Clair Hardesty, Integrated Circuit Designer & Semiconductor Physicist (retired)
Why does the universe, being indeterministic, still not allow for us having free will?
CH: Because humans are biological systems, which are chemical systems, which are physical systems. There is no place in all of that where “free will” might infiltrate. Whether the universe is fundamentally deterministic or not has no bearing on any of that. There is no “ghost in the machine”.
DMB: Are machines objects? How is it possible to murder or abuse an object?
CH: We are complex collections or complex chemical systems. Everything that we think of as our “self” is a subset of the electrochemical processes taking place in our living brains. We are very complex machines. Murder and abuse are words we use to describe things that we sometimes do to each other. What exactly is it that makes you think that very complex chemical machines would be incapable of such acts?
DMB: Machines are ‘its’ not ‘we’. You have to make up your mind.
CH: I fail to see the distinction. We are biochemical machines. We do not do anything that is not chemistry. We are entirely physical entities. Do you have any verified objective empirical evidence that we are anything more than that?
DMB: The body does nothing that is not chemistry.
If you are nothing but a body, can I own you?
Why not?
Give me the chemical make up of revulsion,
….of doubt,
…of belief,
…of humor.
CH: I never said that are “nothing but a body.” I specifically said that what we think of as our “self” is a subset of the processes taking place in our living brains. We are chemistry, ongoing chemistry.
We don’t decide if you can own something by measuring its composition or by what processes it is doing. The notion that it is OK to own other human beings as property is a religious one that, while still sanctioned in the storybooks of the world’s major religions and still practiced by many followers of those religions, is hopefully on its way to becoming nothing more than a very dark aspect of human history.
All of the things you ask about are processes that take place in living brains. Why is this such a difficult thing to grasp? What verified objective empirical evidence can you present that shows otherwise?
DMB: “what we think of as our “self”
“we” meaning chemicals?
You think chemicals have the ability to think?
You can’t equate ‘thinking’ with ‘calculating’ (what machines do).
CH: Thoughts are electrochemical processes that take place in living brains, so yes, chemicals can engage in thinking nd calculating. Complex electrochemical machines are capable of doing more than calculating. The processes in our brains are chaotic, fully deterministic but also unpredictable. Without the chaos we would only be calculators.
DMB: What’s the difference between living chemicals and dead chemicals?
CH: There isn’t any difference because there is no such thing as living or dead chemicals. Life is definitional, not an inherent property of any sort of matter. Humans have decided which chemical systems are considered to be life and which are not. Among the chemical systems that we have defined as life, we have further defined how to determine when individual systems are living and when they are dead.
Do not confuse living and dead with life and non life. The difference between a living person and a dead one lies in the nature of the chemical processes that are taking place at any given moment in time, not in the chemical structure of the body. The difference between what we define as life and what we define as non life does lie in the chemical structure and in what processes those structures are capable of, not in what they are doing at any given moment in time.
Chemicals do not live or die, they are never alive or dead. Complex chemical systems can be alive, dead, or neither all according to how humans have defined things.
DMB: “There is no such thing as living or dead chemicals.”
How have humans defined “dead chemical systems”?
CH: When we look at a chemical system that we have previously defined as life, we make a determination as to whether it is currently alive or not based on criteria that we have set.
Now how about you start answering some of my questions?
What verified objective empirical evidence can you provide that we are anything other than collections of complex chemical systems? What, exactly, is it that you think we are? What is your evidence that shows that complex chemical systems can’t do the things that you assert that they can’t do? What, exactly, is it that you think things like thoughts and emotions are if not a subset of the processes taking place in living brains?
DMB: How is a chemical system determined to be a dead one? What is the criteria that has been set?
ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS
We are Subject (which is Nothing).
Subject abhors being objectified (machines are objects).
Nothing is the Source of all things.
Energy (Nothing) is the source of all mass.
CH: Those aren’t answers either. That is just word salad. So, somehow nothing has feelings and likes and dislikes, and particularly dislikes being “objectified” because it is “subjective”. If nothing is subjective then it is different for every version of nothing and perhaps some of the nothings actually like the fact that they are objects. See, I can spout nonsense too.
