Philosophical Ramblings Thread

**Montmorency** · 09-30-2014, 12:20

Ship of Theseus: Not only is measure unceasing, it is continual as well.

I'll be posting another de-anthropic screed once it has faded out of meatspace memory.

**Montmorency** · 10-03-2014, 20:42

Nah, it's not like they're piqued. Here you go:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Note. however, that though I largely agree here with respect to a mutual redefinition and collapse of emotion and reason in terms of their characteristic impact on cognitive processing and function, my position in general is that the tacit assumption underlying this research that there are such things as decisions is untenable. This concept is an artefact of traditional, mentalistic, formulations of human action and do not denote or correspond to any veridical biological or physical process. It is empathetically straightforward to see how such a concept could arise from the murky and seemingly-irreducible depths of intuition, while leaving aside even the issue of intentionality (if only for a moment): the motor output of animals in general, and of humans in particular, appears in our observation to be engendered by a discontinuous proximate factor. That is to say, our folk understanding of decision is that either there is a point in some unspecified stages of cognition at which that which was previously undetermined or underdetermined becomes integrated into some larger causal chain, or motor impulses - perhaps even entire motor plans - emerge fully-formed and all-at-once as functional entities with neurobehavioral consequences. What is retained between the two proffered interpretations is the fact of discontinuity; in both cases, there is a sense that there is a single point at which a "decision" appears deus ex machina, as though from some black box, and uniquely divides the past from the future in some way. These are basically the ways in which human conduct is understood and articulated when it comes to the concept in question.

In the first case, there is clearly a connection to the similar intuitions underlying notions of intentionality. This is understandable given that decision is understood to be precisely the mechanism through which intentionality can be exercised or expressed. As I have already dealt elsewhere with the problems plaguing concepts of volitional cognition, I will focus here on separate considerations leading one to abandon this interpretation. The articulation of the second case is more suitable for the cognitive sciences in that it attempts to present decision-making as a physiological process, rather than an ineffable or mystical one. However, it is typical for theories of decision (e.g. Barnes & Thagard 1996) to describe some series of events as participating in the "decision-making process" 'leading up to' the decision, while ultimately leaving the decision itself as some sort of discrete and irreducible intuitional item. Ultimately, we see that this interpretation is merely the first given the fig leaf of elaboration within a scientific context.

The problem here is that a basic understanding of the activity of the nervous system is inevitably in conflict with any description of its function that introduces discontinuities. If one acknowledges that physical causality - and this is the only sort that has been credibly elaborated - is a continuous process of the regular interaction in properties of matter-energy, then one can not unhypocritically admit scenarios in which causality somehow disengages momentarily, and certainly not on the basis of anthropocentric special pleading. The like would be to infer from the information given by a computerized graphical interface that the processor itself generates continual impulses of electric potential from within that result directly in the display that we readily observe. The units of the brain, then, are ever in action, and the continuous fluctuation of neuronal activity produces continuous fluctuation in and modulation of both cognitive and motoric activity. There is no sense in which the system features a build-up of activity toward some conclusive release that creates a "pre-coordinated" behavior, nor is there some metaphysically-marked bubble in which an unspecified selectional mechanism mysteriously spared from vicious regress commits to such a formulated and formalized "plan" at the beginning of Time, at every instance.

Fundamentally, the problem is with basic philosophical concepts. The fact of the matter is that the notion of "decision", in attempting to account for how we come to do what we do, actually hand-waves away this very thing while merely describing - from a buffered position of etiological ignorance - observable output. For instance, when we say,

"John decided to buy a pizza, so (that's why) he bought a pizza"

we are simply invoking a potential motor-orientation to a potential future to retroactively explain a concluded event, e.g. the buying of pizza by John, with reference to what must serve as a First Cause (i.e. the decision). We likely do so in some sense on the basis of and in analogy to our own private, and likely phylogenetically conserved and shared, intuitions and assumptions about our so-called "inner lives". Moreover, as we can not directly observe the immediate or long-term functioning of the nervous systems of "decision-makers" (i.e. "agents" or "actors"), even our own, we can not perceive how readily-observable (i.e. "overt") events, such as the movement of objects under gravitational force, impinge dramatically and continuously on brain function and physiology such that all events, covert (i.e. "mental") and overt, are determined by them.

