Posted by Diamed on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:29 | #

Some experiments have shown that people make decisions around 15 seconds before they come up with a rationalization for it.  Also, that if you cut the left and right brains in half, that the right brain will invent reasons why it has chosen to do something while the real reason was that the left brain wanted it—- they just don’t know.  It’s obvious we are machinistic.  Input leads to output after it goes through a convoluted system of processing, instincts, and desires that the conscious mind really has no say in.

It doesn’t matter much to me.  Beautiful paintings just hang on walls of museums, they hardly have any free will, and yet their value is astronomical.  So too with beautiful human beings, body, mind, or spirit.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:44 | #

As no one with a choice would be caught dead in that hairdo, that photo by itself singlehandedly disproves free will (unless of course she was tied down when her hair was done, in which case, just as with allegations of rape, we are entitled to ask her, “But did you resist?”).

Posted by Gudmund on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:24 | #

Guessedworker,

Here is another denunciation of egoism:

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mtwain/bl-mtwain-whatisman.htm

Posted by Gudmund on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:29 | #

BTW, yes, Twain was a freemason and anti-racist.  But the work is still brilliant and stands invidualist/free-willist thought on its head.

Posted by Armor on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:39 | #

We do not have “I”

Then we should simply say “WE”, like the Pope, so as to better reflect the diversity of processes taking place inside our brains.
I’m glad scientists haven’t found a special place inside our brain where our “I” is located. I’m afraid they would have put it in a glass jar and tried a few experiments.
In fact, it is all very mysterious: we examine our brain under a microscope and can’t find the secret of our “I”. In the same way, we can blow up Susan Blackmore’s picture until her nose takes up the whole screen and we can see each pixel, and it still does not give us the secret of her beauty. (or the secret of her soul, if we blow up her eyes instead of her nose).

Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:59 | #

If there is a “requirement upon us to choose adaptively”, then how is apparent maladaptive behaviour explained.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. ... We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.

Not marrying so frequently, is little restraint on the mass growing populations of Africa & Asia. Yet, as Kevin Myers reported recently, it portends disaster.

For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.

It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade. It is inspiring Bill Gates’ programme to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most efficacious forms of population-control now operating.

If his programme is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts. Oh good: then what?I know. Let them all come here. Yes, that’s an idea.

If there is no “I” and we are compelled to choose adaptively then must not sympathy be adaptive. Must not expanding those sympathetic feelings to “all sentient beings” be an “evolved want to be good.”

As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into
larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual
that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the
members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This
point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

The extent of damage that the social instinct of sympathy has wrought upon the higher civilizations is enormous. If it is not free will, then how is it explained as adaptive?

Orestes Brownson:

...to bring down the high, and bring up the low; to break the fetters of the bound and set the captive free; to destroy all oppression, establish the reign of justice, which is the reign of equality, between man and man; to introduce new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, wherein all shall be as brothers, loving one another, and no one possessing what another lacketh. (p. 139)

American Transcendentalism: An indigenous culture of critique. Keivn MacDonald

Posted by Captainchaos on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:49 | #

“We do not have “I” except that it is itself a function of the mind associated with the requirement upon us to choose adaptively.” - GW

Does this mean, then, that all our “choices” are pre-ordained?  If so, in what way do I have a “choice” between A and B if I am hard-wired to select A?

Posted by John Faupel on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:53 | #

No one can say, with any degree of precision, where their thoughts and ideas come from.  This is because there are only two agencies involved and both are random - usually within limits of course.  These are ‘heredity’ and ‘environment’ and we are not free to decide on either.  It is easy to see that we had no free will to decide our heredity because it was laid down in our genes before we were born.  It is also easy to see that we had no free will to decide on our early conditioning either, e.g. our parents’ influence on the way we thought and behaved (for better or worse).  You might argue that we were free to cry when we were hungry, for example but this is a weak argument - we were probably not conscious of crying at the time and, anyway, it was more likely to have been motivated by the molecules in our body signaling to our brains that we needed nourishment.  You might argue that, later in life you had the free will to choose, according to common sense or according to your sense of justice but both these are only conditioned by all your previous environmental experiences and how they were interpreted by your chemistry and neurology.  You might say, at least I accept the consensus of agreement within society about what these standards of common sense or moral judgement are but societies’ consensus itslef is conditioned by its earlier experiences and changes indeterminately over time too.  (No wonder there’s so much disagreement about these standards between different societies and cultures throughout the world.)
Just like evolution, everything, including our own thoughts and actions, change indeterminately over time.  Cause and effect are human constructs and don’t exist in nature, outside our own thinking.  Every event is the consequence of a history of indeterminate antecedent events going back in time and results in indeterminate future events (usually in the short term, within narrow parameters of variance, hence probabilistic forecasting is possible but never determined). 
The consequences of this interpretation of nature are far-reaching.  For one thing, all retributive or punitive justice makes a mockery of the meaning of the word ‘justice’.  It’s certainly one way of controlling deviant behaviour within society but it’s definitely not a ‘just’ way.  Restorative justice, which was once practice quite successfully by our early ancestors, is much nearer to the meaning of the word.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the free will to decide to change accordingly.  If we did, it would only be because it was an indeterminate consequence of our antecedent thoughts on the matter.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:10 | #

