What motivates atheists (and/or materialists) to deny the will?

[Martin]

From your posts, I see that you have a lively ego-self that appears always to be sanguine that it knows everything and better than other fools.
...

Pot calling the kettle black.

I still don't understand the OP question, or the point of this thread, beyond another opportunity for you to prosleytize your Advaita beliefs. That always seems to be your agenda.
I don't see any possibility of meaningful discussion here, since you are clearly attached to your beliefs, and not really open to other points of view. It's like listening to a theist trying to "prove" that God exists.

 

[atanu]

The lack of a credible option.

The brain works by chains of biochemical and bioelectrical cause+effect ─ interwoven with great complexity, but equipped for decision-making of a great range of kinds.

Since the present best view is that in QM there are events that are authentically random ─ uncaused in terms of classical physics ─ it may be that such events are occasionally capable of disrupting the brain's chains of cause+effect. If so, that will break the idea of strict determinism, but it won't lead to free will.

In my view if something is immaterial, then the only thing it can be is imaginary; if anyone has an objective test that can tell the difference, I'd be glad to hear it. The same is true of things said to be 'supernatural'. 'spiritual', 'divine' &c. That would mean the soul, and any other aspect of humans thought of as capable of acting independently of the body's physical makeup (in some contexts 'mind', for example) were imaginary.

So if we postulate an immaterial soul, BY WHAT PROCESS does it decide, for example (a) whether it is safe to cross the road (b) whether to have the chocolate or the strawberry icecream (c) whether to switch the trolley to the other track, thus limiting the number of casualties to one?

If it's free of cause+effect, then the only thing it can be is random, no?

Dear Sir

Your explanation is nice. But nothing of your explanation stands independent of consciousness. And nothing is falsifiable. We will come back to this question of will later, if necessary. Before that, I will request you to clarify the followings using materialistic worldview.

1. How do you explain the emergence of ego individuals with all their mental qualities? Why the ego-less material system should give rise to mentality?
2. How do you explain the emergence of constituent mental qualities of the ego-self — the “I” awareness, qualia, sentience, intellect, ability to analyse and identify true propositions, imagination, memory, desire, will and motive — from mass, charge, and momentum?
3. How do you explain ‘mental causation: that mind exerts its causal powers in a world that is only physical?
4. How can there be such a thing as consciousness in a physical world, constituted of matter characterised by mass, charge, and momentum?

...

 

[atanu]

My view, where you see Brahman, I see brain. The brain has no means to know itself reflexively. The brain creates the conscious ego. ....

Thank You. But I will ask the age-old question. If brain is Brahman, why does it lie dead in a dead body? Furthermore, I will ask you to explain the four questions I asked in the post: What motivates atheists (and/or materialists) to deny the will? (Post 62).

...

 

[Nakosis]

Thank You. But I will ask the age-old question. If brain is Brahman, why does it lie dead in a dead body? Furthermore, I will ask you to explain the four questions I asked in the post: What motivates atheists (and/or materialists) to deny the will? (Post 62).

...

This are only my views. Based somewhat on what I've been able to research.
How do you explain the emergence of ego individuals with all their mental qualities? Why the ego-less material system should give rise to mentality?
Conscious awareness began to develop approximately 80 thousand years ago. Basically when we started cave drawings. Using art to represent reality. We began to picture in our mind and understand a connection between these images and the real world. The evolutionary advantage being the ability to plan out future scenarios and develop alternative courses of action.

How do you explain the emergence of constituent mental qualities of the ego-self — the “I” awareness, qualia, sentience, intellect, ability to analyse and identify true propositions, imagination, memory, desire, will and motive — from mass, charge, and momentum?
As we developed this ability to imagine reality I suspect we would naturally start to wonder about our place in this reality. We created a self-image to place in this imagined reality. Westarted to identify with this self-image since we really had nothing else to identify with. Motive is simply the ability to imagine a potential future and desire for it to become a reality.

How do you explain ‘mental causation: that mind exerts its causal powers in a world that is only physical?
Our brain has developed the ability to imagine practically anything. Infinite possibilities. Because of this, because of what we can imagine, we can alter our actions to bring about the future we've imagined. We can imagine alternate futures and decide among them which we want to bring about. Of course, this doesn't always bring about the future imagine but it does cause us to alter our actions.

