Praxus

A particle does what it does because it is in it's nature to do so. If it's in it's nature to allow for free will, that is what it will do. This fits just fine within the limits of causality. It's nature is it's primary cause, if you will.

I thought you ignored me?

Bulgaroctonus

More like a stalemate.




Emotions (including those that lead to morals) are physical entities, a series of electro-chemical reactions produced in the human brain. For instance, the emotion of anger has its seat in the brain stem, in the primal parts of the human brain.
Pioneering work by Broca (1878), Papez (1937), and MacLean (1952) suggested that emotion is related to a group of structures in the center of the brain called the limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, cingulate cortex, hippocampi, and other structures.

Physical science provides the foundation of morals because it helps to explain the synaptic firings and electrical impulses that form our emotions. I think neuroscience will reach a point when it can quantify and qualify every little emotional impulse that runs through our minds.

Its the year 2051, and say I'm feeling depressed. I go into my local neurologist's office and he scans my brain. He says, "Ahhh...very routine. You have only 3,000,000,000 synapses firing in the upper temporal lobe when you should have 3,500,000,000. Also, your dopamine and neurotransmitter levels are low." He simply gives me a pill (Prozac 2051), and things are back to normal.

I hope to point out on this forum that morals and emotions are simply biochemical functions of the human brain.

Well, lets just assume that no good can come of my continued existence in that example. I'll pose another example of the unfortunate clash between logic and emotion.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the population is being decimated by AIDS. Entire villages are left barren and a large percentage of the adult population has the killer virus. Of course, our morals say, "We must help these people! It is inhumane to just let them die!"

However, we should also realize that Africa has very high birthrates, even to the point of being unsustainable. Without AIDS, many countries would face overpopulation and starvation anyway. Furthermore, the disease has lessened the impact of humans on the fragile ecosystems of Africa.





Yes, the universe certainly does perform natural selection. However, humans haven't been witness to most of the key events. You cite the example of the Dinosaur extiction about 65 million years ago. First, the Dinosaurs did not die out because they were destructive. The Earth is not a landlord that evicts its tenants in a conscious fashion. The Dinosaurs (and thousands of non-destructive species) most likely passed away because of a catastrophic meteor impact.

The term 'natural selection' is misleading in many ways. It implies an agent that is selecting. Monk, please don't turn out to be a proponent of intelligent design. Natural selection is just the tendency of well-adapted species to survive. No one is 'choosing' which species survive or die.

Also, the Neanderthals didn't evolve into Homos Sapiens. Homo Neanderthalensis was a parallel branch of humanity that went exctinct. However, that whole discussion doesn't help your point, since the extinction of the Neaderthals was not likely due to any sudden natural disaster.




Just being honest.

Sure, indoctrination. Self preservation is valuable, but by no means the only motive in the biological world. Parents, especially mothers, will often die for their offspring. This is because of natural selection. Those mothers that did not die for their offspring, lost their offspring. Hence, their traits were not passed on.

For many members of a species, preservation of that species or society is more important than the self. Altruism is also seen in wolves. Many wolves do not reproduce or seek dominance. Instead, they guard the alpha wolves and their pups. So, self-sacrifice is not unnatural or illogical.

The question is not whether morals are beneficial. I think in many ways they are. Theoretically, if everyone were moral (especially Buddhist), the human species woud be safe from itself. Also, morals perform a valuable pyschological role because they presuppose meaning to human action. Morals are a kind of coping device, a way to keep the nihilistic beliefs away. You should read Nietzsche's 'Genealogy of Morals.' He explains morals as an evolutionary outgrowth.

The question for me is, do morals actually refer to an objective truth? For instance, can we call the statement, "Killing is wrong," either true or false? It seems not, certainly not in the way we can either verify or disprove F=ma.

Morals are the foothills of existentialism. We still have a long way to go until we reach philosophical heights of 'greater truths.'




There is no division. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.