No one can say, with any degree of precision, where their thoughts and ideas come from.

They derive from the acquisition of language. Without language there is no thought.

...after the power of language had been acquired, and the wishes of the community could be expressed, the common opinion how each member ought to act for the public good, would naturally become in a paramount degree the guide to action. But it should be borne in mind that however great weight we may attribute to public opinion, our regard for the approbation and disapprobation of our fellows depends on sympathy, which, as we shall see, forms an essential part of the social instinct, and is indeed its foundation-stone.

Charles Darwin

Chapter IV - Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals (continued)

Posted by John Faupel on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:16 | #

Do thoughts really derive from the acquisition of language?  Do you know, for example, how any sentance you write or speak will end before you’ve started it?  Only if you’ve rehearsed it in advance, which means you still didn’t really know how it would end before you started rehearsing it.  My hunch is that language derives from thoughts and thoughts in turn derive from feelings but we can’t even be sure where they come from either, only occasionally are we able to identify experiences that triggered these feeling but, even to the analytic mind, the process is still rather vague and usually we’re not conscious of the process until afterwards, sometimes.  We seem to be more like leaves blown about by the winds of Autumn and any reaction against this kind of image is probably more emotional than rational as it undermines thousands of years of social conditioning that has made us believe we are autonomous creatures in control of our own destiny.  An objective look at history should make us think again.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:12 | #

Desmond,

They derive from the acquisition of language. Without language there is no thought.

Thought and intellectual facility are not the same thing.  I’m not sure what Charley is talking about.  I would say that the perception of “the thing that is” precedes the impulse to communicate that perception, and that this is an evolutionary and philosophical certainty.

However, the evolution of Man’s thinking facility into a defined human system for sensing “the thing that is” cannot be extricated from the development of language, since the facility uses words to model “the thing that is”.

It isn’t really saying very much.  Words are the language of thinking in the same sense that feelings are the language of the emotional facility and movements are the language of the motor facility.  Man coterminously developed feelings with the development of his emotional facility and, much earlier, movements with the development of his motor facility.

Not actually all that complicated to work out, surely.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:59 | #

Do thoughts really derive from the acquisition of language?

Yes.

Darwin:

...a long succession of vivid and connected ideas may pass through the mind without the aid of
any form of language, as we may infer from the movements of dogs during their dreams…

However, do we really believe that dogs or parrots or monkeys are thinking?

Darwin does not.

The mental powers in some early progenitor of man must have been more
highly developed than in any existing ape, before even the most
imperfect form of speech could have come into use; but we may
confidently believe that the continued use and advancement of this
power would have reacted on the mind itself, by enabling and
encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought. A complex train
of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words, whether
spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures
or algebra.

Are we to believe math can be done by dogs or parrots?

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:14 | #

Desmond,

What is the mechanism that selects for a word facility and then produces thinking?  It is impossible that words can precede thought.  They are merely the forms out of which thought-models of reality are constructed.  And the appropriate parallel is not figures and calculation but feelings and value ascription.

They must be coterminous, certainly when we get to the stage of actual language.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:38 | #

Guessedworker,

Apes are feeling creatures. We know they are also capable of showing “true” altruism. Thus it is your contention that the great apes spend their idle time pondering the universe and existentialism, but are simply unable to express it, is that correct?

From whence comes the thought models of reality, the concept of beliefs? It comes from language.

The mechanism for the origin of language Darwin suggested is imitation.

It is, therefore, probable that the imitation of musical cries by articulate sounds may have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions. The strong tendency in our nearest allies, the monkeys, in microcephalous idiots,*(2) and in the barbarous races of mankind, to imitate whatever they hear deserves notice, as bearing on the subject of imitation. Since monkeys certainly understand much that is said to them by man, and when wild, utter signal-cries of danger to their fellows;*(3) and since fowls give distinct warnings for danger on the ground, or in the sky from hawks (both, as well as a third cry, intelligible to dogs),*(4) may not some unusually wise apelike animal have imitated the growl of a beast of prey, and thus told his fellow-monkeys the nature of the expected danger? This would have been a first step in the formation of a language.