How can there be such a thing as consciousness in a physical world, constituted of matter characterised by mass, charge, and momentum?
What is consciousness? It is awareness of our environment. A computer system can be aware of its environment. It's not that hard to understand.
The brain however has developed a virtual self. A self it identifies with. What happens to us physically the brain perceives it as happening to this virtual self. Therefore we are aware of things happening to this self. This is our "self" awareness. So our brain is not actually aware of itself, its aware of this virtual self it created and identifies with.

What happens though is sometimes what we imagine that is happening to this virtual self and what is actually happening isn't always the same. For example, we might imagine someone is lying to us or cheating on us. Because we've identified with this self what we imagine to be happening becomes the reality. So we react to the imagine reality and not actuality.

This self, this virtual self is an illusion, we agree. It is useful for survival, it allowed for procreation and continued development of this ability.

However, it is also beneficial to recognize this virtual self is not the true self. The virtual world the self lives in is not actuality. We need to be able to identify what happens to this virtual self in its virtual world from actuality. It's ok to imagine possibilities, but not to confuse the reality we imagine with actuality.

When the brain dies, there is no more mind. No more electrical activity which allows all of this wonderful existence.

This is the view I have which explains the reality I experience to my satisfaction, without a need to resort to any non-physical beliefs.

 

[blü 2]

How do you explain the emergence of ego individuals with all their mental qualities? Why the ego-less material system should give rise to mentality?

Evolution, I trust we agree, is a fact.

We can trace the evolution of the human brain from the chordata 550 mya to the vertebrata and skull shortly afterwards. 385 mya we get a movable jaw and four legs, 375 mya we're edging onto dry land, 325 mya our air-breathing ancestors the reptiles appear; and some have eye sockets like ours. Between 275 and 200 mya we become mammals, and have milk glands. 100 mya we see the early primates; 29 mya we have the great apes and proto-Homo, 2.3 mya we find early H sap, 200,000 ya H sap sap, and 70,000 ya, us, modern H sap sap (which they forbore to call H sap sap sap).

Our cousins the chimps are interesting because they tell us so much about ourselves ─ which genes give us speech, for example. Let me set out again a quote I used in another thread fairly recently, to explain why we evolved such smarts ─

... human beings [have] four times the brain size of a chimpanzee. 20% of a human’s metabolic energy [goes] into feeding the brain. Humans [are] ridiculously smarter than any other species. [...] Ending up with that gigantic outsized brain must have taken some sort of runaway evolutionary process, something that would push and push without limits.
[...]
Harry had once read a famous book called Chimpanzee Politics. The book had described how an adult chimpanzee named Luit had confronted the aging alpha, Yeroen, with the help of a young, recently matured chimpanzee named Nikkie. Nikkie had not intervened directly in the fights between Luit and Yeroen, but had prevented Yeroen’s other supporters in the tribe from coming to his aid, distracting them whenever a confrontation developed between Luit and Yeroen. And in time Luit had won, and become the new alpha, with Nikkie as the second most powerful ...
... though it hadn’t taken very long after that for Nikkie to form an alliance with the defeated Yeroen, overthrow Luit, and become the new new alpha.

It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to outwit each other – an evolutionary arms race without limit – had led to in the way of increased mental capacity.

’Cause, y’know, a human would have totally seen that one coming.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]​

How do you explain the emergence of constituent mental qualities of the ego-self — the “I” awareness, qualia, sentience, intellect, ability to analyse and identify true propositions, imagination, memory, desire, will and motive — from mass, charge, and momentum?

As above. As for qualia, I see no mystery at all. To give my usual explanation, if you saw the original Terminator you'll recall Arnie as our eponym looking out through eyes that color everything red and having down the LHS a scroll of numbers representing data about his environment. Well, qualia are our much more efficient evolved responses to the data in our environment, the memories and emotions attached to particular instances being looped in automatically. I wholly fail to see what the fuss is about.

How do you explain ‘mental causation: that mind exerts its causal powers in a world that is only physical?

The brain is only physical. What's the problem?

How can there be such a thing as consciousness in a physical world, constituted of matter characterized by mass, charge, and momentum?

