Dear Peter

Where in contemporary philosophy do you find any defense of determinism?
I thought that past Whitehead determinism was more or less declared over
and done with. The last major determinist must have been Albert Einstein.
But he also hated what quantum physics taught physics as a whole. Even
seemingly determinist ideas like quantum information theory and loop
quantum gravity require an underlying separate continuum which defies all
determinism.
Having said this, I would be careful to give consciousness too much of a
role here. Neuroscience shows how consciousness is almost entirely an
afterthought to subconscious desires and drives leading to initiary action.
Damasio and Metzinger have proven this both for psychology and philosophy.
Consciousness is simply useful for us to learn from past experiences to be
better prepared for similar situations in the future. A memory and
preparation mechanism only interested in ambivalence and exceptions in data
flows. But not more than that.
Which explains why so much of psychology and psychoanalysis is devoted to
treating compulsive repetitive behaviors. They are degrading to whatever
role consciousness has.

Best intentions
Alexander

Den tis 21 maj 2019 kl 03:50 skrev Peter Lloyd Jones <
[log in to unmask]>:

> John, Alexander, Gregg, and TOK,
> It seems that we agree also that choice is better than free will because
> the freedom we are taking about when using the rems “free will" is a doing,
> not something to have. It is a verb, as John just said, and as Sartre has
> said. Sartre of course worked this out deeply on the ontological level,
> saying that freedom, choice, consciousness are all one and the same. His
> thought is that the only practical way to look at consciousness is how we
> are discussing looking at choice, that it is an action, not a container of
> things, that we are temporal beings evolving minute by minute.
> Consciousness is the life-long pursuit of being that is a doing and never
> an inert thing to label.
>
> A few years ago I read an article by a doctor of medicine who proposed
> that consciousness is change, a physical change within our brains, and that
> using AI or computing metaphors only drives us away from understanding
> consciousness. I wrote him asking if his paper was based on research he
> might be able to share and he responded that it was just a hypothesis he
> was pondering. Dang it. But another start.
>
> I am, so far, in agreement with Sartre, that we act within “a network of
> determinants.” That though does not mean that our acts are determined and
> unfree. So evolution, like conscious choice, is free to go in novel
> directions in evolving novel environments, within the context of its
> history.
>
> I am pondering whether determinism might not be a problem for determinism.
> What I mean is, there are countless determinants competing to influence our
> every choices, or our evolution, and how can it be comprehensibly possible
> that it is already decided for all time which determinant is going to be
> the alfa determinant in all events? Further, this has to be taken on faith
> as it is unrepeatable and untestable. That alone should put it outside the
> boundaries of science and philosophy.
>
> Alexander, I do think it is a waste of time to be arguing against
> determinism, but, in philosophy, there is a whole movement right now
> promoting determinism. My hope is to shoot it dead.
>
> I do like syndeterminism...
>
> Thank you all for your contributions here,
> Peter
>
>
>
>
> Peter Lloyd Jones
> [log in to unmask]
> 562-209-4080
>
> Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.
>
>
>
> On May 20, 2019, at 4:55 PM, Alexander Bard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear Peter
>
> I agree. Strongly. But why even pretend that determinism has a case any
> longer? Why not go straight to the point and cut the chase and ask in what
> way determinism predicted the big bang itself?
> Now, if the big bang is an emergence proper, as the birth of physics
> itself, we can then rethink history as emergences that create their own
> vectors. This means there is fundamentally no difference between parallel
> universes and the development of physics and later chemistry and later
> biology and later mind and later culture. They are all vectors of
> emergences in a fundamentally indeterminist metaverse.
> Actually a human life can then be seen as vector of an emergence called
> birth itself. Now that's what I call an emergence theory worthy of proper
> complexity science.
> The question is rather whether indeterminism is the appropriate term?
> Perhaps syndeterminism is even better? Especially since we do not even need
> chance or dices then either.
>
> Best intentions
> Alexander
>
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