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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Am I a machine?
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Lilac
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# 17979
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Posted
I tend to get this strange feeling that I'm a sort of android, and everything I do is the result of a mechanical process. This is disconcerting, as it implies I have no immortal soul and therefore I can't possibly get to Heaven. Eventually I found the courage to tell my doctor, who arranged a consulation with a specialist. It seems I have a mild psychiatric condition, probably a dissociative disorder, and now I feel better.
Do other people get feelings like this? And what do they make of them?
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Seeking...
Posts: 62 | From: Birmingham / Coventry Area, UK | Registered: Jan 2014
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Yes, other people get feelings like this (though you don't hear much about them). If it passes quickly, I'd figure it was over-fatigue or something similar. If it went on very long, I'd suggest the person do what you did and see a doctor, as it could be either psychiatric or neurological in origin. Dr. Oliver Sacks had some good stuff in his books on similar conditions, though I wish I could remember precisely which title. In particular there is a fairly-wellknown condition in which a person becomes estranged or alienated from a part of their own body, such as a leg or arm, or (I believe) even a larger portion. The people with this problem, though totally sane and of ordinary intelligence, had great trouble in making themselves believe the body part(s) in question were in fact their own. I believe he traced it to damage to a particular part of the brain.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Casineb
Apprentice
# 15588
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Posted
Fortunately I've never experienced anything like that. What is the sensation like? Is it a form of paranoia - every decision and action you make is being controlled by someone else?
I'm glad you have an explanation! Do you still experience feelings like that?
Posts: 25 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Apr 2010
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lilac:
I tend to get this strange feeling that I'm a sort of android, and everything I do is the result of a mechanical process. This is disconcerting, as it implies I have no immortal soul and therefore I can't possibly get to Heaven...
Do other people get feelings like this? And what do they make of them?
I have not experienced this, but what it makes me think of is the idea that my body and mind are only receptacles of life from God. I am nothing that is truly my own, yet God gives me the feeling that my life really is my own.
Far from making me feel that I can't get to heaven it makes me feel that my essence is the choices that I make within this framework - and that the real me will live on regardless of what happens to my body.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lilac
Shipmate
# 17979
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Casineb:
Is it a form of paranoia - every decision and action you make is being controlled by someone else?
It's nothing like paranoia or mind-control. You could say it feels like everything I do is a product of "conditioned reflexes". But it only manifests sporadically for maybe half an hour. Now it's been explained to me, I'm not seriously worried. Otherwise I'd be telling a psychiatric counsellor, not the people on this website.
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Seeking...
Posts: 62 | From: Birmingham / Coventry Area, UK | Registered: Jan 2014
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Fascinating. It's something I aspire to! My narrative is incredibly, acutely, chronically intrusive and part of what helps is realising that it IS mechanistic. Our average would be normal Lilac!
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lilac:
I tend to get this strange feeling that I'm a sort of android, and everything I do is the result of a mechanical process. .... Do other people get feelings like this? And what do they make of them?
During short periods of depression I've felt the same. Often the feeling is comes with the thought that I always really feel this way but when I'm not depressed I just choose to ignore the fact of being an android. There is probably some truth in that.
The experience of feeling oneself a soul-less machine is distressing but in my experience short lived. Since it has happened from time to time for over 40 years I don't have any deep concerns about it, I guess it will continue to happen from time to time. I just go to bed and sleep it off. My wife says that is a typical male reaction - I sleep and she lies awake worrying about me.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Think I had better scope this thread.
Discussion of whether human beings are essentially machines is a good Purgatory topic, and can bring in theology, philosophy, science, perceptions.
Advice on any specific psychological diagnosis takes us into more questionable territory. Look at Purgatory Guideline 4 and follow the link to FAQs re Board Culture, Personal Disclosure.
I'll keep an eye on that element of discussion for now, but recommend you take the thread in general directions.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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HughWillRidmee
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# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lilac:
I tend to get this strange feeling that I'm a sort of android, and everything I do is the result of a mechanical process. This is disconcerting, as it implies I have no immortal soul and therefore I can't possibly get to Heaven. Eventually I found the courage to tell my doctor, who arranged a consulation with a specialist. It seems I have a mild psychiatric condition, probably a dissociative disorder, and now I feel better.