The specific nature of consciousness in the sense of being awake and aware and self-aware is a work in progress. The 'Global Workspace' hypothesis is traveling fairly well so far, with some evidentiary support. In the last decade there's been considerable improvement in our understanding of just what anesthetics do to induce unconsciousness, which is illuminating too. I'm having trouble rapidly locating an up to date report ─ the usually reliable Wikipedia has a rather bitty article and there's better stuff out there.

 

[viole]

Haha viole. The OP has nothing much to do about "Who is Shri Krishna?", other than merely providing a contrasting worldview.

From your posts, I see that you have a lively ego-self that appears always to be sanguine that it knows everything and better than other fools. So, my question was "Whence your ego-self?"

...

Ego-self? Prima facie, it looks redundant. Are there ego-not-selfs?

ciao

- viole

 

[lukethethird]

This question is mainly for Hindus, but anyone can participate.

In Bhagavata Gita, Shri Krishna teaches as below.

Chapter 3: Karma-yoga

42. indriyāṇi parāṇyāhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ
manasas tu parā buddhir yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ

The senses are superior to the gross body, and superior to the senses is the mind. Beyond the mind is the intellect, and even beyond the intellect is the soul.

43. evaṁ buddheḥ paraṁ buddhvā sanstabhyātmānam ātmanā
jahi śhatruṁ mahā-bāho kāma-rūpaṁ durāsadam

Thus knowing the soul to be superior to the material intellect, O mighty armed Arjun, subdue the self (senses, mind, and intellect) by the self (strength of the soul), and kill this formidable enemy called lust.
​

The above teaches that the Soul (jivatma) is superior to intellect and that superiority is to be harnessed to gain control over lust etc.. To me this seems self-evident.

I have a question. What may be the motivation of Chaarvaaks and materialist-atheists to assertively deny their own will?

...

Gain control over lust, whatever for? Besides, wouldn't that involve denying the will?

 

[atanu]

Ego-self? Prima facie, it looks redundant. Are there ego-not-selfs?

Good point viole. That is the point of the thread. What is ego self and what is its reality?

 

[atanu]

Gain control over lust, whatever for? Besides, wouldn't that involve denying the will?

Please explain a little bit more.

 

[atanu]

Evolution, I trust we agree, is a fact.

We can trace the evolution of the human brain from the chordata 550 mya to the vertebrata and skull shortly afterwards. 385 mya we get a movable jaw and four legs, 375 mya we're edging onto dry land, 325 mya our air-breathing ancestors the reptiles appear; and some have eye sockets like ours. Between 275 and 200 mya we become mammals, and have milk glands. 100 mya we see the early primates; 29 mya we have the great apes and proto-Homo, 2.3 mya we find early H sap, 200,000 ya H sap sap, and 70,000 ya, us, modern H sap sap (which they forbore to call H sap sap sap).

.....

Evolution of living forms is a fact. Agreed. How does matter, characterised by measurable parameters give rise to phenomenal consciousness? That is the question.

 

[atanu]

However, it is also beneficial to recognize this virtual self is not the true self. ..
...

I do not follow this. What are the virtual and real selves?

 

[Nakosis]

I do not follow this. What are the virtual and real selves?

As I see it, we have a self-image. A concept of self we identify as being. A physical image, an identity, name, job, were we fit in a family relationship etc... This I see as a virtual image. these are not our true self. These are just concepts we attach to ourselves. Our real selves is a brain/CNS walking around in a meat suit. Nobody usually identifies as the brain. The brain is just something we possess. However, the brain is actually who we are.

 

[atanu]

As I see it, we have a self-image. A concept of self we identify as being. A physical image, an identity, name, job, were we fit in a family relationship etc... This I see as a virtual image. these are not our true self. These are just concepts we attach to ourselves. Our real selves is a brain/CNS walking around in a meat suit. Nobody usually identifies as the brain. The brain is just something we possess. However, the brain is actually who we are.

I will ask more questions in detail. Now, I have time only for a quick short question. Who or what has known and is now saying these as representative of brain/CNS? nI am sure that the brain never says "I am the self. I know."

 

[Nakosis]

I will ask more questions in detail. Now, I have time only for a quick short question. Who or what has known and is now saying these as representative of brain/CNS? nI am sure that the brain never says "I am the self. I know."

