On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Flammarion<peterdjones.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>> If you can't see into the future, you are going to have to
>>> make your mind up in the present
>
>> Assuming physicalism, my brain will make my mind up for me,
>
> Asssuming physcialism, your brain is you and not some external force
> pulling your strings
Let me put it this way:
"Assuming physicalism, my brain will make my brain up for me."
In other words, assuming physicalism, my brain will do what my brain
is going to do given that the state of the universe and the laws of
physics are what they are.
Assuming physicalism, experience is just an acausal aspect of matter
and energy. There is no "me" except as a term of convenience for
particular configurations of matter and energy.
Physicalism is based on the principle of sufficient reason, under
which nothing happens that isn't caused. The interactions of matter
and energy are apparently do not have special exceptions for
consciousness to influence how the system develops. So, under
physicalism there either is no consciousness (except as a term of
convenience), or consciousness is epiphenemonal...caused but acausal.
I'll leave it to you to translate that into terms of "pulling strings".
Indeterminism doesn't get you any further, as it just inserts a
roll-of-the-dice element into the rules that govern (or describe) the
evolution of the system along its "time" dimension (whatever time is).
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Received on Mon Aug 31 2009 - 15:30:20 PDT