And here is where Blackmore re-enters with her theory that imitation drove brain size, a brain size “surplus to requirements, surplus to adaptive needs” .

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/cas01.html

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:42 | #

Desmond,

I remind you that you wrote that language precedes thinking!  Language - not words, not sounds.  Language.

Let’s get the order right because you are missing a trick.

The mental faculty that generates muscular movement is not the same as the faculty that generates feelings, and neither are the same as the faculty that generates thought.  They are quite separate.  They evolved at different times and work in different ways and at different speeds.  We are not discussing the evolution of sounds in higher life-forms, but the thinking faculty in Man.

Now, it is not in dispute that the deepest root of language in Man is the association of sound with the fight or flight and courting functions of even the most basic vertebrates.  But what distinguishes these sounds, or any other sounds that animals make, is the lack of structure.  In the same way, structure is absent from the sounds generated by Man’s emotional faculty.  Structure, ie, language, is only possible because thought-modelling is done in words.  Structure could not exist before thought-modelling, and vice versa.  It is a classic chicken and egg scenario.

So what drove the development of structure/thought modelling (ie the evolution of the intellectual faculty)?  I don’t buy imitation because, as I have said before, the root of sound is emotional and the emotions are not open to learning.  They are organ notes.  What seems most likely to me is that an overwhelming flood of information drove the development, by which I mean the suddenness of the spread of grassland, of the opening of expanses and horizons.  Information about distant threats and opportunities is different from immediate experience of threat and opportunity in the forest.  Information allows for the unique character of thought - its reflectiveness, its dryness and deliberation, in a word, reason - in a way which present-at-hand threat does not.

Just the opinion of someone who has troubled to look, not a scientist in possession of all the arguments of his peers, alas.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:31 | #

I remind you that you wrote that language precedes thinking!  Language - not words, not sounds.  Language.

True. However, it’s doubtful you believe a grunting ape thinks. So yes sounds/gestures precede language which precedes thought. A parrot speaks, but it does not think. It has a capacity to imitate. It has a capacity for ideas, in the old sense of the word, a mental image of something, however that is not thought.

Admiral Sir. B. J. Sulivan, whom I know to be a careful observer, assures me that an African parrot, long kept in his father’s house, invariably called certain persons of the household, as well as
visitors, by their names. He said “good morning” to every one at breakfast, and “good night” to each as they left the room at night, and never reversed these salutations. To Sir B. J. Sulivan’s father,
he used to add to the ” good morning” a short sentence, which was never once repeated after his father’s death. He scolded violently a strange dog which came into the room through the open window; and he
scolded another parrot (saying “you naughty polly”) which had got out of its cage, and was eating apples on the kitchen table. See also, to the same effect, Houzeau on parrots, Facultes Mentales, tom. ii.,
p. 309. Dr. A. Moschkau informs me that he knew a starling which never made a mistake in saying in German ” good morning” to persons arriving, and “good bye, old fellow,” to those departing.

Darwin believed, “A complex train of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words, whether
spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra.”

You, alas, prefer the Savannah.

C’est la vie.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:14 | #

Desmond,

Let’s start with this:

Darwin believed, “A complex train of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words, whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra.”

Words are a constructional tool of the organism.  Numbers are not.  The above statement is functionally irrelevant.  Darwin did not understand that the mind is multi-functional, not amorphous.  He did not understand that the intellectual function constructs models of “the thing that is” out of words chosen intentionally by reason or unintentionally by association.  Without these understandings it is impossible to proceed to a conclusion in the matter.

So yes sounds/gestures precede language which precedes thought.

Language is both the facilitator and the facilitated.  It is so very obviously absurd to “parrot” arguments that language can exist without the intellectual function.  Mechanical reproduction by birds does not constitute thought, anymore than “counting horses” constitute calculus.

What would formulate language?  My theory of horizons - the savannah, if you prefer - offers an answer which you have not critiqued.  Let me hear you do so.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:00 | #

The horizons theory has been critiqued. For it to exist one must believe the grunting/growling ape is thoughtful. Is that your belief? There lies the absurdity. There is no evidence of “a complex train of thought” or algebraic computation in animals.

The vocal organs of apes resemble man’s but they do not speak.

As all the higher mammals possess vocal organs, constructed on the same general plan as ours, and used as a means of communication, it was obviously probable that these same organs
would be still further developed if the power of communication had to be improved; and this has been effected by the aid of adjoining and well adapted parts, namely the tongue and lips.* The fact of the
higher apes not using their vocal organs for speech, no doubt depends on their intelligence not having been sufficiently advanced.