Exactly, the brain IMO can't actually observe itself. Our brain can never actually know itself. The observer and the brain, IMO are one in the same. Though I identify as being my brain, what I identify is still a concept. I should say for clarity, the subconscious brain is the observer. We can't even be aware of ourself on a conscious level.

 

[atanu]

Exactly, the brain IMO can't actually observe itself. Our brain can never actually know itself. The observer and the brain, IMO are one in the same. Though I identify as being my brain, what I identify is still a concept. I should say for clarity, the subconscious brain is the observer. We can't even be aware of ourself on a conscious level.

Any evidence for these claims?

 

[Nakosis]

Any evidence for these claims?

Evidence? My reasons for believing so?

Which do you question? The existence of the brain? That when the brain is damaged, a person's personality alters?

When we are under anesthesia there is a lack of memories, awareness, consciousness/subconsciousness?

That the subconscious brain is what is actually in charge. Conscious awareness is mostly just along for the ride?

I think most of this is self-evident. The reality is part of what we experience. My evidence is my own experience but there exists medical evidence I've looked into which supports my view. What are you looking for?

 

[atanu]

Evidence? My reasons for believing so?

Which do you question? The existence of the brain? That when the brain is damaged, a person's personality alters?

When we are under anesthesia there is a lack of memories, awareness, consciousness/subconsciousness?

That the subconscious brain is what is actually in charge. Conscious awareness is mostly just along for the ride?

I think most of this is self-evident. The reality is part of what we experience. My evidence is my own experience but there exists medical evidence I've looked into which supports my view. What are you looking for?

None of your arguments proves that consciousness originates in the brain, more than fusing of an electric bulb proves that the bulb is the source of electricity. It is your philosophical interpretation and I humbly beg to state that it is not well reasoned.

...

 

[blü 2]

Evolution of living forms is a fact. Agreed. How does matter, characterised by measurable parameters give rise to phenomenal consciousness? That is the question.

As I was trying to convey in my previous post, with brains, size matters, and the fact that maintenance of the human brain consumes 20% of the energy we generate means the rewards are worth the effort. All of that is physical. As to how we got that way, the quote from Yudkowsky sets out one plausible hypothesis, not least when you consider that the alpha male has more offspring than the losers.

Consciousness is a product of our material nature through our evolved genes. Looked at from one angle, it is indeed a phenomenon that provokes wonder. But then, from that same angle, so are single-celled creatures, and so are the single cells of multi-celled creatures like us ─ results honed by billions of years of survival of the most apt (and most fortunate).

As for consciousness being immaterial, no test can distinguish the immaterial from the imaginary ─ but consciousness is not imaginary, and is both generated and affected by its material circumstances. Interfere with the physical brain ─ with trauma, drugs, disease, anoxia, hypothermia, excessive heat &c ─ and consciousness is affected too. Yet if consciousness were immaterial, it should make no difference at all.

Nor is there any coherent theory of immateriality which could make it a form of existence. As long as it's imaginary, it's hard to pin it down and bring it into the lab to see how how it works ─ whereas research on the physical brains is making steady progress, including the accumulation of evidence about the origins and functions of consciousness.


Meanwhile, I hope you're traveling well in this time of coronavirus, and that things at your house are going as well as they may.

 

[atanu]

Consciousness is a product of our material nature through our evolved genes. ....

That is an unfalsifiable belief without any evidence. I have asked often how the matter described by measurable parameters becomes a self -- a subject that cognises, feels, and imagines? Any real explanation?

As for consciousness being immaterial, no test can distinguish the immaterial from the imaginary ─ but consciousness is not imaginary, and is both generated and affected by its material circumstances. Interfere with the physical brain ─ with trauma, drugs, disease, anoxia, hypothermia, excessive heat &c ─ and consciousness is affected too. Yet if consciousness were immaterial, it should make no difference at all.

Nor is there any coherent theory of immateriality which could make it a form of existence. As long as it's imaginary, it's hard to pin it down and bring it into the lab to see how how it works ─ whereas research on the physical brains is making steady progress, including the accumulation of evidence about the origins and functions of consciousness.

Breaking down an electric bulb will not prove that electricity is born of the bulb. On the other hand, recognising 'discernment' to be the fundamental nature of the existence can easily explain the vanishing of objective consciousness related to individual brains. Waves and whirlpools are temporal processes of oceans and rivers. Vanishing of a wave or a whirlpool does not mean that the ocean or the river are gone too.