Emotions, consciousness, and all of our thoughts are like a boat sitting on the top of a deep ocean. We need to look deep to find explanation for the movement of the boat. Emotions are a manifestation of the physical laws which guide our behavior. I need to put more thought into your statement here. I suppose it is possible that a series of chemical reactions (Emotion A) can very well lead to a change in mental states.

Neurologists are still working on this one. To me, consciousness seems to be a collection of electrical impulses firing in the brain. Consciousness is a probabalistic outcome of quantum mechanics.



Yeah, the belief.

The Buddha Sharpshoota strikes again, we now enter Buddhism, one of the most profound philosophical ethics. I admire some aspects of Buddhism, but not others. If I understand Buddhist though correctly 'anatman' or 'nonself' refers to the illusion-nature of our sepeate personalities. As the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh said in his book 'The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching'

"The Second Dharma Seal is nonself. Nothing has a seperate existence or a seperate self. Everything has to inter-be with everything else."
"Nonself means that you are made out of elements that are not you. During the past hour, different elements have entered you and other elements have flown out of you."

I can expand upon these quotes if you wish (perhaps I should start a 'Buddhism thread?). Essentially, Hanh correctly understood that the human body is not one entity that we can clearly indentify or seperate. In fact, it is in complete unison with the physical world.

Bulgaroctonus

So good of you to show up Praxus. While I think your ideas about particles possessing an inherent nature may have some merit, I think it is hard to know those properties.

From the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.





Which assertions are incompatible?

THL

Oh, For Crying Out Loud. First he wants to take over the world "Hitler Style" and now he wants to discuss the sutras - is he kidding?

Impermanence.
"Early Buddhism dealt with the problem of impermanence in a very rationale manner. This concept is known as anicca in Buddhism, according to which, impermanence is an undeniable and inescapable fact of human existence from which nothing that belongs to this earth is ever free.

According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

Take for example the life of an individual. It is a fallacy to believe that a person would remain the same person during his entire life time. He changes every moment. He actually lives and dies but for a moment, or lives and dies moment by moment, as each moment leads to the next. A person is what he is in the context of the time in which he exists. It is an illusion to believe that the person you have seen just now is the same as the person you are just now seeing or the person whom you are seeing now will be the same as the person you will see after a few moments."

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma8/imperm.html

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Bulgaroctonus

Most of my life is a strange, tragedo-comedy. So, I suppose I might be kidding. Anyway, I think the Buddhist idea of impermanence would eliminate any incompatibility between my supposed Nazism and Buddhism. However, I ascribe to neither of those schools of thought.

I'm mostly in agreement.

THL

Mostly in agreement with what? The buddhist thought (which btw is not a religion or a philosophy, but simply a way of life) or do you mean you agree that what I have posted is in agreement with buddhism?

Bulgaroctonus

I agree with the Buddhist emphasis on the 'non-self.' The analogy that equates human consciousness with a river is something I have thought about, something i think is true in many regards. I hold a more scientific outlook than classical Buddhism, especially since the Dalai Lama recently sided with the Pope in opposition to a purely scientific worldview.

Samudra

A particle does what it does depending upon what happens in its neighbourhood.A particle subject to certain conditions WILL react in a predefined manner.. Therefore it is not the particle alone that defines its actions.

THL

His holiness sides with the pope on a lot of things. There is a book I read a little time back, "The Good Heart"...it was a conference the dalai lama gave to religious leaders from around the world on the buddhist perspective of christianity... it was pretty good if you ever have some free time.

Monk

Not really.


Morals are an offshoot of our emotions and not the emotion itself. For example anger, lust, sorrow etc cannot directly relate to morals. Morals in their clearest form can only relate to wisdom which in itself is another off-shoot of Human endeavour, the effort to gain knowledge. My point being that all emotions cannot specifically be attributed to morals.
Once this is clear we are on different planks and your point that emotions are explained by science ergo science is fundamental to morality may not be acceptable. No one to one relationship between morals and emotions can be achieved at best morals are only impacted by our emotions. Actually several moral views go against our natural emotions. For example anger demands reprisal, morals prevent you from such an action; lust for a married woman demands satisfaction morality prevents us.
By the logic of chemical reactions forcing our will and actions it would be impossible for us to resist these things, but several times we do resist, therefore the logic is broken. I hope I am being clear.


