Absolute determinism and the illusion of free will.

I'll try to find an electronic source I can reference but surely, you must have heard about the cryogenically frozen dog that cnn had a story on a few months ago.

I thought that sounded an awful lot like Vanilla Sky. But when I went looking; I did find this:
http://www.biotimeinc.com/news/041700.html

In case you missed, there was a dog which suffered from brain death due to some form of tumor I believe. The family had it cryogenically frozen after death. Due to recent advances in surgery, the tumor was easily removed. And the dog was unfrozen and its heart and respitory system stimulated. Unfortunately it didn't survive for long but never the less, the dog was indeed alive for a few seconds, respiring, and I believe even made a whimper.

I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I have never believe in individual conciousness or the self. Surely you can see where the inherent contradiction would lie between determinism and a conscious self. As I thought was quite apparent from my contentions, I only used those terms to clarify my arguement that they don't exist.

I have no idea where you got the notion that I believed conciousness or thought are materials emmited from the brain. I stated over and over again that that which "we" percieve to be thought or conciousness is really no more than a series of complex neurochemical reactions.

I have never once believed or stated that we are infact individual entities.

I view determinism as the path to compassion and understanding of fellow human beings. Only when you stop viewing yourself as morally superior, more good, than others can you put yourselves in their perspective and emphatize with others that you previously viewed as "bad". And only then can you understand the social roots that lead to problematic behavior.

If more people abandoned the current focus on just locking people up in jail for as long as possible and acting as though the problem has been dealt with, if more people viewed other humans with compassion and tried to understand them, if more people focused on the social roots that compel one to do things that are harmful to society as a whole and insisted on addressing the sources of criminal behavior, then our society would be a million times better off.

Jail is a place for reformation. The current approach of locking people up for every little thing from light mariajuana use to openly stating your disagreements with president Bush outside of the designated free speech zone is not the course that we should be setting. Infact, some districts have even insisted on throwing children in juvinille jail for such "terrorist" behavior as pointing their fingers into a gun like shape in the typical cowboys and indians fashion and saying bang or for saying such things as, "man I'm so sick of shool, I just wish it would burn down." Throwing people including children in decrepit cells and forgetting about them doesn't accomplish anything. It merely increases the likelihood that they would disengage from prosocial behavior and engage in more "criminal behavior" once they get out.

This my friend is social application of determism, compassion and understanding even towards those that you vehemently disagree with.

Bill, I am in the process of searching for the other link now. It's a story I heard on cnn a few months ago. But it doesn't seem as though cnn has online archives that go that far back. You'll be first to know once I find a reference to that specific experiment.

Nevertheless, the article you found is exactly the same thing. The only difference is that these were hamsters, not a dog, and the hamsters survived while the dog only lived for a few moments.

Both are examples of animals that have infact died, stayed dead for many years, and yet were revived back to life. And both of them thus go against the concept of a state of death versus a state of being alive that goes any deeper than chemical reactions (ie. a soul or what ever).

The evidence is clearly out there. Our emotions are determined by hormones, our thoughts by electrochemical impulses. And these in turn are dependent upon the sensory input we recieve, the food and chemicals we absorb. And these inputs we recieve, these chemicals that we absorb, these impulses that we experience are in turn all governed by absolute laws of physic.

i'm posting what i am right now because of the specific genes i've inherited, the specific experiences i have seen which formulated the neurons in my brain in a specific fashion, the proteins and hormones inside me right now based on what i ate in the past few weeks.

and each of these events were themselves a direct byproduct of what happened in the past.

and what i am doing now, which is like i said directly as a result of what happened in the past will contribute to what happened in the future.

thus if everything we do now is a result of what happened in the past and everything we do a moment from now is a result of the past and what we are doing right now, then essentially, everything is an action reaction chain that we have no control over.

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 11:57 am Post: 458075 -

I believe that our brain is no different than a very intricate and complex computer. Our genes are the basic hardware, the architecture with which to code off of us. Our experiences and the inputs that we recieve continuosly adapt and change our programming, the algorithims with which the output is determined. These algorithams are analogous to the chemicals and toxins we take in and how they effect us; the stimuli we recieve and how we steadily become desensitized to it, due to the down regulaton of neuroreceptors; how all these influences our dendritic cells to direct the growth of neurons at certain locations, to congegrate into certain neural centers, to associate in specific ways.

