Socrastein said:
Brain states are called such because we are referring to a third party observation. Of course observing brain states from the 'outside' isn't the same as experiencing the brain state itself. Our experiences, our qualia, is what it's like to be a brain, what it's like to be brain states. An outside observer sees electrons and neurons, because it is not privy to those actual patterns. However, the brain itself IS those electrons and neurons and patterns, and thus from a 1st person perspective, so to speak, it isn't merely outside observation, it's experience.
You say that pattern X isn't the same as experiencing the color red. However, this is only true if you are referring to what I mentioned above. Of course observing someone experiencing the color red isn't the same as experiencing it - that's not a profound statement, and that's certainly not proof of a soul. If you could be the brain with said pattern, you would be experiencing the color red - they are the same in that sense. To postulate anything more is erroneous and once again a bad violation of parsimony.
Sure, it is possible that the information of our experiences is present in the brain, as reactions, and I never contested this. But the reactions themselves, which can be measured and observed, are not our experiences, which cannot be observed.
You can't be serious. Do you have any clue how outdated your (Well not really YOUR arguments) are? The first bolded section is completely unsubstantiated, and it is not self-evident nor absolute. Quantum mechanics already has plenty of evidence to challenge this, as well as theoretical physics. Causality only appears to be a macroscopic phenomenon. Also, there is nothing inherently indicative of causality between event A and event B - we put the connection there. For all we know, events could all happen without regard to one another, and we are programmed to see causality among them.
I see that you believe physics, a natural science, may have some relevance on an argument regarding cause and effect.
First, no even quantum events are caused. If the particle did not exist and was not in such and such conditions, it could not move as it does (though the movement itself is not determined).
As for your doubting of causality, it is I who must charge you with having no clue. If you are willing to say (as, quite unfortunately, some philosophers have in centuries past) that one event does not follow from another, but that they are all just unconnected successions which are so constant to allow us to fool them for causes and effects and even to predict what will happen, then you have either discarded reason altogether or you must believe in God, who would be responsible, in such a scenario, for ordering the succession of unrelated events.
As for whether cause and effect exists: you feel hungry, you get yourself an apple because you are hungry. Cause and effect, right there on your will.
Your second bold is again completely unsubstantiated. Small violations of the conservation of energy due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principles accomodate uncaused actions, energy from nothing, and various other counter-intuitive but theoretically and experimentally accurate concepts.
This is what happens when scientists begin to opine on philosophy. Our materialist age has produced many very good natural scientists, but so many bad philosophers and theologians as well.
There is no such a thing as an uncaused movement; what we consider uncaused means no external cause (of course, there is nothing without an external cause to, at least, bring it into existence).
These arguments may have made sense back around the time of the Summa Theologica and St. Thomas Aquinas, but they are both logically and emperically flawed these days.
And here you reveal your greatest error. Logic, Socrastein, does not "make sense" at one time and at another one ceases to be. The truth is one, and cannot change; from Socrates to Einstein, the very same principles were true and will always continue to be true.
What the Scholastic philosophers believed in matters concerning physics, for instance, has been shown to be largely wrong, to be very poor representations of reality, in need of constant repair and addition of new entities for every new observation.
However, what was developed in terms of philosophy, and among these the greatest was St. Thomas Aquinas, is completely valid.
And it isn't surprising that natural sciences have gone through such an advance while philosophy and theology have declined so sharply (with notable exceptions). The first are dependent mostly on human experience, and on man's ability to accurately describe the information of the senses, with the aid of reason to postulate the principles at work behind every particular occurence. With philosophy, however, what is more important is the use of reason itself, with observation occupying a much less important position; and in this respect, mankind has been in a steady fall from Renaissance, to Romanticism, to Modernism and to the contemporary age, each one denying reason and logic to a greater extent than the past generation.
The rational person would assume that there feelings were mistaken, until they saw reason to believe the logic was invalid.
Yes, Socrastein, but if you'll read the argument attentively, you'll see that it doesn't matter whether the person's feelings are mistaken or not; the very fact that they have the experience means free will is not illogical. And yes, I have answered your argument, and continue to, over and over again.
No, I do not experience my life as though I could have chosen differently. This sort of idea comes from a lack of reflection.
So you admit it is possible to have this sort of idea.
However, it is impossible to have an illogical idea, even if it exists only inside our minds.
No Lifesaver, both logically and intuitionistically I am fully aware that I am bound by my desires and my circumstances to act the way I act, and to act no other possible way. This is quite obvious to me through reflection and rational consideration.
My condolences for your having such skewed perception, and confusing it with reason. However, since the argument presented does not rely on any individual having the experience, but on the experience being possible (which you concede-"comes from a lack of reflection").
...... I choose #2; Now it doesnt matter that you "feel in your heart" that you have chossen the number that you had because Gods fore-knowledge, Has already "beforehand" canceled out the other varibles, which mean you didnt choose anything.
