Cheers to everybody that took part last time, there was some really interesting discussion. To counter the dichotomy of last week's hypothetical, this week we have something a little more conceptual and less 'A or B'.
Land of the Epiphens
Epiphenia was a remarkable planet. So like Earth in appearance, and yet its inhabitants were different in one remarkable way.
As one of them, Huxley, explained to the visiting Earthling Dirk, the Epiphens had long ago 'discovered' that their thoughts did not affect their actions. Thoughts were the effects of bodily processes, not the other way around. Dirk found this baffling.
'You can't really believe this,' he protested to Huxley. 'For instance, when we met in this bar, you said, "Gee, I could kill for a beer," and ordered one. Are you saying that the thought "I want a beer" had no effect on your actions?'
'Of course it didn't,' replied Huxley, as thought the question were idiotic. 'We have thoughts and these often precede actions. But we know full well that these thoughts aren't causing these actions. My body and my brain were already gearing up to order a beer. The thought "I could kill for a beer" was just something that popped into my head as a result of what was happening in the physical brain and body. Thoughts don't cause actions.'
'For Epiphens, maybe,' replied Dirk 'Well I can't see what's different with humans,' said Huxley, and for a while at least, nor could Dirk.
Physically wanting a beer does not require ordering one, but the conscious decisions required to go about purchasing one must have a physical context, as does all thought, since thought is physical itself. IMO this conundrum only exists in a dualist's interpretation of mind/body. The mental process is part of a continuum between thirst and a purchased beer.
Just to check I've interpreted you correctly: You're saying that our conscious thought enables us to decide on the signals that reach conscious level. In this way, you're implying that our free decision in regard to how we react to said signals means that thoughts cause actions, giving the example of not having to order a beer despite wanting one. This 'defiance' of the physical impulse is showing that we do have conscious control. Is that correct?
Yes, to the extent that you don't consider conscious thought to be more than physical. It needn't be deterministic, but it must have process. Thinking is a physical process, resulting from other physical processes. You cannot think on what you cannot imagine. IMO this is one evidence of the physicality of thought. Thus, thought is action.
I agree that everything is physical. However, I don't think this inherently means thought is action. 'Perhaps the conscious experience of thinking is merely a byproduct of the computing going on at sub-conscious level. A boiling pot of water produces noise, but it doesn't mean it's the noise that is cooking the egg. Thought could be a necessary byproduct of neural computation that doesn't itself produce the solution. If you think about thinking, doesn't there seem to be something involuntary about it?' With the example of the beer once again, something in the physical or subconscious environment could be processed which may cause you to change your mind. The thought, 'actually I wont have beer' could just be a byproduct of that.
I see what you are saying. I think there is probably some truth to it actually, but I don't think the conscious and subconscious can be easily divided, and I doubt that one is simply representative of the other. Interestingly, in patients that have had their corpus callosum cut (the white matter connecting the two hemispheres), the person's actions can betray their conscious mind. I remember reading that although a patient might consciously select one shirt to wear, their arm might grab another. I think more likely than the conscious simply being a reflection of the subconscious, it is probably just another type of processing that is one part of the complete system. I imagine that decisions are the result of competing processes, of which conscious thought is but one part.'Perhaps the conscious experience of thinking is merely a byproduct of the computing going on at sub-conscious level. A boiling pot of water produces noise, but it doesn't mean it's the noise that is cooking the egg. Thought could be a necessary byproduct of neural computation that doesn't itself produce the solution. If you think about thinking, doesn't there seem to be something involuntary about it?'
I want to say something smart on this topic, but really I just want everyone to read Milan Kundera's reflections on the German idiom "einmal ist keinmal" in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The way he writes about the connection between motivation, action and consequence makes me want to never wax philosophically again.
You know, I've owned several copies of that particular book and given them all away to people. I'd really like to read more of his stuff, but I think in the back of my mind that I worry that anything else he's written won't turn me inside out the way Unbearable did, even though I'm assured that his other stuff will not disappoint. Got any suggestions on where I might go next in terms of Kundera's work?