Do other people get feelings like this? And what do they make of them?
There is a large, and increasing, body of experimental evidence which strongly indicates that everything we do is the inevitable result of the twin influences of nature (our genetic inheritance) and nurture (our experience). Our response to a situation emerges unbidden from our unconscious and the resultant activity is already in action before we become aware of our decision. Human beings tend to tell ourselves a story which makes us feel that we are in conscious control of the decision-making process, we often give this apparent illusion the name of free will.
If you want to learn about the research I recommend you could read two books filled with references to the studies undertaken. One is Free Will and the other Incognito
If the conclusions suggested by the experimental evidence are accepted as valid humanity will have to change the way it handles a lot of matters. Not only will it need a whole new generation of religious apologetics to get round the consequences (as I’m sure they’ll try to do), it will inevitably lead to a fundamental, and undoubtedly contentious, refocusing of our criminal justice systems.
I find uncomfortable the idea that I’m not in control of my life in the way I would like to be. However - I see no reason to suspect that I, or anyone else, have an immortal soul, and am therefore totally underwhelmed by the idea that I might not get to a, probably imaginary, place called Heaven.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
humanity will have to change the way it handles a lot of things
How does that work, Hugh? If our conscious thought is rationalising what we will do anyway, then our conscious thoughts re the need for change will also rationalise what we will do anyway, won't they? Just another story we tell ourselves.
I've read Dennett. He does't seem to me to hold a determinist view of our actions. I do believe we overestimate the zone of conscious choice we have ab initio. Also that we can learn both by inner reflection (conversation with ourselves, whether we are a unity or a Dennett-type committee) and outer communication how to expand the zone of conscious choice.
But you seem to be espousing a more determinist view. Am I misreading you?
[ 02. February 2014, 01:00: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
Feel like just a machine?
Sounds like the product of a shutting down of one's higher self (emotional and spiritual) because of some kind of inability to deal with reality. Or perhaps an oversensitivity that causes a shutdown. Or perhaps the world is just too screwed and one's higher self just goes wooooooaaaaaaah!
No we are not machines and yes we do have immortal souls. Having an immortal soul and a rational intellect is what makes us human beings.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Lilac:
I tend to get this strange feeling that I'm a sort of android, and everything I do is the result of a mechanical process. This is disconcerting, as it implies I have no immortal soul and therefore I can't possibly get to Heaven. Eventually I found the courage to tell my doctor, who arranged a consulation with a specialist. It seems I have a mild psychiatric condition, probably a dissociative disorder, and now I feel better.
Do other people get feelings like this? And what do they make of them?
There is a large, and increasing, body of experimental evidence which strongly indicates that everything we do is the inevitable result of the twin influences of nature (our genetic inheritance) and nurture (our experience). Our response to a situation emerges unbidden from our unconscious and the resultant activity is already in action before we become aware of our decision. Human beings tend to tell ourselves a story which makes us feel that we are in conscious control of the decision-making process, we often give this apparent illusion the name of free will.
If you want to learn about the research I recommend you could read two books filled with references to the studies undertaken. One is Free Will and the other Incognito
And perhaps once you've read those you could read The Last Superstition. A Refutation of New Atheism to show you how irrational and inherently flawed the philosophy of materialism is.
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a theological scrapbook
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I won't speak to the medical question.
This brings up the question implied in the title of Philip K. Dicks book "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" and the tale of the Golem. Are you sure that androids have no souls?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
There once was a man who said "Damn!
It is borne in upon me I am
An engine that moves
In predestinate grooves;
I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram."
—Maurice E. Hare (1886-1967)
[ 02. February 2014, 06:54: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Are you sure that androids have no souls?
No.
But the power to imbue souls is of God. How could we do it?
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
How does that work, Hugh? If our conscious thought is rationalising what we will do anyway, then our conscious thoughts re the need for change will also rationalise what we will do anyway, won't they? Just another story we tell ourselves.
I'm inclined to a determinist view but as you point out, it'll just be another story. If we accept determinism, HughWillRidmee believes we'll have to rethink our criminal justice system but if determinism is true we will either rethink or not according to whichever option is determined by our psycological/physical make up. We can't decide between doing/not doing something unless unless we have a choice and there is no choice in determinism.