How else is it explained that apes who have vocal chords that are capable of speech do not speak?

...the relation between the continued use of language and the development of the brain, has no doubt been far more important. The mental powers in some early progenitor of man must have been more highly developed than in any existing ape, before even the most imperfect form of speech could have come into use; but we may confidently believe that the continued use and advancement of this
power would have reacted on the mind itself, by enabling and encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:01 | #

Information allows for the unique character of thought - its reflectiveness, its dryness and deliberation, in a word, reason - in a way which present-at-hand threat does not.

The grasslands theory also does not explain big brain size. A big brain is not required to survive, even Wallace recognized this. If one ape shows slightly higher intelligence why would it be able to produce more offspring. Typically it is the big brutish male that dominates the female group. If it’s not natural selection, it must be sexual selection, which is a major reason Darwin wrote “Descent”. A big brain developing by sexual selection (driven by verbal mimicry/singing) is plausible. (The Cuttlefish uses sexual mimicry to deceive it’s more brutish brethren in a quest to inseminate the female of the species. Apparently quite successfully).

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:54 | #

Desmond,

For it to exist one must believe the grunting/growling ape is thoughtful.

You, of all people, are not allowing for the evolutionary process.

The “grunting, growling ape” stood upright because of the grass horizon in front of him, and as always those that were most able to process (and, in time, communicate) the new information about this environment possessed a higher fitness gain.  So I am saying that process precedes expression.  That is the principle, and it cannot work the other way around.  Long-train construction from sound has no seat in the motor and emotional faculties.  It simply is not there.  If you knew how to be present to your own inner life you might understand.

I will repeat that, so you understand: a long-train, word-based language facility cannot pre-exist the intellectual faculty by having developed somewhere in the motor or emotional faculties.  Long-train anything is absent in both, the languages being already extant and being, respectively, sensation and feeling.

So let’s return to my scheme ...

Because the information for processing was coming visually, rather than through the hearing or sense of smell, which was the case in the forest, there had to be development of the equipment processing visual information.  Now, long-range visual information calls forth a non-instaneous response.  It moves the focus from the limbic fight or flight reflex, for example, to a deliberative act of association of cause with effect.  This is the genesis in the man-ape (who is already standing, don’t forget, and already undergoing rapid evolutionary change) of the intellectual faculty and of speech ... the two together, the one dependent on the other.  But the first spark was “process”, had to be process, not expression.

By the by, in case you ask why the grassland horizon did not trigger the development of intellectual faculty in other mammals, their evolutionary response did not include the shift to cortical dominance, perhaps because they were better adapted in the first place to the Savannah than the slow, flat-footed, tree-climbing ape.  The model of the grass horizon meshes with the evolution of Man as a standing creature with a tri-functional (rather than bi-functional) brain very well - or does if the proposition is for a very rapid spread of Savannah, which is, in fact, the general opinion.

The grasslands theory also does not explain big brain size.

It explains the movement from bi-functionalism to tri-functionalism.  Your theory posits the development of long-train word-language in the motor and emotional faculties, which is simply not feasible to anyone who has actually looked at what these faculties are and how they work.  The theory of the grass horizon orders the development of long-train word-language, but it is silent on the effects of language on the brain.  So your criticism is misplaced.

If one ape shows slightly higher intelligence why would it be able to produce more offspring.

Really, Desmond, you are completely capable of answering that very weak objection yourself.  You know perfectly well that evolution is not about who fucks but who survives to fuck.  And yet intelligent men dominate societies of men.  Intelligent races dominate the races of men.  Man, who is uniquely intelligent, dominates all animals.

A big brain developing by sexual selection (driven by verbal mimicry/singing) is plausible. (The Cuttlefish uses sexual mimicry to deceive it’s more brutish brethren in a quest to inseminate the female of the species. Apparently quite successfully).

Brother Occam, Desmond.  Brother Occam.

I am giving you a cleaner, neater model of the thing that thinks inside your head.  Reject it if you can critique it.  But do not reject it merely because it comes from someone who “looks” rather than runs studies in a Western university - even when that someone is me.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:12 | #

The grassland upright theory is as wobbly as your momma’s jello. The reason is that that ape-man transitional was already standing in the forest. No grasslands to compel the animal to look yonder, so why then do they stand?

So why did her species become bipedal while it was still living partly in the trees, especially since walking on two legs is a much less efficient way of getting about?

According to Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University, it all comes down to food, and sex.