I believe that there is nothing more to us than this. There is no innate soul that directs our actions. We are in every sense of the word highly complex and specialized machines (directed to evolve and reproduce ourselves, with the fittest being the most likely to suceed, identical to how certain complex algorithams operate to find the simplest, most efficent process).

And I believe that our brain is no more than an incredibly complex and powerful computer. It's based upon our genes, which we have no control over, it's programmed based on the inputs we recieve, which we also have no control over. And using these two, our brain spits out an output based on these inputs. There is nothing else at work here (I challenge any of you to find evidence that we are influenced by anything other than these two mechanisms).

So if we really are analogous to computers, if there is no innate soul or being that directs our actions. If everything that we do, everything that we are is due to things which we have no control over. Then do we really have any more control over what we do than a computer does over the output it spits out? Without such a control, we clearly have no free will. Such a thing, a free will doesn't exist.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed, neither can energy. Nothing in this universe can be created or destroyed. And everything else that happens in the universe is a direct result of everything that has happened to it. Nothing else has control over what it does. If one car hits another car head on, both cars slow down. One car can't choose to simply not slow down. The car's movement is controlled entirely by the forces/influences acting upon it. So what is allows us to believe that thought is any diffent. What allows us to believe that we can do something that ISN'T controlled entirely by the forces/influences acting upon us?

The entire notion of free will depends on something, a soul persay, that comes from within and influences our actions independtly of the forces/external influences acting upon us. But as far I am concerned, to believe that is no different that the car can act indepently form the forces/external influences acting upon it, that the car can make it's own force and thus direct it's own motion. I don't believe that being able to do so merely violates a law of physics. I believe that it violates a law of logic. Something can't come from nothing. Free will/free choice also cannot arise from nothing. It is an illusion we accept to believe that we are more than mere objects. It is one that persists because the incredible amount of influences that direct our actions can't possibly be comprehended and anaylized, that the complexity of the computer that directs our actions (the brain) can't be fully understood. But never the less, there is an inherent unwavering pattern, an incredibly complex but set in stone series of actions and reactions, that underlie every decision we make.

Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:56 pm Post: 470531 -

] similarly, if the actions people take are merely the byproduct of reactions governed entirely by inherent laws of physics and chemistry, then they certainly can't be blamed for what they have no control over. in fact, without free will, there is no distinction between living and nonliving organisms. killing a human being is no different than breaking a rock in half. in essence, all that you are doing is rearranging molecules.

this is the issue joe. most scientists do believe that there is nothing in this universe that isn't composed of matter and/or energy.

the basis for this is simple, there is no evidence that points to anything besides these two. you would probably that thoughts themelves, life itself is composed of something other than these two, a soul perhaps.

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 11:28 am Post: 476927 -

I believe that our brain is no different than a very intricate and complex computer. Our genes are the basic hardware, the architecture with which to code off of us. Our experiences and the inputs that we recieve continuosly adapt and change our programming,…

Since i believe the universe consists out of either matter or energy, i believe thoughts are also matter or energy or most likely a combination of both. It has to be noted that a biochemical reaction is a combination of both matter and energy.

I would say the same to you ? based on the above. I.e.

What is observing these words?

Matter/energy.

What is observing the matter/energy observing these words?

Why does matter/energy that observs the words need an observer?

Matter/energy is. Our mind is. We are. In other words, we exist, because we exist. We think ourselves seperate of the universe, so we think our minds and the universe are two seperate entities, while i believe they are one.

It isn?t a question that it ?needs? an observer, but rather that it doesn?t have one. If it doesn?t have one, if it is not being observed how can it be said to be matter/energy?

As long as there is a separation of subject and object there is an observer that cannot be said to be matter/energy because it cannot be observed.

From dualism there is an aspect(?) of this existence, ?the observing? that cannot be referred to, as such it cannot be said to be matter, energy, or any ?thing? else.

I believe they are one as well. And in that belief I do recognize a blind spot. That blind spot being the I that believes, even though there is no I that believes.