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[Present awareness]

Those whom point to the past, saying it can’t be changed, are simply pointing out the obvious. Going on to say, if we had free will, we could change the past, is ridiculous. The past is, what it is, and has nothing to do with the choices made at the moment they were made.

The question of free will is certainly not the question of the possibility of changing the past. Not even the believers in libertarian free will claim that we can change the past.

Getting back to the OP, everyone knows what consciousness IS, because we all experience it directly!

But what exactly do we know about consciousness just by experiencing it directly? We know the "what-it-is-like-ness" of our experiences, but what else do we know just by having them?

The difficulty of converting direct experience into abstract language, is where words fail. What we experience personally, may not be transferred to someone else through words. If they’ve had a similar experience, they may be able to relate to what we are saying, but that’s about as far as it goes,IMO.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Gertie,

No biggie, I'm just being tidy, but I'd have thought the process you're building your heirarchy of complexity on ie Input -> Mechanism -> Output, should have the simpest at the bottom - one iteration of the process - rather than the process itself, if you follow me?

I can’t say I follow, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing there I disagree with.

I think this needs explaining - where is the conatus coming from? Or is it merely an anthropomorphically (giving conscious characteristics to unconscious stuff) biased description of stuff interacting according to the laws of nature?

Actually, it turns out there is a better word for it: teleonomy, as opposed to teleology. This is from Wikipedia:

Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning. The term derives from two Greek words, τέλος telos ("end, purpose") and νόμος nomos ("law"), and means "end-directed"[1] (literally "purpose-law"). Teleonomy is sometimes contrasted with teleology, where the latter is understood as a purposeful goal-directedness brought about through human or divine intention. Teleonomy is thought to derive from evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, and/or the operation of a program. Teleonomy is related to programmatic or computational aspects of purpose

So when I refer to purpose, I’m referring to teleonomic purpose. Also, when I refer to semantic information and meaning, I’m referring to a teleonomic-type of semantics/meaning.

So the What if... is something like this? -

It's a brute fact that stuff, or stuff interacting (I'm still not clear which you're claiming), has innate purpose and drive, which is towards meaning and value, and realised through increasing complexity. Hence awareness of 'what it's like' experiential states (in eg humans) result from this?

More like this:
1. It’s a brute fact that all stuff interacts. (Input -> [Mechanism] -> Output)
2. Some interacting stuff (eg., eyeball) exists because the interactions serve a teleonomic purpose. I.e., the teleonomic purpose explains why there are eyeballs on Earth and (probably) not on Mars.
3. Some interacting stuff (eg., neuron) exists because the teleonomic purpose is to generate a (teleonomic) signal.
4. Some interacting stuff (eg., specially organized group of neurons) exist because the teleonomic purpose is to generate a response (eg., contraction of muscles) in response to a signal (neurotransmitter) and that response is valuable given the (teleonomic) meaning of the signal (ongoing damage to fingers).
Etc.

*

[Felix]

More like this:
1. It’s a brute fact that all stuff interacts. (Input -> [Mechanism] -> Output)
2. Some interacting stuff (eg., eyeball) exists because the interactions serve a teleonomic purpose. I.e., the teleonomic purpose explains why there are eyeballs on Earth and (probably) not on Mars.
3. Some interacting stuff (eg., neuron) exists because the teleonomic purpose is to generate a (teleonomic) signal.
4. Some interacting stuff (eg., specially organized group of neurons) exist because the teleonomic purpose is to generate a response (eg., contraction of muscles) in response to a signal (neurotransmitter) and that response is valuable given the (teleonomic) meaning of the signal (ongoing damage to fingers). Etc.

What gibberish.... You didn't understand the definition of teleonomy you quoted, which was: "Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning."

Reason(ing) has to first exist before it can be "exercised, augmented and improved" to engender purpose. Purpose is the product of reason, not vice versa. Mindless interacting stuff cannot be purposeful.

[Consul]

Now you're talking like a compatibilist!...Note that to deny incompatibilist libertarian free will is not to deny compatibilist free will!

I see what you are saying, but the stumbling block is that if the will is fully physical, then it seems it would be bound by all the laws relating to physical things, which seems to make it an effect of prior causes, and therefore not free. So, how can I accept materialism and not deny free will? If I experience my will as free, and choose to acknowledge it as such, then do I not need to deny materialism to do so? Where is the compelling argument for compatiblism?