When you refer to nothing, are you talking about the philosophical notion of an absolute nothingness, or abut a real physical zero energy state?
Do you have any verified objective empirical evidence that supports any of your nonsense? It all sounds like a bunch of woo to me.
DMB: The evidence is discovered by observance.
No matter the animated (energetic) organism and regardless of the chemical make-up of its body, it will seek pleasant states and avoid unpleasant ones.
A toaster is a machine.
It doesn’t care what you stick into it.
You will notice that when you begin to lose this argument, your ego fights for survival and begins to be condescending and insulting (aggressive fight response).
CH: More nonsense. None of what you state is empirical or objective and none of it supports your previous assertion that we are “nothing”. You are all over the place. What does a toaster have to do with any of our discussion? Even if you could actually show that “No matter the animated (energetic) organism and regardless of the chemical make-up of its body, it will seek pleasant states and avoid unpleasant ones.” how does this bolster any of your positions? What, empirically speaking, is a “pleasant state”? How is this measured? What are the units of “pleasantness”? How do you tell what is “pleasant” or not to a bacteria or an archaea? You don’t seem to understand what empirical evidence actually is or what verified objective evidence is either.
DMB: That’s an invalid counter argument.
Just “saying” evidence isn’t evidence and answers aren’t answers doesn’t cut it.
“How do you tell what is “pleasant” or not to a bacteria or an archaea?”
How bacteria 'act as one' to escape [unpleasant] antibiotics:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/327123
CH: Chemical avoidance does not qualify as retreating from something that is “unpleasant”. Adding your own spin to scientific findings isn’t valid science. You seem to be anthropomorphizing the bacteria. What evidence can you provide that a bacteria, a single cell, somehow considers anything to be “unpleasant” or that a bacterial colony has such a concept? Again, how do you measure that? What are the units of “pleasance”? Where is the threshold between the pleasant and unpleasant? What is the possible range of values of “pleasance”?
How do you know that bacteria consider antibiotics to be “unpleasant”? Is something unpleasant simply because it is avoided, or is there more to it than that. Does the same standard apply to humans? What about things that they do not avoid but Kill them anyway, are such things considered “pleasant” because they are not avoided?
You are really starting to grasp at straws, and they are not very substantial ones.
DMB: “You seem to be anthropomorphizing the bacteria.”
Why does any organism eat? Wouldn’t it be to remove the unpleasantness that is hunger?
“What evidence can you provide that a bacteria, a single cell, somehow considers anything to be “unpleasant”?”
I provided it, but you interpret it in a way that suits your desire to be a chemical process instead of a person with value.
“What about things that they do not avoid but Kill them anyway?”
You have to provide an example for me to answer that.
“You are really starting to grasp at straws, and they are not very substantial ones.”
This is unnecessary to our discussion. It makes you appear to be desperate rather than interested in a mature debate.
CH: Bacteria take in and expel chemicals to maintain the makeup of their internal fluids. Calling that hunger is clearly anthropomorphizing it.
No, you interpreted what was presented as ‘Unpleasant”. I see no reason to interpret it at all. At the level of bacteria, or any other single cellular organisms it is just chemistry, it doesn’t make value judgements. Whether something is pleasant or not is a value judgement.
So, you are incapable of generalizing? There are plenty of antibiotics that are able to kill specific bacteria precisely because the bacterial membrane cannot distinguish the chemistry from normal metabolites and their systems take them inside the cell where they wreak havoc.
You do appear desperate. This isn’t a debate, it is a conversation. You seem to be on some sort of crusade to deny science and promote woo. I am just point out areas where your notions make no sense and are not based in real scientific knowledge at all.
DMB: Why would a bundle of chemical processes (you) even care enough to argue against my views?
Another point: If subject “I” is the result of a chemical process, what is it made of? If it isn’t made of anything, you’ve made the claim that the chemical process makes nothing. Are you happy with that conclusion?
