As you mentioned, the issue could be if a brain is dysfunctional or perverted. (Naturally, an insane person who is "hearing voices" hear no actual voices, but their brain interprets it as being real.) I think, if you account for the dysfunctional and/or perverted brain and define consciousness (strictly, as it relates to your theory), then you would have a fairly solid theory.
It's always defining consciousness that's the difficult part :haha:
Sweet, though.
(09-25-2013, 03:15 AM)JoelCarli Wrote: [ -> ]It's always defining consciousness that's the difficult part :haha:
:haha: True.
But if you use a truncated version of previous definitions of consciousness (I say truncated because you would only use the parts of the definition that fit your theory), then that might work.
I could look into it. Not this week, though, I'm balls-deep in work :S
Can someone explain to me the argument that we don't have free will from an atheist standpoint? I totally understand it from the theist point of view, but most atheists seem to believe it too. Isn't it mostly based on the idea that our fate is predetermined by our creator, or have I always misunderstood it?
(09-25-2013, 10:32 PM)BobSacamano Wrote: [ -> ]Can someone explain to me the argument that we don't have free will from an atheist standpoint? I totally understand it from the theist point of view, but most atheists seem to believe it too. Isn't it mostly based on the idea that our fate is predetermined by our creator, or have I always misunderstood it?
I've considered it from a nontheistic point of view; if you look at it from a B-theory of time angle, it almost always entails determinism. As opposed to A-theory which states that time exists in potential branches (I could choose vanilla
or chocolate, and the outcomes will be different), B-theory states that time is
not a potentiality, but a concrete object that has already been defined from the get-go. As such, it is difficult to argue against determinism. It is possible, albeit difficult.
The other thing I've thought is, and I'm saying this from a completely uneducated point of view, that neurons in your brain fire up to allow bodily movement to occur. Does this mean that such neural firing is what allows one to think "I am going to do this", or is it the other way around, where I
choose to move my arm, and
then my neurons fire up? Don't quote me on this argument, however, as I know nothing about neurobiology.
I'm also not an atheist.
But how was time defined from the get-go? Who defined it if you aren't theistic? There surely had to be a "someone" to do it, right? Just because there may not be separate branches (wouldn't these just be alternate dimensions?) based on our decisions doesn't mean the outcome was already defined. If it does I don't understand why. (sorry if this sounds aggressive, it definitely isn't but I don't feel like rewording everything)
That's an interesting idea I've never thought about with the neurons though. I feel like there's probably been quite a bit of research on that but I wouldn't know how to find it.
That's the thing; it's more of a concept you'll find in philosophy of time as well as contemporary physics, two fields I'm a bit less familiar with/fluent in.
The A- and B-theories of time don't necessarily aim to refute nor prove theism, but I think that you asking how time already has been defined from the get-go and by "whom" is like asking how and by "whom" the universe was created in the first place. Again, from an uneducated perspective, within the scope of the B-theory, I would think that along with space, time, being concrete (not in the sense that I can touch it or see it, but rather in the sense that it is not a potentiality like in the A-theory, and that the future and the past are both very real, set in stone, existing entities), was, or is, created and dictated by whatever agent allowed such entities to exist.
In other words, the big bang, if it is our true origin, would have created both space and time at its initial singularity. Likewise, from a theistic sense (ignoring the fact that, according to alleged recent studies, the big bang's singularity theory suggests theistic creation), a being that we'll call God, be it a giant bearded man in the clouds, a pantheon of gods and goddesses, a heavenly Mother, what have you, created both time and space. Remember that in modern physics, it is virtually accepted everywhere that space and time are one and the same, so it could be that, like space, time just "is".
(there also exists a C-theory, combining elements of both former theories, although I'm not familiar with it)
What is also interesting is to look at it from a pantheistic perspective. Carl Sagan said that the bearded man vision of God is "ludicrous", but that his vision of God, being the uniformitarian laws of physics of the the universe, is very truly real. Sagan described himself as an agnostic or an atheist, but his definition of God certainly resembles Spinoza's philosophy that God is the universe, i.e. pantheism. So from that perspective, I'd have to assume that time is a byproduct of God's spatial existence (time doesn't emanate from God's spatial existence; rather, both its spatial and temporal existences are parallel). Does this mean that this version of God, aka "nature", has free will? Extending from that, does it mean that we have free will? Or that God can grant us free will?
*Note: Sagan and Spinoza both presented conceptions of God that aren't personal, i.e. the god of Abraham, the Hindu Trimurti or Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrianism.
You'd probably have more luck getting a clear answer from Danjo or Debbie with this though, seeing as they're more of the science nuts around here.
Okay just so you know I'm not gonna have a chance to read and respond to that for a while, so don't feel shunned :p
