Re:Laws of Physics Can’t Trump the Bonds of Love
by gnaritas on Wednesday December 26, 2012 @03:50PM
(#4970837)
> If you aren't conscious of it, how do you have any control of it?
Define "you". It's your brain, it's all you. You don't control you subconscious behavior real-time, but you do control it because you programmed it and you can reprogram it.
> That is, each brain state is based on causal antecedents of both internal and external factors.
Yes, but those internal factors are things like your past experiences, and thus are you.
> The brain is not "making" the decisions, they are made.
Semantics; they are the same thing.
> It makes no sens to say that "you are your mind" because there is no evidence for a "mind."
What? Mind is just a word, not a physical thing, to describe the state of the network that is your brain. Mind is what the brain does.
> Just a hunk of meat in the head of that same person, all wrapped up in itself, not separate at all, that happens to be the part of the body that lends itself to acting.
Of course it's just a hunk of meat, but it's not just meat, it's processes, those are the mind.
But I'm not actually claiming there is or isn't free will, read my statement again; I'm simply saying that detecting an action before you're aware of it doesn't prove or disprove free will.
If I consciously train myself to say "shit" every time I hear a particular word to the point where this behavior becomes sub-conscious and automatic, as all learned behaviors eventually do, that doesn't suddenly make it not my free will. It's still my brain, I trained it to do that, it's responding in the manner I previously chose, it's still my will.
Define "you". It's your brain, it's all you. You don't control you subconscious behavior real-time, but you do control it because you programmed it and you can reprogram it.
> That is, each brain state is based on causal antecedents of both internal and external factors.
Yes, but those internal factors are things like your past experiences, and thus are you.
> The brain is not "making" the decisions, they are made.
Semantics; they are the same thing.
> It makes no sens to say that "you are your mind" because there is no evidence for a "mind."
What? Mind is just a word, not a physical thing, to describe the state of the network that is your brain. Mind is what the brain does.
> Just a hunk of meat in the head of that same person, all wrapped up in itself, not separate at all, that happens to be the part of the body that lends itself to acting.
Of course it's just a hunk of meat, but it's not just meat, it's processes, those are the mind.
But I'm not actually claiming there is or isn't free will, read my statement again; I'm simply saying that detecting an action before you're aware of it doesn't prove or disprove free will.
If I consciously train myself to say "shit" every time I hear a particular word to the point where this behavior becomes sub-conscious and automatic, as all learned behaviors eventually do, that doesn't suddenly make it not my free will. It's still my brain, I trained it to do that, it's responding in the manner I previously chose, it's still my will.