Today, you and I have a conditioned consciousness that has the notion "I am atanu". Yes, that conditioned consciousness will go.

And that is the point of meditations such as lucid dreaming and lucid sleeping -- to recognise the objectless consciousness that underlies all objective experiences. Because you cannot empty your mind of all its objects does not mean that all others at your level only. I will request you to consider the following with an open mind.

Dzogchen Ponlop says in "Mind Beyond Body"

The essence of deep sleep is, in fact, great luminosity, the true nature of mind. It is utterly bright and utterly vivid. It is a dense clarity, and because its clarity is so dense, it has a blinding effect on the confused mind. When we purify the ignorance of deep sleep, when we transcend that delusion and further penetrate the intense clarity, then we experience the clear, luminous nature of mind.
...
If we have not trained our mind through practice, then we faint and lose all awareness at this point. … If we have stabilized our mind and developed some insight into its nature, then we will recognize the arising in the next moment of the ultimate nature of mind. We will see its empty essence, its suchness, which is nothing other than the … ground luminosity.​

Tibetan Buddhists say that the bardo of dying corresponds closely to what happens when we fall asleep. At the moment of dropping off to sleep, blackness occurs, followed immediately by the emergence of the clear light or ground luminosity of pure awareness, which we fail to recognize unless we’ve trained our mind in dream and sleep yoga.

Another Tibetan teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche says the following:

How many of us are aware of the changes in consciousness when we fall asleep? Or of the moment of sleep before dreams begin? How many of us are aware even when we dream that we are dreaming? Imagine, then, how difficult it will be to remain aware during the turmoil of the bardos of death.

How your mind is in the sleep and dream state indicates how your mind will be in the corresponding bardo states; for example, the way in which you react to dreams, nightmares, and difficulties now shows how you might react after you die.​

I have consciously avoided referring to Vedantic teachers but they say the same. Add to the above empirical evidence that brains of these meditators generate different EEG responses than us and you get an idea of what they are saying.

Findings from sleep science show that each state—the waking, hypnagogic state, dreaming, and lucid dreaming and sleeping—is associated with its own distinct kind of brain activity. There is evidence that memory consolidation takes place in a deep sleep. There is evidence that EEG responses of expert meditators comprise gamma and theta waves and this is just unthinkable from a classical materialism point of view. This is 'mental causation' taken to the extreme.

So, in my view, you do not address the explanatory gaps pertaining to both mental causation and consciousness. The problem of mental causation is to answer: How can the mind exert its causal powers in a world that is fundamentally physical? The problem of consciousness is to answer: How can there be such a thing as consciousness in a physical world, a world consisting ultimately of nothing but bits of matter distributed over spacetime behaving in accordance with physical law?
...

Meanwhile, I hope you're traveling well in this time of coronavirus, and that things at your house are going as well as they may.

Thank you for asking. We are doing okay -- not travelling much though. How do you do? Where are you located and how are things at your place?

 

[blü 2]

That is an unfalsifiable belief without any evidence.

No, it directly follows from the lack of any test that could distinguish the 'immaterial' from the imaginary. Without such a test, the material is the only live possibility.

I have asked often how the matter described by measurable parameters becomes a self -- a subject that cognises, feels, and imagines? Any real explanation?

Feedback, I think I suggested / guessed in one of our earlier conversations ─ the brain having an ability to be aware of, perhaps oversee, what's going on in the various specialized areas. We know there are versions of this in various specific brain functions. I haven't read anything about it as a separate topic though.

Breaking down an electric bulb will not prove that electricity is born of the bulb.

But the electricity will nonetheless be explained. The bioelectricity of cells, not least in the brain, is much studied. Whereas you can't offer any discernible source of the kind of consciousness you allege.

On the other hand, recognising 'discernment' to be the fundamental nature of the existence can easily explain the vanishing of objective consciousness related to individual brains. Waves and whirlpools are temporal processes of oceans and rivers. Vanishing of a wave or a whirlpool does not mean that the ocean or the river are gone too.

They exist because the water exists with a particular set of physical conditions applying. The water, and the dynamics, completely account for the phenomenon.

