Atheism and Free Will

[ManInTheMoon]

ManInTheMoon is the centre of ManInTheMoon experiences. ManInTheMoon knows nothing other than ManInThe Moon experiences. When ManInThe Moon says "Me" and "I" he refers to ManInTheMoon experiences.

ManInTheMoon remembered past experiences is what ManInThe Moon thinks he is. ManInTheMoon is experiences of memories and is also experiences of the future as it happens

So I am distinct from my experiences. I am what is experiencing, not the experience. And I would think that requires that I am indivisible.

[Sy Borg]

It's obvious that memories can lie unaccessed for very long periods.

It's obvious how? What would evidence this? The fact that you can have the memory "again" doesn't. That only evidences that something about the brain makes it possible to have the same (actually, similar, but we can avoid nominalist aspects) mental content later. It in no way evidences that the mental content exists as mental content in some hidden way when it's not conscious.

It's also well-known that memories held as such can impact on people's lives, as in PTSD.

What would tell us that hidden memories are having that impact rather than something else?

Why do you think you wake up in the morning as you?

?

It's because of established neuronal pathways.

Which would amount to "hidden" mental content because?

Your argument is not coherent to me. If you are going to effectively claim that forgotten memories (later to be retrieved, proving their existence) are not mental content, then I have no answer.

As a victim of teen trauma, I can tell you that things you forget can still affect you subconsciously. How can you deny this when there is bountiful evidence? https://istss.org/public-resources/trau ... ood-trauma

Established neuronal pathways that are not accessed are latent mental content, or potential content. Since you like the river analogy, the landscape of our brain is shaped by experience, with each neuronal pathway being like a river, stream or creek. These dry up at times but the shape remains, should it rain again.

The ruts - the memories - forged in neuronal pathways are the reason you wake up as "you" in the morning. The conditioned neuronal pathways that make you "you" remain in potentia. Same with forgotten memories. The information is there in your brain, only unactivated.

So with the water analogy, the "potential river" (etc.--whatever water features we want to use) is not literally a river. But it has a lot to do with what the river is going to be like when there's enough water present.

Akin to a river gone dry (temporarily) and, being part of the landscape - dry or not - it has a tangible effect on the environment.

[Gertie]

If I am just my experience, what is it that is experiencing me? How can there be an experience without someone to experience?

I explained how I think it works, why can't it be that? Being you is an experience. Which includes this sense of being a unified self.

Otherwise what is this You which 'has' the experience?

I don't think you understood the question. What is it that is actually experiencing being me, if it's not me? I must be the one that experiences being me. There cannot be an experience that is not experienced by someone.

I'm saying the sense of being a Me is itself an experience (which is pretty much a tortology). And there is nothing more to being a Me than this experiential sense of being a Me.

It can be tricky to get your head round, because it's not how we usually think things work. Our grammar, the the structure of the way we think, the causal logic of physics - is in terms of Subject - Verb - Object, because that's how we see the physical world works. Alice strokes the cat. Alice experiences stroking the cat. Experiencer-Alice experiences having a sense of self.

But the sense of self, of being Alice, is itself an experience. If there is a separate actual Experiencer-Self (Subject) experiencing this sense of self (Verb), what is this Experiencer-Self you're talking about? Alice's body? Her soul? Her homunculus watching the experiential Cartesian Theatre play out, making decisions and issuing commands to motor neurons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian ... the%20mind.

We might have found such a command and control centre in the brain correlating to this sense of being a self, where all conscious experience happens, and all sensory neural connections lead to and all motor neurons from. ''Watching'' the experiences, having feelings, thoughts and memories, etc triggered, and weighing decisions, and issuing commands to motor neurons - but we didn't. It feels to us like that's how it works, but that's not what we found.

So it seems to me the sense of being a unified self must emerge from the processes involving the integration of all the different subsystems, combined with having a specific first person pov (correlated to a specific physical body).

And when I say ''I feel happy'', or ''I see a cat'', I'm describing aspects of what it's like to be me at that moment.

[Belindi]

ManInTheMoon is the centre of ManInTheMoon experiences. ManInTheMoon knows nothing other than ManInThe Moon experiences. When ManInThe Moon says "Me" and "I" he refers to ManInTheMoon experiences.

ManInTheMoon remembered past experiences is what ManInThe Moon thinks he is. ManInTheMoon is experiences of memories and is also experiences of the future as it happens

So I am distinct from my experiences. I am what is experiencing, not the experience. And I would think that requires that I am indivisible.

You are not distinct from experiences. You are experiences.

[Terrapin Station]

It's obvious how? What would evidence this? The fact that you can have the memory "again" doesn't. That only evidences that something about the brain makes it possible to have the same (actually, similar, but we can avoid nominalist aspects) mental content later. It in no way evidences that the mental content exists as mental content in some hidden way when it's not conscious.


What would tell us that hidden memories are having that impact rather than something else?



?



Which would amount to "hidden" mental content because?

Your argument is not coherent to me. If you are going to effectively claim that forgotten memories (later to be retrieved, proving their existence) are not mental content, then I have no answer.

As a victim of teen trauma, I can tell you that things you forget can still affect you subconsciously. How can you deny this when there is bountiful evidence? https://istss.org/public-resources/trau ... ood-trauma

Established neuronal pathways that are not accessed are latent mental content, or potential content. Since you like the river analogy, the landscape of our brain is shaped by experience, with each neuronal pathway being like a river, stream or creek. These dry up at times but the shape remains, should it rain again.