The point at issue seems more about belief than truth. When I feel I'm an automaton at, in some sense, a deep emotional level (as opposed to just accepting the arguments as a bit of philosophical theory) it's not nice. I feel happier when I believe (feel) I have freewill so that's what I continue to believe.
As for the truth, I'm not sure it's as important. An entirely deterministic world could give an illusion of freewill and produce beings to whom being machines would seem awful. So if we believe in freewill we may be happy (which is better than being necessarily miserable).
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
I enjoy very good health, but I can't say I feel like a machine. I feel too irrational, fleshy and self-absorbed to be like a machine.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
How does that work, Hugh? If our conscious thought is rationalising what we will do anyway, then our conscious thoughts re the need for change will also rationalise what we will do anyway, won't they? Just another story we tell ourselves.
I'm inclined to a determinist view but as you point out, it'll just be another story. If we accept determinism, HughWillRidmee believes we'll have to rethink our criminal justice system but if determinism is true we will either rethink or not according to whichever option is determined by our psycological/physical make up. We can't decide between doing/not doing something unless unless we have a choice and there is no choice in determinism.
The point at issue seems more about belief than truth. When I feel I'm an automaton at, in some sense, a deep emotional level (as opposed to just accepting the arguments as a bit of philosophical theory) it's not nice. I feel happier when I believe (feel) I have freewill so that's what I continue to believe.
As for the truth, I'm not sure it's as important. An entirely deterministic world could give an illusion of freewill and produce beings to whom being machines would seem awful. So if we believe in freewill we may be happy (which is better than being necessarily miserable).
Very Voltaire.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I have no idea what an immortal soul is. I didn't have one before I was conceived that's for sure.
Did it come off a shelf somewhere?
I developed discrete remembered self-awareness story from age two.
When did I get an additional immortal soul? How?Is it a field effect? Or rather am I a field effect of an immortal soul field in a complex enough neurological receiver?
What am I?
I certainly find it infinitely easier to believe that my personhood is derived from mind enabling spirit - the mind of God - at one level interacting with spirit at another (matter) than to believe that matter can tell itself a story, that the lab is empty but the chemicals talk.
As usual materialist arguments make most sense once one takes on board the absurd premisses that anything can exist of itself and can organize in to life and then mind. That I am a virtually helpless drone, a determined puppet of genes and experience is obvious as it is of everybody else.
That we are autonomous automatons reacting as cognitive emotional slugs to the game of tennis our machine is playing.
I don't feel like that although I manifestly am like that. And as I said I'm comforted by the fact of that. It makes me and all of us innocent and reprogrammable by healing and conversation.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lilac
Shipmate
# 17979
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Posted
I had a quick fix for this feeling, which usually worked if only part-way. I used to think of other people and reflect on whether they were a kind of android too. Usually I just couldn't see them that way. They seemed like conscious beings, their consciousness was a real phenomenon, and presumably I was made the same way. I only began to get concerned when I started to see certain other people's behaviour as mechanical or robotic. Whereupon I decided to have a quick word with my doctor because I didn't want it to affect my relationships with other people.
Seeing other people as machines is clearly a related topic, if anybody feels secure about commentinmg on this.
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Seeking...
Posts: 62 | From: Birmingham / Coventry Area, UK | Registered: Jan 2014
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Slightly tangential, but conider that a machine model for yourself requires that you have machines to create the metaphor.
The Greeks and the humours of blood, bile, phlegm had maybe a hydraulic model. Freud had drives of sex and violence. The behaviourists had maybe telephone or electric switches , and the computer age of cognitive behaviourism has us as computers.
I may be misdescribing these but I think the model by which we interpret ourselves have much to do with what we get exposed to in our lifetimes.
As a child I commonly had a sense of being observed. I expect some of our ideas sometimes are those of religion - God being watching us - but confused with the clutter of our minds which often are a little cluttered. Like me with a flashlight as a liitle child, looking through my very messy room in the dark, a little frightened after waking to a noise.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Very Voltaire.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
I hadn't thought of that. Also 'the state', 'Father Christmas', 'true love' and lots of other things I guess.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
An entirely deterministic world could give an illusion of freewill and produce beings to whom being machines would seem awful.