Why? you are just adding riders to validate your statement. Any example cited should stand up to logic.

You are doing yourself a disservice with this example. In this example actually morality and logic are interlinked.
"We must help these people! It is inhumane to just let them die!" - your point being saving them is illogical, I will demonstrate otherwise,
If you don't save them you are keeping the village trapped in a vicious cycle at a micro level and extending this logic to the whole nation and consequently to the whole of sub-saharan Africa. Therefore burdening the other countries with the dilemma of Aid for ages to come since extinction is an impossibility due to the high birth rates which you pointed out. On the other hand saving them saves your resources for channelising to other important actions. Even perhaps the study of natural philosophy which you love so much.



You are contradictory on several levels, Is there natural selection or not? If so, Dinosaurs were definitely a victim to this Phenomena, if not then your concept of universe being a sum of rationalities would prove to be a dishonesty. So whats it going to be?

I didn't point out to the existence of "someone" watching over us. I have been against that falsehood.

Do I seem like a proponent of Intelligent design to you? LOL!

Yes forgive the error on my part. Neanderthals were definitely parallel to homo-Sapiens thus giving rise to the unanswered anthropological question of "Missing Link". But this has in no way negated "Natural selection", since again it has become apparent that when deemed unsuitable for the role an alternate was put forth in the form of the Homo-Sapiens and the neanderthal disappeared though in a more evolutionary manner. As any large scale disaster would have destroyed the Homo-Sapiens as well.




Not really, if so all soldiers should demonstrate the same ideology, they don't. Self-preservation is a very primordial motive against which we have rarely been able to rebel against. Therefore the very break in this logic signals that your concept of chemical reactions driving will cannot be true. If it was true the outcome should be the same in 'n' trials.

All these actions are self-preservatory in nature. A more fundamental self-preservation, that of the Gene-pool which goes beyond the "self".

I don't agree with either of these statements. What I am trying to prove fundamentally is that we are unable to be bound by this form of logic, if we were logical and followed the thread of logic our reactions should be the same which they are not. They keep changing suggesting that there is more in the game.

How so? Even an immoral person is aware of his "self", he has actually chosen immorality to be a more successful path, therefore disproving that he is nihilistic.

This is a different debate altogether. Whether anything can be referred to as "Right or Wrong". In this debate we will find ourselves as proponents and praxus as an opponent.


Emotions are the foothills of existentialism. Wisdom and Morals are on a different plane.




Yes, My physical self is one with the physical universe. My spiritual self which is the basis of my wisdom and morality is different.


You are giving yourself room to finally say that Physical laws can also give 'm' different outcomes in 'n' trials. Sorry I dont accept. Either Physical laws hold good or not. You can't bring in chemical reactions to explain it away.

To me conciousness is self-realization. I am a "unit" who has the capacity of comprehension.



You are fundamentally screwing up the concept here. When the buddhists / Hindus say that there is "no self" what they intend to do is strip away the physical self and to comprehend the spiritual self which is at union with everything else and yearning for union with the "Paramatma" (the sum total of the universe) which is "Moksha".

Your restatement of it as a physical law is wrong.

When he says elements enter you and leave you again he is not referring to Physical elements but all the things that are "you" and what surrounds "you".

Basically they are restating the hindu philosophy Dvaitha, Advaitha and VisishtaDvaitha.

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Monk

How do we know whether it is in its nature to allow for free will or not, thats my question?

I was upset that you made personal remarks against me otherwise I don't have an issue with your views or the debate.

Monk

I am happy to see that you have assumed the hindu stand on this issue. "Sanathana Dharma".

I think our friend Bulgar is referring to the Dharma sutras, if he is I am really going to make him sweat.

Praxus

I should have stated "actions/reactions" instead of just "actions", but you get my point.

Praxus