The ruts - the memories - forged in neuronal pathways are the reason you wake up as "you" in the morning. The conditioned neuronal pathways that make you "you" remain in potentia. Same with forgotten memories. The information is there in your brain, only unactivated.

So with the water analogy, the "potential river" (etc.--whatever water features we want to use) is not literally a river. But it has a lot to do with what the river is going to be like when there's enough water present.

Akin to a river gone dry (temporarily) and, being part of the landscape - dry or not - it has a tangible effect on the environment.

Sure, but the question is whether the wash has just the same properties as the river, only those properties are somehow "hidden" when water isn't present? That's the whole idea here.

[Sy Borg]

Your argument is not coherent to me. If you are going to effectively claim that forgotten memories (later to be retrieved, proving their existence) are not mental content, then I have no answer.

As a victim of teen trauma, I can tell you that things you forget can still affect you subconsciously. How can you deny this when there is bountiful evidence? https://istss.org/public-resources/trau ... ood-trauma

Established neuronal pathways that are not accessed are latent mental content, or potential content. Since you like the river analogy, the landscape of our brain is shaped by experience, with each neuronal pathway being like a river, stream or creek. These dry up at times but the shape remains, should it rain again.

The ruts - the memories - forged in neuronal pathways are the reason you wake up as "you" in the morning. The conditioned neuronal pathways that make you "you" remain in potentia. Same with forgotten memories. The information is there in your brain, only unactivated.

So with the water analogy, the "potential river" (etc.--whatever water features we want to use) is not literally a river. But it has a lot to do with what the river is going to be like when there's enough water present.

Akin to a river gone dry (temporarily) and, being part of the landscape - dry or not - it has a tangible effect on the environment.

Sure, but the question is whether the wash has just the same properties as the river, only those properties are somehow "hidden" when water isn't present? That's the whole idea here.

Not "hidden" so much as inactive. The river bed is there at any time, ready to be filled unless it's eroded in time or destroyed by a major event.

[Terrapin Station]

So with the water analogy, the "potential river" (etc.--whatever water features we want to use) is not literally a river. But it has a lot to do with what the river is going to be like when there's enough water present.

Akin to a river gone dry (temporarily) and, being part of the landscape - dry or not - it has a tangible effect on the environment.

Sure, but the question is whether the wash has just the same properties as the river, only those properties are somehow "hidden" when water isn't present? That's the whole idea here.

Not "hidden" so much as inactive. The river bed is there at any time, ready to be filled unless it's eroded in time or destroyed by a major event.

Sure. It just doesn't have the same properties as the river.

[Sy Borg]

Akin to a river gone dry (temporarily) and, being part of the landscape - dry or not - it has a tangible effect on the environment.

Sure, but the question is whether the wash has just the same properties as the river, only those properties are somehow "hidden" when water isn't present? That's the whole idea here.

Not "hidden" so much as inactive. The river bed is there at any time, ready to be filled unless it's eroded in time or destroyed by a major event.

Sure. It just doesn't have the same properties as the river.

It does when activated, and it has other properties and influences when relatively inactive.

It's like the argument as to whether viruses are alive. They appear not to be alive most of the time, but the viroplasm they turn into when activated in an infected a cell is clearly alive.

[Terrapin Station]

Sure, but the question is whether the wash has just the same properties as the river, only those properties are somehow "hidden" when water isn't present? That's the whole idea here.

Not "hidden" so much as inactive. The river bed is there at any time, ready to be filled unless it's eroded in time or destroyed by a major event.

Sure. It just doesn't have the same properties as the river.

It does when activated, and it has other properties and influences when relatively inactive.

It's like the argument as to whether viruses are alive. They appear not to be alive most of the time, but the viroplasm they turn into when activated in an infected a cell is clearly alive.

Right. So yes or no, does a dry wash have the same properties as a river?

[Sy Borg]

Not "hidden" so much as inactive. The river bed is there at any time, ready to be filled unless it's eroded in time or destroyed by a major event.

Sure. It just doesn't have the same properties as the river.

It does when activated, and it has other properties and influences when relatively inactive.

It's like the argument as to whether viruses are alive. They appear not to be alive most of the time, but the viroplasm they turn into when activated in an infected a cell is clearly alive.

Right. So yes or no, does a dry wash have the same properties as a river?

"Yes or no"" would obscure the facts and create an inaccurate impression.

The water is to a river as food and water are to us. Water passes through a river, but it is not the river per se, just water passing through, just as food and water pass through us without being us.

Just as dried river beds remain part of, and influential to, a landscape, inactive memories remain part of the mental landscape, and they can and do influence conscious mentality.

[Terrapin Station]

"Yes or no"" would obscure the facts and create an inaccurate impression.

That's the only fact I'm looking for, because it's all I'm saying, and it's important to understand what I'm claiming versus what I'm not claiming.

[ManInTheMoon]

You are not distinct from experiences. You are experiences.

If I am experiences, what do you think is experiencing me?

[Sy Borg]

You are not distinct from experiences. You are experiences.

If I am experiences, what do you think is experiencing me?

The organisms around you.

[Tegularius]

If I am experiences, what do you think is experiencing me?

Closer to home, the microorganisms on your skin, on and below, whose total cell count is approximately equal to the human cell count.

[ManInTheMoon]

Seriously, it is ridiculous to suggest that I am experiences, because there can be no experience without someone to experience it. I must be a single thing, not a pattern or process or event.