Thus, the idea of "decision-making" is a heuristic for attributing an etiology to the output of so-called "actors" that is envisioned as open qua cause yet closed qua caused. This open-closed system may in fact be the same structure of our consciousness, a proposal that if correct would parsimoniously and mutually account for why humans have developed these concepts of "decision" and "volition". Hopefully, a program of "the de-anthropomorphization of man" will allow humanity to think past its intuitions and finally dismiss notions for which there is not and can not be a mechanistic conceptualization.

Related: Is thinking behavior?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

In describing thinking there is a lack of external conformation possible that any observer or the free-floating reinforcements can access. Thus, there is no connection between a specific covert behavior and a potential reinforcer. Thus, there is no way to show an increase in the future probability of occurrence of a target covert behavior occurring when the potential reinforcer was delivered.

Our covert behavior [including thinking] has several problems as a behavior class.

1. it is not sensed and can’t be verified or falsified
2. it does not have standard units of measurement
3. results will depend on the way it is measured
4. it is experiences through filters that transducer it to something else based on history and context

1. vocabulary
2. environment context
3. culture
4. in articulation of aspect (what parts are of interest – dreams, impulses, value, etc.)
5. unknown empirical properties

Ultimately, the products of processes generated from within the ‘vault’ of the listener are routed and locked there. Everyone will continue to investigate how and what is going on there with whatever methods that can be mustered. Today the neurosciences are taking their shot at deciphering the relationships between what is going on inside our head and what we experience. To that end they are using 19th century models of man and behavior mixed with decrepit autonomous man inklings and sophisticated 21st century technology and chemistry. For some there is value in how they postulate the working of man and his mind. Those values are the same as postulated 2000 years ago and haven’t benefited our species as much as science methods have benefited biology, chemistry and anthropology. The value to science will depend more on changes in approach to man than the power of the magnet used in a portable fMRI.

Any set of the things related to what happens when someone is thinking is all just that, related to thinking for that person and not thinking itself. All the covert events can be related to things associated with other behaviors done when a person is not thinking as well as when some are thinking. The set of responses become associated as events related to a state that may be referred to as ‘thinking’ for that person who, when asked, “What are you doing?” or “Why don’t you answer me?” may report, “I was thinking…” and otherwise communicate something the other person will probably relate to as a set of private covert actions (events) that can be arbitrarily called ‘thinking.’

[...]

Great thinkers as well as the delusional philosophers, pontiffs, despots and princes and even the man and woman on the street have been reinforced for reporting their internal covert musings in subjective and fantasy terms focusing on the exhaust of the human thinking process – emotions and feelings. These 3 thousand years of focus has outdistanced the empirical study of thinking by overlooking histories of the individuals and the use of the least productive research methods NOT found in 17th century science! In the not-so-grand scale of things, it is more interesting for the lay person and the scientist alike to be enamored by the fantasy than by the environmental contingencies. We pay for that interest every day we live on this earth.

decrepit autonomous man inklings

That's bloody brilliant. I'll use it forever.

**Montmorency** · 10-11-2014, 06:07

ACIN, would you agree that there is no such thing as "life"?

**Montmorency** · 10-11-2014, 06:51

Originally Posted by Fool

Steameth not this city with the fumes of slaughtered spirit?

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

What was it that first made thee grunt? Because no one sufficiently FLATTERED thee:—therefore didst thou seat thyself beside this filth, that thou mightest have cause for much grunting.
—
That thou mightest have cause for much VENGEANCE! For vengeance, thou vain fool, is all thy foaming; I have divined thee well!
But thy fools'-word injureth ME, even when thou art right! And even if Zarathustra's word WERE a hundred times justified, thou wouldst ever—DO wrong with my word!
Thus spake Zarathustra. Then did he look on the great city and sighed, and was long silent. At last he spake thus:
I loathe also this great city, and not only this fool. Here and there— there is nothing to better, nothing to worsen.
Woe to this great city!—And I would that I already saw the pillar of fire in which it will be consumed!
For such pillars of fire must precede the great noontide. But this hath its time and its own fate.—