The free will rebellion

Mythology Demystified

You mentioned contemplation in your first comment. And I believe I showed that contemplation relates to cognitive processes we call thinking. Thinking is computing of one kind or another as far as brain processes go. The DNA itself has been shown to be a computer of sorts. In you latest comment you refer to “meaning”. And what is meaning? Meaning is about the varying degrees of connectivity and relation between ideas and perceptions. Meaning is about associations in other words. Pavlovian learning tells us that animals also to know to associate one idea or perception to mean something else or something more. The sound of the masters car as it enters the garage means to the awaiting home bound dog that his master will soon come through the door to pet and feed him. The sound is translated to mean other things to the dog and it reacts accordingly upon hearing the sound. So when I use the term qualitative I mean a quality such as a well defined trait or defining attribute. Not the qualitative differences with a given trait.

I had a couple more paragraphs but I’ve thought better of posting them. I’m still in the middle of this chase, but the above I feel comfortable posting. Thanks for the recommending David Bohn, a kindred spirit. You would probably enjoy E. Schrodinger’s thoughts on our uniqueness in “My View of the World” (he builds a solid case in a few pages) if you’ve not read it already.

In reality, life is poetry, a tapestry of shared meanings, and reason is only a usefully insightful metaphor. The opposite of what one might presume living in the mechanistic, rationalist state of play we are currently in.

The passage in question reads “Our DNA behaves according to a determined set of rules defined by electro-chemical principles. Every single organism obeys the same rules we do and we do not say that animals have a will, but that they are instinctually driven. When it comes down to it we are qualitatively indistinguishable from other organisms.

And if someone can show me show how we are qualitatively different from other organisms then by all means please leave a comment to that effect. One of the most cherished claims about human uniqueness is language. Language is just a name for sonic communication. All organisms communicate and many do so with sounds.”

In your comment you bring up the aspect of “contemplation” by stating “Your intellect and desire to understand ‘truth’ by choice (free-will) separates you from say…my Shih tzu, for example, whom as far as I know, has never contemplated much of anything”.

A dictionary defines contemplation as
• think about
• [ intrans. ] to think profoundly and at length; meditate

Thinking refers to cognitive processing of sorts. Surely anything with a brain has cognitive processes. We know animals are problem solvers. If a certain animal has learned how to obtain what it wants by employing a series of actions then we know its actions were calculated to obtain a certain result and that amounts to thinking and thinking equals contemplation. The key qualifier for my statement was that we are “qualitatively indistinguishable form other organisms”. You pointed out a quantitative distinction. “Contemplating infinity” or seeking “truth” as you say requires more cognitive processing capability, and not a new capability not found in simpler organisms.

Qualitatively speaking a personal computer does exactly what a super computer does. They both compute data points. But the difference in computing power enables a supercomputer to model the dynamics of black holes or the weather for example. The supercomputer can “contemplate” a black hole because it first and foremost has the quantitative wherewithal to do so. I hope that clarifies what I meant to say?

I enjoyed this post very much (as I do all of them) but I have no tolerance for decorous modesty, and neither should you. Your intellect and desire to understand ‘truth’ by choice (free-will) separates you from say…my Shih tzu, for example, whom as far as I know, has never contemplated much of anything.

I’m of the mind that our ‘free-will’ is what allows us the perspective to observe what my poor, dumb Shih tzu Owen will never see. Devaluing our-selves down to organisms out of some sense of modesty only makes me suspect an initial altruist spark, or guilt, or something unnatural, only lengthening the distance to the nearest lower rung on the observable evolutionary ladder by a quantum leap or two..

Is it coincidence or some meta symmetry that we are in a finite position, particularly well positioned to contemplate infinity? Is it only a condition of how we perceive? Is it really how reality is? Are we uniquely equipped by inevitable evolution to see how reality really is? I’m afraid it will be an affront to the modesty of some, but I’m leaning towards the latter. I believe our free-will is closing a circle of a symmetry in-which our comprehension of it is central somehow.

“If you don’t get infinity here your not gonna get it.” – Joseph Campbell

“Where riddles led me on to further riddles, to them the truth was quite precisely known.”- Grillparzer

“It is astonishing that, despite the absolute hermetic separation of my sphere of consciousness from all others (which no clear thinking person denies) the origin and development of a common language, set in motion by an imitative instinct, leads inevitably to the recognition of a far reaching structural similarity between certain parts of our experiences, the parts which we call external; it can be expressed in the brief statement that we all live in the same world. This is a process whose course we can follow again and again in any growing child; it is not possible to have doubts about it, our danger is rather that custom will blunt our astonishment.” – Schrodinger

Our thoughts are not created by our brain

Deepak Chopra