In apes—both modern apes and, presumably, the ancient ancestors of Ardipithecus—males find mates the good old-fashioned apish way: by fighting with other males for access to fertile females. Success, measured in number of offspring, goes to macho males with big sharp canine teeth who try to mate with as many ovulating females as possible. Sex is best done quickly—hence those penis bristles, which accelerate ejaculation—with the advantage to the male with big testicles carrying a heavy load of sperm. Among females, the winners are those who flaunt their fertility with swollen genitals or some other prominent display of ovulation, so those big alpha dudes will take notice and give them a tumble, providing a baby with his big alpha genes.

Let’s suppose that some lesser male, with poor little stubby canines, figures out that he can entice a fertile female into mating by bringing her some food. That sometimes happens among living chimpanzees, for instance when a female rewards a male for presenting her with a tasty gift of colobus monkey.

Among Ardipithecus’s ancestors, such a strategy could catch on if searching for food required a lot of time and exposure to predators. Males would be far more successful food-providers if they had their hands free to carry home loads of fruits and tubers—which would favor walking on two legs. Females would come to prefer good, steady providers with smaller canines over the big fierce-toothed ones who left as soon as they spot another fertile female. The results, says Lovejoy, are visible in Ardipithecus, which had small canines even in males and walked upright.

http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/10/did-early-humans-start-walking-for-sex.html

Sorry old boy, but the grassland model is easily dessicated and blown hither and thither by the archaeological record no matter how much you allegedly “look”, whatever that means. A big brain evolving through sexual selection is still the most plausible.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:39 | #

Desmond,

The reason is that that ape-man transitional was already standing in the forest.

Scientists as far back as Charles Darwin have thought that adaptation to grassland environments profoundly influenced the course of human evolution. This idea has remained well-entrenched, even with recent recognition that hominin origins took place in a woodland environment and that the adaptive landscape in Africa fluctuated dramatically in response to short-term climatic shifts.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091020203420.htm

(That’s actually an article about our tool-making ancestors, but sauce for the goose and all that.)

So it isn’t a question, as you suppose, of where and why the ape stood but when.

But let’s go back to the real difficulty of the language theory.  Can you tell me where in our ancestors’ brains these long-train word constructions originated and developed, if there was no faculty actually using them, and can you describe the initial development process?  If you can’t, you join all those who have fallen under the spell of language.  It includes the postmodern philosophers.  Interesting company for you.

Remember, I am making a case for the initiation of intellectual faculty and an expansion both facilitating and being driven (in selection terms) by the acquisition and development of language.  I can fit everything together.  Can you?

Posted by Al Ross on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:03 | #

Chomsky’s elaboration of the theory that language is an ability confined to human beings because its structure is inherent in the human brain as specialised by a long sequence of evolutionary development seems credible. This theory would imply that language is, after all, an innate faculty.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:50 | #

It does not Al, because Chomsky believes in true “emergence” which implies dualism and thus cannot be evolutionary.

As far as we know, possession of human language is associated with a specific type of mental organisation, not simply a higher degree of intelligence. (Which is not true, of course.)There seems to be no substance to the view that human language is simply a more complex instance of something to be found elsewhere in the animal world.  This poses a problem for the biologist, since, if true, it is an example of true “emergence” – the appearance of a qualitatively different phenomenon at a specific stage of complexity of organisation.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:14 | #

Desmond,

I am still seeking the basis of your apparent belief that:

(a) the big brain developed in a forested environment, and that

(b) long-train word construction arose in some part of our ancestors’ brains prior to there being any thinking faculty (substantially the same thing as “the big brain”, but let’s be specific here).

It would also be useful to have from you an indication of the timescale involved between the evolution of an upright walking posture (during that period in which “the adaptive landscape in Africa fluctuated dramatically in response to short-term climatic shifts”) and the development of long-train word construction.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:25 | #

Guessedworker,

The readership is still awaiting your explanation of thoughtful “emergence”. Like Chomsky you can’t have it both ways. Either you believe in the gradualism of natural and sexual selection or you don’t. Emergence can only be explained by some First Cause, some God. It was also Wallace’s belief. However, it is not Darwin’s evolutionary theory. 

There are bounteous misrepresentations of Darwin. The original source is best, but understandably difficult to reference for those who did not read his books.

To repeat “Ardi”, still a small brain non-speaking creature, rose (as in stood up) in the forest (not the grassland) to use their hands. The most plausible explanation, for the third time, is sexual selection. It shows a modicum of greater intelligence, using the hands to gather food to trade for sex which promotes survival of the female and her offspring.

