glintofpewter

So are compatiblists materialists and see the mind is determined by the brain or are you the materialist? We disprove a materialistic view every day. even by considering the question.

I think computers make decisions the way a pachinko game does. They have just become better and better at it.

I am not quite sure how a compatiblist's approach to freewill explains how they would respond to the mind/body question or how that makes them a pluralist with regard to a the mind body problem. Dutch

Rom, What is a pluralist's response to the mind/body question? Dutch

Computers don't make choices any more than my brother did.

Hi, Deb, Welcome. Perhaps there is now enough fertilizer for growth Many of us are late bloomers Dutch

Better than chance detection of orientation from 50 millisecond glance. http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2012/06/detecting-sexual-orientation-from-50.html

He is dense but I don't think he is underrated - at least by those who understand him. Process thought is found in biology (Charles Birch) in one of those links, economics, theology, and in other fields. Each of the few I have read explain the external and internal relationships differently so that helps. There are other articles at the Center for Process thought link. I am struggling with it, trying to find words and understanding. I read Mesle once and will read him again. The different versions of process thought at the end - I didn't quite. Some one said, "who knows, it might even be right" That said things make more sense to me from a process view. God is only able to do this if we are all internally related.And if atoms in an appropriately small way are internally related. Thanks, Paul

Joseph, As I thought about what I had written about my brother I came to the conclusion that there is no 'independent' free will. It is always in context and in relationship. My brother gave up his free will because he chose not to be interdependent. dutch

It is relevant but my heart belongs to haidt. The author of that article in New Scientist should have credited Haidt. Disgust/purity. Liberal emphasis on fairness. You can find Haidt giving lectures on that on the web. Here's a link where we discussed some of that. It is hard to feel that if they only understood my value system they would agree with me. There is the problem that we prioritize the same values differently. I am sure, long ago, I have heard people say that [other race] smelled bad.

Rom, I read you essay. You ask hard questions. I find the psychological argument against free will lacking since I spent many hours with counselors who hoped I would see that I had a choice to interpret generously and not suspiciously, to react appropriately and not over react. My counselors assumed that I had some, limited, but useful, free will. I know someone who lived as if they had free will but who had actually abandoned it. Someone for whom it was truly an illusion. My brother, a psychologist, committed suicide 5 years ago and at his memorial service I asked my sister, who was very close to him and a counselor as well, when was the last time he had the opportunity to change the course of his life. In our thoughtful 15 minute discussion we concluded that the last time there was a possibility that he might have made a choice that led to a different end was 20 years previous. Twenty years earlier was the last time he had the choice to be profoundly, not superficially (he was financially successful), related to the world and those around him. After that it was clear that he would no longer be in a give and take relationship with anyone or the world. There are not two but three general ways to approach the mind/body problem. Materialist, Dualist and Panexperientialist. The Materialist often jettisons the consciousness as a worthwhile issue or struggles to explain the evolution of the mind and consciousness from no-mind. A dualist observes two different realms, the mental and physical. She is faced with explaining how the two interact. A third approach is panexperientialism, from Alfred North Whitehead and his mentors. I don't have a firm grasp on the complexities but I am a "believer" because it explains the world I see and experience better than materialism and dualism. First: everything is in the known or knowable world. 100% nature. Second: it honors my experiences of consciousness, intuitions, emotions and free will. Third: it sees that the universe is dynamic and not static; the universe is about processes and not objects. We have uor physical selves, which as you suggest is bounded by our skin, and so is physically related, externally related to the world. But our skin is not the limit of our internal mental, experiences of the world. If we honor both our external experiences and our internal relationships with the world as natural then we might see that being internally related is true for the universe. Atoms, cells, bacteria, and more complex entities are all internally related to each other and to us. To whatever small extent all these entities have experiences that can be consider internal or mental. One result of this is that we don't have to explain how mind evolved from no-mind. We don't have to say that mind does not matter or that mind is supernatural. Panexperientialism: How It Overcomes the Problems of Dualism & Materialism http://www.psychosci...rientialism.htm Why I became a Panexperientialist http://www.ctr4proce...ientialist.html dutch

Rom, I'm not home yet so I haven't read your essay. Another question for materialists is how did the mind evolve? Was there a time when elements and cells did not have mind and then at some point in time mind was injected into the physical world? How does mind evolve from no-mind? Dutch

Rom, You might check out this thread. Confessions of an Ex-Moralist

Just who is the "I" that can reflect on that? How does the physical stuff in your skull generate intuition? It seems common sense that we have conscious experience, that this consciousness although influenced by our bodies is not wholly determined by our bodies and because of that we have some limited amount of freedom in choosing our behavior. Is this not true? Where does your consciousness or intuition arise from? If it is the result of cause and effect which seem locked in what difference does it make that you would want to be pragmatic rather than intuitive or emotional. In what way could you say that you can choose? Dutch

It is usually a Materialist that asks such a question. How does a Materialist answer the mind/body. What, where is the mind? How is it related to the brain? Answers to the mind/brain can lead back to fuller understanding of the boundaries of creation.