Whenever we talk of illusions of freewill I wonder who is perceiving illusion? If there is an independent conscious mind able to perceive such a thing I find it difficult to conceive how there could not be an element of freewill.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Jack o' the Green
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# 11091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
An entirely deterministic world could give an illusion of freewill and produce beings to whom being machines would seem awful.
Whenever we talk of illusions of freewill I wonder who is perceiving illusion? If there is an independent conscious mind able to perceive such a thing I find it difficult to conceive how there could not be an element of freewill.
Absolutely. I'm not sure free-will is a static thing which we either have or not. As well as the obvious things which can reduce it e.g. brain damage or dementia, in our day to day life things such as extreme emotion can reduce it. I think one increases one's freewill by becoming as aware as possible of our own minds and of the things which might normally occur out of consious awareness.
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Are you sure that androids have no souls?
No.
But the power to imbue souls is of God. How could we do it?
People make children. If there is a soul and God imbues it into children, s/he could imbue it into any creation.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Well a mind imparting field would suffuse rocks too, they just aren't complicated enough to resonate enough.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
humanity will have to change the way it handles a lot of things
How does that work, Hugh? If our conscious thought is rationalising what we will do anyway, then our conscious thoughts re the need for change will also rationalise what we will do anyway, won't they? Just another story we tell ourselves.
I've read Dennett. He does't seem to me to hold a determinist view of our actions. I do believe we overestimate the zone of conscious choice we have ab initio. Also that we can learn both by inner reflection (conversation with ourselves, whether we are a unity or a Dennett-type committee) and outer communication how to expand the zone of conscious choice.
But you seem to be espousing a more determinist view. Am I misreading you?
We are, perhaps, going to disagree about the value of experimental evidence.
What is clear that our opinions change – in my childhood I was a 1950s CofE evangelical who thought girls were silly. Clearly as we progress through life the nature side of our make-up is static but the nurture side is not. Seen as a pair of scales the experiential input presumably can lead to adding and subtracting weight sufficient to cause a change of imbalance. Thus, it appears that whilst at all times our reactions are determined by the then balance of our nature/nurture inputs further experience-originated inputs may confirm/weaken/change our decisions by changing the balance of the factors imposed on our unconscious . This is clearly accepted by all who seek to oversee/control the education of children so as to influence them for life “Give me a child to the age.... etc” or, more recently
“We can use the opportunities that church schools provide more effectively for the mission of the Church, and in particular the contribution that our church schools can make to spiritual and numerical growth".
(Bishop of St Albans, at Church of England Synod)
"We need to train lay and ordained people for "intentional evangelism in the school setting""
(Adrian Greenwood, at Church of England Synod)
"I believe that key to ensuring good RE is a praying, Christian teacher."
(Bishop of Blackburn, at Church of England Synod)
If the story is based on dependable evidence and we value that form of input we may progress. If we base our stories on predetermined conclusions, wishful thinking and unsupported authority and we encourage the view that these bases are somehow more valuable than dependable evidence we will not progress. That is the tragedy of superstition, of which religious belief is, of course, but a part.
quote:
Link provided by Barnabas62:
Dennett on free will and determinism.
I listened – not familiar with some of the terminology since I’m not educated in philosophy but Dennett seems to me to be wanting to both have his cake and eat it. He talks about “evitability” as though it’s not a factor in the determined outcome (as though some things are genuinely random and some are not - an assertion in support of which I detected no reasoning ) – but that just means that we can’t foresee the future for the same reason as we can’t predict the weather a month ahead – there are too many factors to recognize, to weight and to add to the calculation. Because we can’t do something doesn’t mean it can’t be done – it means we can’t do it now – that’s all. I think Dennett is fully determinist – just redefining free will to try to create a synergy which, as the terms are usually considered, doesn’t exist. (I’m always bothered when I hear “That’s obvious” - it’s so often shorthand for I can’t justify this so I’m going to drive a steamroller over your car and then claim it was flat all along).
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
No we are not machines and yes we do have immortal souls. Having an immortal soul and a rational intellect is what makes us human beings.
Those are assertions – do you have any evidence to support them?
quote:
Continuation by Evensong:
And perhaps once you've read those you could read The Last Superstition. A Refutation of New Atheism to show you how irrational and inherently flawed the philosophy of materialism is.