I would love this answered. kleinbl00 recommended The Joke to me about 6 months ago, and I read it in January on a plane trip to Russia (coincidence), but the subjects grappled within were of a different kind than those in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The Joke is more absurdist, and asks what can life meaningfully strive towards in the face of an authoritative power that defies logic or rationality. Which, to be true, ULoB touches upon. But ULoB also dealt with so much more. I don't think The Joke was limited, but it just dealt with fewer subjects, and I don't mean that as a slight. John Updike said it best, "A... novel with the reach of greatness in it." I never felt the weight of absurdist Soviet policy like I did on that plane ride touching down in Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow early this year (and I slow whistled after learning this was his very first novel). Normally the absurdism of communist central planning comes in the form of satire. But The Joke was more... realistic? life-like? Though it dealt with something that almost demands satire -- an authoritative regime reacting out of political correctness -- I read it is as a serious (if funny in some parts) novel. I may be off base with that, I wonder how bl00 felt after reading it. But The Unbearable Lightness of Being? That book changed my thinking process more than anything else I've read. It may be selfish, but I want more.
Book of Laughter and Forgetting is great. I even liked Identity. I find Kundera's perspective to be insightful and novel and I don't really care what he's talking about. The Joke was not only Kundera's first novel, it has recently come to light that he escaped from Czechoslovakia in exchange for informing on fellow artists. In a way, the Joke is an apologia.
I'm not sure Kundera even cares what he's talking about. I'm pretty sure the scenarios he sets up are just conduits for getting his philosophy across in a more interesting way. I've only read Book of Laughter and Unbearable Lightness, but I found both to be amazing. I definitely plan to read most of his catalog.I find Kundera's perspective to be insightful and novel and I don't really care what he's talking about.
His take on litost in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a lot better.
Haha! Let's see, the date set for #hubskibookclub is July 13. I don't know what edition you've got, or if you've started it, but the one I read was 726 pages, so . . . if you read 363 pages a day, you could do it if you haven't started it yet. I don't know how to convert pages into mg, or what averages human tolerances are for Ayn Rand, but it seems like that might exceed the LD50.
Ayn Rand is not exactly unknown to me. I feel I could have a reasonable discussion on Objectivism based simply on reading around her. I certainly don't know enough to participate in a book club discussion, though. Think I linked to the Action Philosophers Ayn Rand book in the past. Yup. It has always discouraged me that good sci fi writers inspire nerds but bad sci fi writers inspire cults.
I read it for the book club. I agree that there are numerous books that would have been more enjoyable. But I'll admit that it's not a tedious read, it's actually quite good at parts. But it is extremely heavy handed in the point it's attempting to make. I don't blame anyone for sitting this one out. I'm looking forward to the next book.
I don't know. I can't remember the name of the article, but I read one recently that discussed this a bit. The example it used was a person catching an unexpectedly thrown object. Obviously the brain is involved, but whether or not the conscious mind was involved with catching the object, was harder to unravel. I think that thoughts can cause actions, but I don't think that they always do. There are many times where I've done something or vocalized something and immediately wondered, "why did I do/say that?" If I recall, the article I read had something to say about learned behaviors, skills like catching things that might become "second nature" to a given person. I dunno. Earlier today I read this article about the relationship between facial expressions and emotions, which seems to me to be related to this thought experiment, but I'm no brainiologist. I'd love to know more about how the conscious/unconscious influence physical actions though. Sometimes I think I'm at my happiest at my most physical and least mental. Sometimes.
I remember watching an episode Horizon about consciousness and they did an experiment reminiscent of the catching example you gave. A group of participants had to stay under and remote control helicopter that flew around the room quite erratically, catching it once fell out the air. Each contestant did it and, when asked, all professed various different methods and techniques. However, when footage from cameras placed around the room and on each participants heads was studied, they were all doing the exact same thing. I can't remember exactly what they were all doing, something in the vein of moving their bodies so the Helicopter constantly looked like it was moving horizontal to the horizon. This presents interesting insights into how much our brain is controlling, even things which we think we're in control of.
Here's a good jumping-off point if you are interested in this phenomenon : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will