I think the sense of self is basic to being a human; let's say for argument's sake that it's a kind of discernment. The awareness of self doesn't have to be generated from without ─ it arises in the biochemical / bioelectrical phenomena that are brain function and thought. No other kind of explanation is needed.

Today, you and I have a conditioned consciousness that has the notion "I am atanu". Yes, that conditioned consciousness will go.

And that is the point of meditations such as lucid dreaming and lucid sleeping -- to recognise the objectless consciousness that underlies all objective experiences. Because you cannot empty your mind of all its objects does not mean that all others at your level only. I will request you to consider the following with an open mind.

Dzogchen Ponlop says in "Mind Beyond Body"

The essence of deep sleep is, in fact, great luminosity, the true nature of mind. It is utterly bright and utterly vivid. It is a dense clarity, and because its clarity is so dense, it has a blinding effect on the confused mind. When we purify the ignorance of deep sleep, when we transcend that delusion and further penetrate the intense clarity, then we experience the clear, luminous nature of mind.
...
If we have not trained our mind through practice, then we faint and lose all awareness at this point. … If we have stabilized our mind and developed some insight into its nature, then we will recognize the arising in the next moment of the ultimate nature of mind. We will see its empty essence, its suchness, which is nothing other than the … ground luminosity.​

I have no real idea of what this is about. I don't consider deep sleep to have any valuable parallels to dying. Back in 2004 I was more than eleven hours under anesthesia, and I was very genuinely out to it, but when I woke up, very groggily, full of relevant drugs, and in a darkened room without hour-of-day clues in it, I still knew time had passed. Not all of my brain had closed up shop. Had I been dead, there was no possibility that I could (a) wake up at all, (b) let alone have any means of being aware from within that time had passed. (There's literature out there somewhere on the parts of the brain that keep track of time.)

And I respectfully see no 'luminosity' whatsoever in deep sleep. On the contrary, the beauty of deep sleep is that it's deep and it's sleep. Nor do I understand what 'dense clarity' might be intended to denote, as distinct from connote. And I think we'll recognize the 'ultimate nature of mind' through continued medical and scientific scrutiny of how this exquisitely complex thing, the brain, in fact works.

You'll have had the same thought as I have at this moment, that somehow we're talking past each other. I hear in your quotes the requirement that we should proceed by metaphors; yes, metaphors can come in handy, but their use is to lead us to facts. And facts are perceptions of external reality, statements about the material world, which is where brains exist and function, even though the individual view, the self looking from the inside, has its own different worldview.

Tibetan Buddhists say that the bardo of dying corresponds closely to what happens when we fall asleep. At the moment of dropping off to sleep, blackness occurs, followed immediately by the emergence of the clear light or ground luminosity of pure awareness, which we fail to recognize unless we’ve trained our mind in dream and sleep yoga.

I freely admit that if anything of that kind is there, I fail to recognize it. Indeed, liking my sleep deep, I have no interest in recognizing it.

But suppose I did. So what? Could I read minds? Prove or disprove Riemann's Hypothesis? Have a late career as a world chess or world heavyweight champion? Snap my fingers and devise a coronavirus vaccination?

the way in which you react to dreams, nightmares, and difficulties now shows how you might react after you die.

Don't these guys know what death is?

Don't they know that death is the irreversible cessation of life?

Don't they know that life, like death, is purely physical?

So, in my view, you do not address the explanatory gaps pertaining to both mental causation and consciousness.

We're still learning, but in my view we're the only ones who are going to get meaningful answers to these questions. As you know, it's a truism of science that unfalsifiable claims have no demand on our attention.

The problem of mental causation is to answer: How can the mind exert its causal powers in a world that is fundamentally physical?

And as I said, it can do that because 'mind' is a vaguely defined collection of brain functions, and all brain functions are physical.

Thank you for asking. We are doing okay -- not travelling much though. How do you do? Where are you located and how are things at your place?

My SOHO keeps me busy, as it's done for the last couple of decades, my grandkids are in cities now subject to travel restrictions, but I've never lacked the skill of keeping myself busy ─ though when the smoke clears I'll be very glad to catch up on quite a few lunches with quite a few friends.

Good luck to us both. Good luck to us all![/QUOTE][/QUOTE]