Sexual selection is what you, in the crudest terms, describe here;

If one ape shows slightly higher intelligence why would it be able to produce more offspring.

Really, Desmond, you are completely capable of answering that very weak objection yourself.  You know perfectly well that evolution is not about who fucks but who survives to fuck.  And yet intelligent men dominate societies of men.  Intelligent races dominate the races of men.  Man, who is uniquely intelligent, dominates all animals.

but, of course, you don’t realise it. Thus incremental intelligence, through sexual selection, produces more offspring that survive than the burly, brutish, sharp-fanged monster with a huge sack of semen and a prickly dick.

Thus, to repeat myself one more time, we come to Darwin’s explanation;

The mental powers in some early progenitor of man must have been more highly developed than in any existing ape, before even the most imperfect form of speech could have come into use;

and that imperfect form of speech,

..we may confidently believe that the continued use and advancement of this
power would have reacted on the mind itself, by enabling and encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought.

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:01 | #

Desmond,

Ardi may or may not have stood up, as opposed to stood, in the forest - that word “fluctuated” is the key to our ignorance.  We do not know what fluctuation prevailed at the point of Ardi’s ancestors actually standing up.  So in herself she does not disprove the theory of the grass horizon.  She proves that she lived and died in the forest.

I might add that I am a little disappointed in you for not grasping that point, which I thought someone of your perspicacity would surely do from my comment on 6th March at 3.39PM.  However, I note from your demand for an “explanation of thoughtful ‘emergence’” that you have not paid attention to anything else that I have written on this thread.  Very well, let’s go over it again.

The case I am making is, to quote from the thread. that:

1. “The mental faculty that generates muscular movement is not the same as the faculty that generates feelings, and neither are the same as the faculty that generates thought.”

2. “the perception of ‘the thing that is’ precedes the impulse to communicate that perception”

3. “the root of sound is emotional and the emotions are not open to learning.”

“Long-train construction from sound has no seat in the motor and emotional faculties.”

“structure is absent from the sounds generated by Man’s emotional faculty.  Structure, ie, language, is only possible because thought-modelling is done in words.”

4. “the evolution of Man’s thinking facility into a defined human system for sensing ‘the thing that is’ cannot be extricated from the development of language, since the facility uses words to model ‘the thing that is’.”

5. “Information about distant threats and opportunities is different from immediate experience of threat and opportunity in the forest.  Information allows for the unique character of thought - its reflectiveness, its dryness and deliberation, in a word, reason - in a way which present-at-hand threat does not.”

“long-range visual information calls forth a non-instaneous response.  It moves the focus from the limbic fight or flight reflex, for example, to a deliberative act of association of cause with effect.  This is the genesis in the man-ape (who is already standing, don’t forget, and already undergoing rapid evolutionary change) of the intellectual faculty and of speech ... the two together, the one dependent on the other.”

Now, remember that you began this exchange insisting that language (not sound) precedes thought, and that the mechanism for the origin of language is imitation.  You are now claiming, as I am, that:

Thus, to repeat myself one more time, we come to Darwin’s explanation;

The mental powers in some early progenitor of man must have been more highly developed than in any existing ape, before even the most imperfect form of speech could have come into use;

and that imperfect form of speech,

..we may confidently believe that the continued use and advancement of this power would have reacted on the mind itself, by enabling and encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought.

So we are in agreement really.  It’s just that you are driven to oppose my observations at any cost - for which purpose you appeal to authority rather than, as I have observed before, think for yourself.  Perhaps if you thought for yourself you would exhibit greater consistency.

Oh yes, and emergence.  You will, if you have eyes, find that in the fitness gain of “a deliberative act of association of cause with effect.”

Look closely, especially at that word “association”.

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:06 | #

It’s worth noting that the actual conclusion of the Libet experiments was not that consciousness played no part in choice, but that there was a 100ms-150ms time limit on making such choices.  This is same as the dominant brainwave length.

A more reasonable interpretation is that the subconscious—that which people presume to be “it” as opposed to “I”—presents the conscious with a range of options for action approximately once every 100ms-150ms.  However, in this presumption of the subconscious as “it” as opposed to"I” there is the additional question:

What are we then to call the relationship between the subconscious and the unconscious?  If we define “I” as only the conscious “chooser” and “it” to be the “mechanism” by which the chooser is presented with its choices, then what is that rock over there?

Posted by Jimmy Marr on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:38 | #

James,

I have no idea what the rock you’re talking about, but since it took seven months for you to respond to the last comment on this thread, I’m guessing your brainwave length must extend to cosmic proportions.