First of all, "'[f]ree will' is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are 'What is it to act (or choose) freely?', and 'What is it to be morally responsible for one's actions (or choices)?' These two questions are closely connected, for freedom of action is necessary for moral responsibility, even if it is not sufficient."

("Free Will," by Galen Strawson. In The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Craig, 286-294. London: Routledge, 2005. p. 286)

So the question is: if any, which sort of freedom of action or choice/decision is compatible with materialism? And this question presupposes an answer to the question of the relationship between materialism and determinism.

Obviously, compatibilism is compatible with deterministic materialism, and its adherents argue that compatibilist freedom is freedom enough. What's the point in desiring "superfreedom"?

"For hundreds of years it has been thought by some philosophers, and not by others, that determinism in the natural world is incompatible with freedom of the will. If everything that happens in the world is causally determined by what went on before, then one's actions, in particular, being events in the world, are causally determined from time immemorial, and there is no scope for freedom of action. I count myself among the others. One is free, in the ordinary sense of the term, when one does as one likes or sees fit; and this is not altered by the fact, if fact it be, that what one likes or sees fit has had its causes. The notion that determinism precludes freedom is easily accounted for. If one's choices are determined by prior events, and ultimately by forces outside oneself, then how can one choose otherwise? Very well, one cannot. But freedom to choose to do otherwise than one likes or sees fit would be a sordid boon."

(Quine, W. V. Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. pp. 69-70)

The claim is only that people cannot be supposed to change themselves in such a way as to be or become ultimately responsible for the way they are, and hence for their actions. One can put the point by saying that in the final analysis the way you are is, in every last detail, a matter of luck – good or bad." – G. Strawson

Where, then, is the line to be drawn, where we have enough responsibility to be accountable? How can he concede we are able to change, yet deny we have a responsibility to try to change, if it could benefit us or society to do so? How does he reconcile a certain level of control with zero level of responsibility? This conclusion makes no sense.

To say that nobody is ultimately morally responsible for her/his actions is not to say that nobody is morally responsible for them at all, and that any form of blame or punishment is morally wrong. However, I concede that it's not easy to answer the question as to what kinds of blame or punishment are morally right and justified if there is no ultimate moral responsibility (owing to the nonexistence of libertarian free will).

"The free will problem is like a carousel. One starts with the Compatibilist position . . . But it cannot satisfy our intuitions about moral responsibility . . . So it seems that an Incompatibilist and indeed Libertarian account of free will is needed, according to which free will requires the falsity of determinism . . . But any such account immediately triggers the Pessimists’ objection that indeterministic occurrences cannot possibly contribute to moral responsibility . . . For one can hardly be supposed to be more truly morally responsible for one’s choices and actions or character if indeterministic or random occurrences have played a part in their causation than if they have not played such a part . . . But what this shows is that the Incompatibilists’ "ultimate" moral responsibility is obviously impossible . . . But that means that we should return to Compatibilism, since it is the best we can do . . . But Compatibilism cannot possibly satisfy our intuitions about moral responsibility . . .
…
It seems the only freedom that we can have is Compatibilist freedom. If - since - that is not enough for ultimate responsibility, we cannot have ultimate responsibility."
—Galen Strawson: https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/f ... everything

The strength of your will(power) or your motivation to change the way you are is itself something that you haven't freely chosen; it's given to you.

Again this seems contrived. You concede that someone has the power to change, but only that power thrust upon them by forces of nature outside their control? My will expressed is merely an expression of my total lack of will, because it suits your intended conclusion?

No, my point is that "free will" is a misnomer insofar as you cannot freely choose what you want or desire. Your wants and desires are just there in your mind, where you find them ready-made. Of course, there can also be meta-wants and meta-desires, such as the desire not to have the desire to drink alcohol; but these aren't freely chosen by you either. It hasn't ever been up to you to decide whether your will (to change) is strong or weak. Nobody has ever chosen to be strong-willed or weak-willed, and whether or not a person manages to overcome her/his weakness of will is itself something depending on factors and circumstances that aren't determined by her/him.