CH: We are not the result of electrochemical processes, we are those processes. We did not exist before those processes began when our brains were developed enough to begin functioning fully in the womb, late in pregnancy, and we will cease to exist when our brains die or are severely damaged by injury or disease. Our brains are mode up of some 86 billion neurons and at least as many glia, along with far more support cells like the oligodendrocytes, the microglia, and the astrocytes. Each neuron can have 7000 or so connections and those connections are not static and not all the same. Our brains are very, very complex electrochemical machines and our “selves” are just a subset of the processes taking pace in them.
DMB: If you’re a process, then you are a “a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end”. What particular end is being achieved and why?
CH: Cherry picking a particular definition of a word used by someone else is inappropriate. When you don’t understand what someone is saying in a conversation, a dictionary is the last place you should go. We are not a process, we are a subset of the ongoing electrochemical processes taking place in our living brains. Electrochemical processes do not take place to “achieve a particular end”.
DMB: Good, you can be dismissed now. You don’t even know what your own views are:
You: “we are those processes.”
and
You: “We are not a process”
CH: So you don’t understand the difference between the singular and the plural?
DMB: That makes your argument even less convincing.
You, the subset, rely on several chemical processes to become a willful personality, full of arrogance.
You have nothing to show that chemical processes can produce an immaterial entity, and after asking several times, the only answer I get is silence.
How is your faith any less blind than the average religious fanatic?
CH: Being a subset of the processes taking place in my living brain does not mean that I “rely” on anything. Some of the processes are unrelated to my “self” and are taking place to assist in the normal functioning of my entire body.
What “immaterial entity” are you talking about? What even is an “immaterial entity”? I see no evidence that anything “immaterial” exists in objective reality or has ever existed.
Again, the subset of the processes taking place in our living brains do not produce the “self”, they are the ”self”. They are a subset because the “self” is not all of the processes taking place in our living brains.
DMB: People can be surprised. If surprise isn’t immaterial, what’s it made of?
CH: [no reply]
DMB: “This isn’t a debate, it is a conversation.”
It’s not a ‘formal’ debate, but we ARE putting forth opposing arguments for a particular subject.
Do you know the reason why people quibble over unimportant details?
CH: I am not engaged in an argument, perhaps you are. Argumentation is for philosophers, I am a scientist. I care about what can be shown to be objectively true, what can actually be shown to comport with objective reality, the reality that we all share. No one has ever shown that anything that isn’t physical directly or of physical origin is objectively real. In science, we make objective observations, which in modern times involves the use of instruments to remove personal interpretation from the mix, and we offer explanations for those facts that show the mechanisms involved.
Philosophers imagine what reality might be, scientists endeavor to discover what reality actually is.
DMB: But your views are philosophy, not science. You're guessing that the observer/experiencer is a result of chemical processes. You have no science to back that up. Will isn’t objectively real (unable to quantify). You’re not in the right field to weigh in on this subject. You’re saying that the non-empirical exists (pleasant states). Surely, you’re not denying the existence of pleasant states! The implication is that existence of my claim needs no empirical basis so why are you asking for one?
CH: I don’t even know what you mean by “pleasant states”. Perhaps you could provide me with a way to distinguish the pleasant from the unpleasant empirically.
Anything that is objectively real can be detected and measures empirically. The things you are describing are purely subjective, they exist only in your mind, which is a subset of the processes taking place in your personal living brain. They do not exist anywhere outside your skull. I may consider things to be “pleasant” that you consider to be “abhorrent”. These are subjective notions, they are not “states”.
DMB: You're the first person I've met that doesn't know what being in a state of pleasantness is.
“I never said that anything that is objectively real is non-empirical.”
Explain how a pleasant state (an experience; not the cause of the experience) is objective reality.
“The notion that it is OK to own other human beings as property is a religious one…”
It’s not okay to own machines?
Why not?
“…nothing more than a very dark aspect of human history”
Why so sentimental about chemicals?
“All of the things you ask about are processes that take place in living brains. Why is this such a difficult thing to grasp?”
You forgot to answer questions:
What is the chemical make-up of the following?
- doubting
- believing
- insulted
- amused
etc…
CH: Not if the machine in question is another human being. We evolved as populations of social organisms and our survival depends on our ability to express empathy and engage in altruism. These traits are the foundation of our morality.