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:57 | #

One of the virtues of Expression Engine’s layout is highly relevant old topics have more life to them than in other “engines”.

Having said that, I was led to respond to this by my attempt to assess the relevance of “The Ontology Project” and this was the earliest posting in that category.  Things are approaching a state where we need to pop the clutch on GW’s project and get moving if it is to have relevance.  I had sat down to write up some thoughts on how to do this but I wanted to make sure I had the best understanding of it I could get.

Since the first post on this topic had to do with what might be called “the axiom of choice” in the humanities, and GW’s appeal to Libet is the sole empirical basis I wanted to address that—empirical testing of theory being the first step in “popping the clutch” on theory.

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 01:25 | #

Fair enough, James.

However, we are still waiting for the promised exposition of H’s as structure!

Posted by Notus Wind on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:17 | #

James,

A more reasonable interpretation is that the subconscious—that which people presume to be “it” as opposed to “I”—presents the conscious with a range of options for action approximately once every 100ms-150ms.

Yes, the problem is in the interpretation of the readiness potential.  In fact, I recently commented on this subject in my Evening Morsels entry:

“Libet told his research subjects to ‘let the urge appear on its own at any time without any pre-planning or concentration on when to act’.  Are we to understand that these bodily ‘urgings’ are the equivalent of volitional actions brought about through focused attention?”

Libet wants to answer this question in the affirmative and then conclude that we have no free will in the initiation of our movements, but I think that common sense would answer this question in the negative.

Things are approaching a state where we need to pop the clutch on GW’s project and get moving if it is to have relevance.

Fine wine takes its time.

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:49 | #

If the subconscious presents consciousness with a (weighted?) range of options and the subconscious is also responsible for executing the resulting decision, it only makes sense that it would prepare to execute on some of those options before the decision.  Libet seems to be more biased toward mechanistic man than he would lead us to believe if his interpretive skills are so limited.

Posted by Notus Wind on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:20 | #

James,

If the subconscious presents consciousness with a (weighted?) range of options and the subconscious is also responsible for executing the resulting decision, it only makes sense that it would prepare to execute on some of those options before the decision.

Agreed.

Libet seems to be more biased toward mechanistic man than he would lead us to believe if his interpretive skills are so limited.

Agreed.  However, he does champion an idea that he calls “free won’t” (i.e. consciousness has the ability to veto the readiness potential), which is anti-mechanistic and goes against the grain of his profession.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:42 | #

Notus,

However, he does champion an idea that he calls “free won’t” (i.e. consciousness has the ability to veto the readiness potential), which is anti-mechanistic and goes against the grain of his profession.

Is the question of the existence of the will, and therefore the willer, really addressed by Libet’s “free won’t”.  Where does the impulse to arrest the readiness potential arise?  Is it from within the man who “is” or without, that is, from within the man who “is not”?  This - really, whether there is authentic “there-being” - is the test.

What I am saying here, and with all my commentary on this quite important subject, is that consciousness and free will are very rare and particular, and we beg misunderstanding of ourselves when we too readily presume for our own conscious agency.  Ordinarily, no such agency exists for 99.9% of our living time.

Of course, I am speaking only at the level of the individual, where the bar is high.  But at the level of the collective it is different.  There, authenticity is an arm’s reach away - still a long mile for a blind man, of course.

Posted by Jimmy Marr on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:34 | #

I am speaking only at the level of the individual, where the bar is high.  But at the level of the collective it is different.  There, authenticity is an arm’s reach away - still a long mile for a blind man, of course.

Hypothesis:

Authenticity requires a joint effort by the individual in relation to the collective, whereby the collective is within an hair’s breadth of authenticity, but close the gap, (i.e. authenticate its authenticity), without the genius provided by the .01% constituting its extraordinary individuals?

My father was a Nazi.

My mother was a spy.

I’m the little Jew,

who told the FBI.

Posted by Notus Wind on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:11 | #

GW,

Is the question of the existence of the will, and therefore the willer, really addressed by Libet’s “free won’t”.  Where does the impulse to arrest the readiness potential arise?  Is it from within the man who “is” or without, that is, from within the man who “is not”?  This - really, whether there is authentic “there-being” - is the test.

Libet would probably reply that the question of the existence of the will is answered in the affirmative and that the impulse to arrest the readiness potential comes from within the man who “is”, which is still a rather controversial stance in the professional world he inhabited.  And although I don’t know the reference offhand I believe that he continued to conduct experiments toward this end, the development of his theory of “free won’t”.

What I am saying here, and with all my commentary on this quite important subject, is that consciousness and free will are very rare and particular, and we beg misunderstanding of ourselves when we too readily presume for our own conscious agency.  Ordinarily, no such agency exists for 99.9% of our living time.

