"Conscious decision-making" is your language, David, but my response to that is not to think you've forced me into taking it seriously by means of some 'rational argument'. You don't present an argument. You present just-so stories. I have no indication that you seek to do more than tell the rest of the world how 'free will' is supposed by you to operate.

Would you really accept my anecdotes about what 'decisions' were involved in my 'deciding' to say something? At any rate, I'd be justifying it after the fact, and then justifying my justifications. If you don't recognise the booby hatch down which that all goes, it surely is not my problem to fix.

No, you would not necessarily accept anecdotes from me. You would 'decide' whether or not you wanted to believe them. Do you want to have a conversation about 'justified true belief'? Do you want this thread to be about philosophy in general? Will you ever focus your attention on a single concept? Inquiring minds want to know the answers to these, and other burning questions.

DavidMcC wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:I see what you did there.

What did I do there, then?
AFAIK, I am only sticking with the proper meaning of consciousness, not the woo-based, made-up version favoured by some in the philosophy forum.

Contrary to popular opinion, this isn't, strictly speaking, a philosophy forum.

JasonPhillips wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:I see what you did there.

What did I do there, then?
AFAIK, I am only sticking with the proper meaning of consciousness, not the woo-based, made-up version favoured by some in the philosophy forum.

Contrary to popular opinion, this isn't, strictly speaking, a philosophy forum.

I'm inclined to agree, based on my experience of it, and in spite of the name. I think it''s a "word games" forum!

EDIT: Alterntively, it's a head-banger's paradise!