Re: Are we merely biological automata?


brogers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
noctiluca wrote:
brogers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
noctiluca wrote:
Was watching an interesting panel discussion a while ago...

(The Journey, Searching for our Origins, Part 1,
http://www.uctv.tv/library-human.asp?series=show&seriesID=Focus_on_Origins)

in which Dr. Alan Wallace, religious studies instructor and Buddhist
discussed various 'isms (objectivism, monism, universalism etc.). He
gave the following description of something called the Closure
Principle and elaborated on its implications.

-----------
"There are no influences in the physical universe that are themselves
not physical...where it gets very interesting is in the brain, are
there no non-physical agencies, are there no non-physical causes in
your choice to come here tonight, in the type of person that you may
marry?

Is it purely a matter of physical causation, your genetic background,
your brain chemistry in interaction with the environment and that's the
whole story, that's a complete picture of everything you ever do? In
other words are you a biological automaton?"
-----------

Wallace goes on to attribute the Closure Principle point of view to
most neuroscientists and suggests that this position (which he sees as
a fear of non-material consciousness) is a result of historical
tragedies involving inference to demons and ghosts and goblins.

I think this point is debatable but I'm more interested in the last
part of the quote. It strikes me that a large measure of the fear
underlying ideological resistance to cognitive science (and evolution)
is the worry that our consciousness may in fact be reducible to
strictly physical processes.

Contemplation of this possibility produces the fretful notion that we
are nothing more than "automata," a word meant, in my opinion, to
express distinct negative connotations. But even if our lives are
reducible to the material I don't see how their inherent meaningfulness
is diminished. Whether meaning comes from non-material external
influences or emergent properties of atoms it is still something we
attach to our existence and use to inform our choices.


.
Isn't Wallace's choice of words here merely a reflection of his own
insecure vision of truth? And in the spirit of reduction, isn't this
just a molecular version of the I-don't-come-from-no-monkey bogeyman?

I agree with your argument here. "Merely" is a loaded word. We are what
we are. If we are "biological automata," as I think we are, that does
not change how meaningful it is to be a biological automaton. Notre
Dame is no less beautiful nor my wife less beloved because aesthetics
and love are physical reactions in a "biological automaton."

Well put.

Still, I think it may be a bit condescending to equate Wallace's
discomfort with "I-don't-come-from-no-monkey." The versions of value
and freedom that you end up with from thinking about the biological
evolution of minds are pretty different that what "comes naturally" to
most people.



Aren't they only pretty different due to the degree of examination
you've given them? I don't see why a consideration of meaning in the
context of neurological evolution should necessarily produce different
values, just different depths of understanding of those values.

We do not disagree, I think. The versions of value and freedom may come
to the same thing in the end (ie I still think I am free and I still
value the things I valued before) but the way one thinks about where
values and freedom come from is certainly different if you take a
non-Cartesian, materialist viewpoint.


Only the willfully ignorant reject the evidence for
evolution in favor of recent creation, but there are lots of pretty
smart, and not necessarily insecure, people in Wallace's camp worried
about the implications of evolution and neuroscience for free will and
value.

Though I'm not sure my use of "merely" was problematic I do think that
"insecure" was poorly chosen. I mean no disrespect to Wallace's, or any
non-materialist's, integrity. But I do wish to suggest that his
position (if all is physical we are nothing more than automata) is no
less a convenient assumption than that of the creationist who argues
that without God there can be no morality.

Actually, I think they are correct - if all is physical we are "merely"
biological automata. I just differ with them in that I think it's fine
and exciting to be a biological automaton.

Yes. I accidentally erased a qualifying phrase, it should have read -
"...that his position, which I believe intentionally communicates
negative connotations..."

I agree that his terms are correct. Not the implied subtext.

I can see how there might be some who worry about the implications for
free will and value, I just don't expect that there is a very good
argument to be made for that view.

I disagree with you here. Prima facie the argument that if everything
is determined by purely physical causes then we have no free will seems
convincing.

Perhaps for rhetorical or philosophical treatments. But not for any
definition of "free will" that I see as mapping to reality. It is no
less apt, as I see it, to accept that free will, even if reduced to
physics, can have meaning in the very same way that we can still find
meaning in emotions and aesthetics. We invest those things with meaning
regardless of whether they are the result of quantum mechanics, as we
do the concept of free will.

It takes careful thinking about what we mean by or want by
"freedom" and what we mean when we say that something is determined to
handle that argument.

Agreed.

Robert

It will take a very long time before a compatibilist approach to
free will and determinism becomes "natural."

That certainly seems a safe assumption at this point in time.

Robert

Bill



Robert

.

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