Right.  It was either Penfield or Eccles who thought that the relationship between the higher faculties and the larger apparatus of brain function was that of programmer to machine.  This view was partially motivated by some particularly striking cases, one of which I will now share.

There was a person who was playing a well-rehearsed song on the piano and in the middle of the performance experienced a kind of seizure that was so limited in scope that it only shutdown her higher faculties and yet her body continued to play the song as if nothing had happened.  However, when the performance was over it became obvious that there was no person “there” anymore - by all appearances Dasein had left the seen - certain qualities of personality (like humor) were entirely absent in the body that remained.

Stories of this nature suggest that many kinds of activities that characterize our daily life are - in a sense - already programmed and that somehow we access these programs when we want to perform certain activities, like riding a bike.  Of course, this is entirely in accord with your point that “no such agency exists” the vast majority of the time because were usually just engaging in activities that are essentially pre-programmed.

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:56 | #

Notus,

Libet would probably reply that the question of the existence of the will is answered in the affirmative ...

OK.  My understanding: Someone or something already not the same as the person who was not there before, but was merely the ascription of a name to a patch of light, moves towards being there with the first real intent to try.

Sorry if that sounds obscure.  It is an attempt at perfect accuracy, and the obscurity is a reflection of the poverty of the writer, not the obscurity of the subject.

... the impulse to arrest the readiness potential comes from within the man who “is”

And can only come from him in the brief, lit moments when he “is”.

And although I don’t know the reference offhand I believe that he continued to conduct experiments toward this end, the development of his theory of “free won’t”.

What is needed, from my perspective, is a lab test of the principle of intention as the point of the fulcrum, beyond which, fuelled by the effort of attention, a single willed deed becomes a possibility at last.  Although this thought is beautiful, for it places a uniquely high value on human agency and explains the mystery of the impossibility of conscious evil, yet it is too extreme and unfamiliar for most men to accommodate among their store of truths.

Where’s science when you need it?  But then the men in white coats don’t actually suspect this either, do they?

... in the middle of the performance experienced a kind of seizure that was so limited in scope that it only shutdown her higher faculties and yet her body continued to play the song as if nothing had happened ... Stories of this nature suggest that many kinds of activities that characterize our daily life are - in a sense - already programmed and that somehow we access these programs when we want to perform certain activities, like riding a bike.

Sounds like a psychological survival mechanism went into shut-down mode.  The motor system is the fastest of the three major sensory systems - so fast the thinking and feeling systems can only mess things up if they intrude.  My daughter routinely learns the fingering of piano pieces so that, in theory anyway, her hands will complete the piece regardless of the emotional goings-on during the performance.  I remember her, when she was twelve, telling me after one particularly successful performance to a large audience, “Daddy, my hands just flew over the keys by themselves.”  Dance troupes operate the same way, and no doubt you have observed moments when the music stops unexpectedly and the dancers continue in perfect time as though nothing had happened.

I am completely certain that the study of the mind would benefit a great deal from the clear and proper division of function.  The default model of the amorphous mind holds understanding back.

Of course, this is entirely in accord with your point that “no such agency exists” the vast majority of the time because were usually just engaging in activities that are essentially pre-programmed.

It’s simply function.  It’s how the three systems work.  The fact that we think we are existing in the middle of that work is largely a result of the auto-ascription of self-hood to the focus of the attention (which is a mechanical quality of attention and not the “intended” variety).  The process of ascription seems to tie in memories, too, and enjoys the full support and participation of one’s entire social world!

I would add that, imo, the ascription process also attends the other life, the real life.  But that’s another matter.

Posted by Notus Wind on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 04:03 | #

GW,

And can only come from him in the brief, lit moments when he “is”.

Even if the moments are only brief (and my mind is not completely settled on this point) it is more often the case that they are pregnant.

But then the men in white coats don’t actually suspect this either, do they?

Unfortunately, no.  They are still in the grips of a powerful metaphor that blinds them.

But I agree with you, it is a beautiful idea waiting to be developed by the right set of researchers.

Posted by Captainchaos on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:11 | #

fuelled by the effort of attention, a single willed deed becomes a possibility at last.

Let’s say a guys gets five minutes of Dasein in his entire life.  The impact on racial preservation or even a more efficient go at tying his shoe laces?  Negligible.

it places a uniquely high value on human agency

Under what rationale would something be of high value when attaining it requires much effort with little reward once it is attained?

explains the mystery of the impossibility of conscious evil

What if one consciously chooses “evil” when experiencing Dasein?