Do you think me a New Atheist? – If you define “New Atheist” as what I am then, to you, I’m a New Atheist; seems a silly idea to me - I’m happy with atheist, I’m happy with humanist, I’m happy with freethinker but atheism isn’t new and saying it is doesn’t make it so.
When I was inside the bubble of Christianity I would have wanted to agree with you – would have done so. From outside the preset limitations on thought don’t apply and that leads to interesting results.
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Are you sure that androids have no souls?
No.
But the power to imbue souls is of God. How could we do it?
People make children. If there is a soul and God imbues it into children, s/he could imbue it into any creation.
And presumably could choose not to imbue it into any creation, including children – or are there limits on God’s free will?
[Best I could do with the mangled code, Hugh - B62]
[ 03. February 2014, 07:23: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I think it might be necessary to sort your code out first, Hugh. That's a pretty mangled post.
With my Host Hat on, I can have a go at sorting it out, but it might be better if you tried yourself first. As it stands, it may well confuse readers over what is attributable to who.
PM me if you like.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
That we are autonomous automatons reacting as cognitive emotional slugs to the game of tennis our machine is playing.
I don't feel like that although I manifestly am like that. And as I said I'm comforted by the fact of that. It makes me and all of us innocent and reprogrammable by healing and conversation.
I subscribe to the radio theory of mind. I am nothing but a receiver. The one power I do have, though, is the ability to change the channel.
I agree that it makes us innocent and reprogrammable.
The issue is that changing the channel isn't as easy as you would think.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Are you sure that androids have no souls?
No.
But the power to imbue souls is of God. How could we do it?
People make children. If there is a soul and God imbues it into children, s/he could imbue it into any creation.
Well yes, theoretically. But then they'd be something like a funny looking human being - not an android. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
@HughWillRidmee
I'd like to quote your post and reply but I haven't the foggiest on how to get the code behaving appropriately.
As for evidence of the immortality of the soul and the rational intellect being a human trait. Sure. That's what the whole book I linked to is about.
Immortality of the soul is not originally a Christian idea of course, but Greek. Aristotle's metaphysics argues it well and Aquinas builds on it with a Christian lens.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
People make children. If there is a soul and God imbues it into children, s/he could imbue it into any creation.
Well yes, theoretically. But then they'd be something like a funny looking human being - not an android.
I think I've seen that movie.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
@HughWillRidmee
I'd like to quote your post and reply but I haven't the foggiest on how to get the code behaving appropriately.
My sympathies. I'm going to apply my free will to this challenge, Evensong, and try to do some correcting. It will take a little time.
B62, Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
@HughWillRidmee
Code in your previous post corrected as best I could, hope I did not misrepresent you.
I noticed while editing your post that you had added additional control characters, so the mangled code came about as much by conscious effort as by inadvertent copy/deletion errors.
To quote Daniel Dennett. We are all evitablists. To avoid creating confusion for other Shipmates in the future, please
a) check the post first, using post preview to confirm you've got the quotes right, and re-edit where necessary
or, if you can't figure out how to sort it out
b) try to make the same points in another way e.g. without direct quoting, or using separate posts for separate quotes.
The practice thread in the Styx can be a help.
Trying to add to your nurturing at this point. Please PM me if that would be helpful.
B62, Purg Host
[ 03. February 2014, 07:43: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
An entirely deterministic world could give an illusion of freewill and produce beings to whom being machines would seem awful.
Whenever we talk of illusions of freewill I wonder who is perceiving illusion? If there is an independent conscious mind able to perceive such a thing I find it difficult to conceive how there could not be an element of freewill.
I should have added that a world with freewill might also give an illusion of determinism.
My problem with freewill is more that I don't understand the concept. For example suppose I'm offered a choice of cheese or ham in my sandwich and choose cheese. Rewind the universe back to its first instant and then rerun with absolutely no changes i.e. God causes the same things he caused last time, every quantum and other effect is the same. Freewill says I may choose ham this time and it won't just be a random choice despite the fact that every possible part of my history (and the universe's) will be identical. I suspect I would make the same choice, if I don't, I'd say it's as random as anything I can imagine.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
NOOOOOO que je-sais. God cannot POSSIBLY re-run quantum events! That would involve pre-determining their outcome.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think feeling like a machine is relatively common, and is known as depersonalization, dissociative disorder, and even, derealization (interesting word).