Owning other human beings as property is detrimental to the survival of our populations. It prevents us from achieving what we are otherwise capable of. It is antithetical to our evolutionary heritage.
Do you think it is OK to own human beings as property? Why or Why not? If not, it can’t come from any major religion’s teachings because all of their storybooks say it is just a dandy thing to do.
DMB: I don’t because I don’t see the body as the “I” but as the property of the “I”. You, on the other hand, have a problem calling a complex mixture of chemicals a human being with value and dignity.
CH: No, I don’t have any problem with that at all. You are attacking a strawman of your own making. I have no problem at all calling a set of complex chemical systems engaged in complex chemical processes a human being with value and dignity.
What, exactly, is this “I” that you propose? What is it made of? How is it detected and measured? What generates it?
I see the self as a subset of the electrochemical processes taking place in a living brain. It is something that only exists as long as those processes are taking place. It did not exist before those brain processes began and it will no longer exist when those brain processes stop.
DMB: “What verified objective empirical evidence can you present that shows otherwise?”
The empirical evidence is the reality of doubters, believers, comedians, etc, which chemicals have no way of being unless you can explain how chemicals can be.
The chemistry that the body is in use of is to express physical cues that have relationship with subjective states so that they can be visually interpreted by others.
CH: That isn’t empirical evidence, it is incredulity. You seem to be conflating chemistry with simply chemicals. Chemistry includes the chemical processes that are ongoing in our brains. Those processes are what we are. Are you still not understanding that?
Can you show that there is anything more than chemistry taking place in any form of life?
DMB: You haven’t supported your claim that doubt is a chemical compound. Anyone can state a claim. It means nothing.
Until you show me otherwise, the presence of doubt is the empirical evidence to dismiss your views.
CH: I never claimed that doubt is a chemical compound. I said that it is a set of chemical processes taking pace in a living brain. Neuroscientists have confirmed that ongoing brain chemistry is responsible for our various emotions and have been able to manipulate emotions with various forms of brain stimuli. We can see which parts of brains are being used and have determined which chemical processes are involved. Use of FMRI and stimulus including electrical, chemical, and other means have shown us much of what goes on in our brains.
We have never found any evidence of anything other than chemistry taking place. There is precisely zero evidence of any ghost in the machine.
DMB: Chemical processes can’t experience anything.
A chemical process happens when you mix ammonia with bleach.
If a chemical process could produce the emergence of doubt, you could do an experiment in a lab.
CH: “Chemical processes can’t experience anything.” That is demonstrably false. All forms of life are chemistry in action, very complex chemistry.
“A chemical process happens when you mix ammonia with bleach.” That is a chemical reaction, not a complex set of electrochemical processes taking place in a living brain.
We have done experiments using human volunteers who were having brain surgery anyway and we have shown that various emotions can be stimulated and suppresses by electrically, physically, and chemically stimulating the physical brain.
Your entire argument is what is called an argument from incredulity, or maybe it is just wishful thinking, like you just really want to be more than very complex chemistry. Do you have any actual verified objective empirical evidence that shows that the electrochemical processes that take place in human brains are actually incapable of the things you assert they are?
What is it that you think is the source of the things that you assert can’t come from our chemistry?
DMB: The Source of all that is finite is the Infinite.
Anything finite is putting a limit on the limitless.
CH: Interesting philosophy. Where is your evidence that shows that any of that is actually true? Can you show that those notions compart with objective reality? Those nebulous statements aren’t answers to my questions at all. What exactly is this “infinite”?
DMB: Limited space: finite distance
Limited time: measured time (i.e., hour, minute, second)
Limited energy: mass (defined with finite values)
Limited velocity: (more than 0 km/hr :: less than instantaneous travel)
Absolute Time is infinite (NOW)
Absolute Space is infinite (HERE)
Absolute Velocity is infinite (INSTANT ARRIVAL FROM DEPARTURE: ZERO TRAVEL)
Absolute Mass is infinite (Energy)
Subject isn’t objective reality by definition.
Do you deny the existence of subjects?
CH fails to respond: THE END
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvaEusy2ChE