If norms are the criteria then Einstein is unnatural and so is evolution. Both Einstein and evolution rely on things that are not normal. Again the unnatural/natural categories are fuzzy and when used seem to obscure what is really being said.

You prefer a pragmatic morality rather than a emotional morality? You don't want to be controlled by evolutionary imprinting so you will rely on intuition (not emotion), which is what evolution gave you to make these kind of choices? Yes, and evolution gave you empathy. Society should avoid acting on it's gut intuition but you will? Is this a long way to say "I gotta be me"?

Rom, I do not know if it applies to you but most people who put this question assume a reductive scientific view. In the material world as we understand it. I have no answer for that question because it only refers to some of all that is. God wanted to know God's self. To know one's self, there must be relationship. So what was one became two. There has to be the give and take in a relationship. What I experience, think, and feel affects what you you experience, think, and feel - if there is communication. We influence each other. That's how God becoming and the universe becoming are related. One is not complete without the other. They are dancing. This assumes that one can find where god and the rest of creation separate. In my stories I can not find this point of separation. Dutch

I find in the UP that words sometimes are used in such odd ways as to create obfuscation rather than clarity. How is "evolutionary" an adjective for something which can't change? Wouldn't evolutionary religion recognize that changes will happen, even must happen? But that is not important. Hidden here is fair observation that any institution emphasizes conservative inertia rather than progressive. momentum I think this is a common error made when one looks at the past - with or without an evolutionary lens-: that we in the present are better and smarter than those of the past and that criteria of today are fair evaluations of the past. God has evolved as God's believers have evolved but that does not eliminate the past. It doesn't bind us to the past either. These selections suggest to me that the writer(s) wanted to be modern, scientific and wanted to reform religion or start a new branch. Dutch

This is the one I was brought up with.

God becoming and the universe becoming are doing the evolutionary dance together. They evolve together. The usual view is an external understanding of the world. The world that science is concerned about But God is most evident in the internal events of the world. God knows all that there is to know; God remembers all possibilities, has evaluated them and draws us in the direction of the best. God is limited in the sense that only one actuality can result from all the possibilities. God is limited to the extent that the universe is limited in actuality. But because God and universe are related internally the relationship is not limited the way the external events seem predetermined. In this relationship between God and universe novelty is possible and it is this novelty that drives evolution. These occasions of novelty which result from chance and necessity lead evolution to a future God does not know until it happens. God, in Christ, the first word of love, breathes the first sacrifice so that there is ongoing creating with which the evolving God can be in relationship. Yes God operates within the contingencies of both our external events and our internal events. If God is supernatural there can be no intervention in creation. The separation of natural and supernatural would have exist in God. God must be part natural and part supernatural to have any relationship with creation. I don't see how God can be part natural and part supernatural so God is natural. You question, I think, assumes the laws of the universe are fixed and never change. Just some thoughts Dutch

thanks for speaking simply. Joseph

Last week I listened to The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot by Bart Ehrman.I have also been listening to the Evolution of God by Robert Wright. Together they sparked the thought that where we have arrived concerning what is in the Biblical canon was determined by evolution. We can name names of who collected and who rejected what but what is in the canon is there because in general and on the whole it works. It benefits believers. It benefits the church, etc. All that was left out and we have uncovered is there to pick up and study to whatever benefit we find. To me it is obvious why The Gospel of Judas is not part of the Biblical canon. The early church had many "denominations" just as we do now and they probably early on disagreed about what writings were worthy. There was a gnostic movement I see because Judas is one of the Gnostic Gospels. I think it is easier to get people to join when you are talking about love than when you are talking about a Truth that can be seen only with the third mind or something like that. One idea promotes growth and the other doesn't. The gnostic gospels were lost because of evolution. Gospel of Mary Gospel of Truth Gospel of Philip Gospel of Judas Dutch

I still think we using at least two different categories and smashing them together, pretending they are one. We are using natural/unnatural to represent several categories. If a scientist looks at nature she doesn't record one event as not being part of nature Nature is what it is.. If an anthropologist studies human behavior natural and unnatural will not be part of the report. If we say that some human behavior is not natural we are using a word that is too fuzzy. No human behavior stands outside of nature, meaning the universe. Unnatural and natural are not meaningful words. They imply some evaluative scale that is not being clearly defined. Nothing is outside nature. Dutch

Two different meanings to the words nature/natural so it is not sensical to ask the question that way. Is unnatural related to the category moral? Dutch