It can be caused by various trauma, e.g. in war, or in childhood, but also happens to people who weren't traumatized.
As others have said, (I think), intermittent feelings of it are OK, but a permanent state of it needs treatment.
It is sometimes confused with certain spiritual experiences of ego-erosion, but in my experience, there is a big difference in how people come across. Thus feeling that 'I am lived' can be a joyful experience, and not a mechanical one at all.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
NOOOOOO que je-sais. God cannot POSSIBLY re-run quantum events! That would involve pre-determining their outcome.
Fear not Martin, I am only proposing a thought experiment, not willing the eternal return.
My point is simply that if something is the result of one's total causal/random history, it appears as freewill if a) it is not entirely due to that history and b) not random. I struggle to imagine what sort of thing that would be.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
My point is simply that if something is the result of one's total causal/random history, it appears as freewill if a) it is not entirely due to that history and b) not random. I struggle to imagine what sort of thing that would be.
Might one not equally say that one struggles to imagine what sort of thing something that is random might be. We know what it is like from the inside to make decisions and act on reasons. (Someone pressing a button at trivial intervals while someone MRI scans their brain is not making decisions for reasons.) If one tries to imagine from the outside using only the categories 'entirely due to that history' and 'random' of course one is not going to be able to imagine it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Can't remember which psychologist said this, but it is not about nature versus nurture, it is what you do with them that counts.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
If I'm a machine, I'm a damned inefficient one. Battery life is getting to be a real problem.
But as quetzalcoatl said, when you feel (to such an extent that it interferes with your life) like your body doesn't belong to you, it's called depersonalization disorder. It doesn't really have any bearing on major questions like free will, though.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
If I'm a machine, I'm a damned inefficient one.
Wrong.
No machine has ever equaled your brain power.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Might one not equally say that one struggles to imagine what sort of thing something that is random might be.
A good point. Though when people talk about freewill they seem to assume some sort of consistency. In my example, if on being offered a cheese or ham sandwich, one sometimes chose one, sometimes the other, sometimes sang a song, sometimes sat down, sometimes claimed the Pope was an alien .... and so on you are more likely to think they are behaving randomly. So I don't at a phenomenal level feel it is difficult to detect things which seem random (unless the person in question is a follower of Chung Tzu).
... but the more I think about it, the more I see the weight of your point. I think I'll exercise my free will and stop before the "probably wrong" in my sig becomes "obviously foolish".
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
If I'm a machine, I'm a damned inefficient one.
Wrong.
No machine has ever equaled your brain power.
Battery life is unparalleled too. (Noah and that lot got much longer for some reason).
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
If I'm a machine, I'm a damned inefficient one.
Wrong.
No machine has ever equaled your brain power.
Maybe it's not brain power that matters. Some say it's what you do with it that counts.
On reflection, I'm not sure it would be so bad to be a machine. If God is Lord and Master over all, then a sleek machine is no less under his dominion than any inefficient creature of flesh and blood.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Battery life is unparalleled too.
Not really. We can barely go a couple of days without recharging before the deterioration in performance becomes problematic.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
We can barely go a couple of days without recharging before the deterioration in performance becomes problematic.
It concerns me that, increasingly, workers (including professionals) are expected to work at 100% perfection all the time without ever being less than their best due to being under the weather, having an off day, etc. It gives the impression of employees and pupils being worked as if they were constantly switched-on machines. Long-term, it cannot be healthy for individuals, or for society.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
It concerns me that, increasingly, workers (including professionals) are expected to work at 100% perfection all the time without ever being less than their best due to being under the weather, having an off day, etc. It gives the impression of employees and pupils being worked as if they were constantly switched-on machines. Long-term, it cannot be healthy for individuals, or for society.
Yes, this is very true.
We have a new boss - the old one was excellent, she made sure she left work before anyone else to help to avoid presenteeism. So I was a bit worried.
But he is fine - he does the same and has said more than once "remember, we are human - not machines"
Hurrah! ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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