Libertarian free (superfree) will is a subjective illusion, because all your mental dispositions and attitudes, all your preferences and interests, all your wants and desires, all your choices and decisions, and all your actions are determined or influenced by certain heteronomous factors or circumstances beyond your control. And if nobody can be ultimately causally responsible for the way s/he is, nobody can be ultimately morally responsible for what s/he does. (Yes, this includes even Hitler and Stalin.)

[JamesOfSeattle]

What gibberish.... You didn't understand the definition of teleonomy you quoted, which was: "Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning."

Reason(ing) has to first exist before it can be "exercised, augmented and improved" to engender purpose. Purpose is the product of reason, not vice versa. Mindless interacting stuff cannot be purposeful.

Gibberish? Really?

I admit that the part I quoted was problematic for exactly the reason you give, and I’ll give another definition of teleonomy off the web below, but I’ll ask you: what do you think is the difference between teleonomy and teleology?

How about we use this definition from Oxford English Dictionaries (whatever that is):

The property of living systems of being organized in such a way that their structures and processes tend towards the attainment of particular ends or outcomes.

So again, how is what I wrote and you quoted gibberish (“Unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing; nonsense.“, Oxf.Eng.Dict.’s)?

*

[Consul]

No scientific evidence supports dualism so far.

Dualists have been appealing to (alleged) scientific evidence for parapsychological phenomena or ones such as near-death or out-of-body experiences.

[Felix]

Sorry James, gibberish is one of my favorite words, right up there with gobbledygook.

but I’ll ask you: what do you think is the difference between teleonomy and teleology?

I don't see any appreciable difference between the two, both require the existence of intelligent order. The order or reason is required to engender purpose.

"The property of living systems of being organized in such a way that their structures and processes tend towards the attainment of particular ends or outcomes."

There again, order is leading to purpose, but that definition is so vague that it borders on inanity.... My dog is organized is such a way that he tends to chase cats.

We've never seen order arise from chaos, e.g., the random interaction of matter, but we have seen order descend into chaos, not complete chaos though, which implies the Universe is an inherently orderly or "intelligent" system. If it was not, science would be an impossibility.

[Consul]

Dualism is an ancient assumption based on the observation that 'something' must leave the body upon death. Ignorance about the most basic workings of the body leads to the idea that the pneuma and/or psyche must 'depart', acts to 'explain' motionless corpses.

It's important to mention that ancient substance dualism is essentially different from Cartesian substance dualism, because it's actually a dualistic substance materialism: "thick" material substances (solid, tangible bodies) vs. "thin" material substances (airlike, ethereal "soul-bodies"). For example, the Stoic pneuma is not immaterial. And souls, spirits, and ghosts as described or depicted in folk-mythological stories or movies are essentially unlike Cartesian immaterial/spiritual substances too. Such spooky beings aren't really immaterial or nonphysical; they exist in space and time, and consist of some exotic kind of matter ("ectoplasm"). So they had better be called "cryptophysical" rather than "hyperphysical".

"The idea of an immaterial substance, as it is defined by metaphysicians, is intirely a modern thing, and is still unknown to the vulgar. The original, and still prevailing idea concerning a soul or a spirit, is that of a kind of attenuated aerial substance, of a more subtle nature than gross bodies, which have weight, and make a sensible resistance when they are pushed against, or struck at."

(Priestley, Joseph. Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. 2nd ed. London: J. Johnson, 1782. p. 72)

"Epicurus is an atomist, and in accordance with his atomism he takes the soul, like everything else that there is except for the void, to be ultimately composed of atoms. Our sources are somewhat unclear as to exactly which kinds of materials he took to be involved in the composition of soul. It is very probable, though, that in addition to some relatively familiar materials — such as fire-like and wind-like stuffs, or rather the atoms making up such stuffs — the soul, on Epicurus' view, also includes, in fact as a key ingredient, atoms of a nameless kind of substance, which is responsible for sense-perception.
...
Stoic physics allows for three different kinds of pneuma (lit. ‘breath’), a breath-like material compound of two of the four Stoic elements, fire and air.
...
Like many (or indeed all) sixth and fifth century thinkers who expressed views on the nature or constitution of the soul, Heraclitus thought that the soul was bodily, but composed of an unusually fine or rare kind of matter, e.g. air or fire. (A possible exception is the Pythagorean Philolaus, who may have held that the soul is an 'attunement' of the body.) The prevalence of the idea that the soul is bodily explains the absence of problems about the relation between soul and body. Soul and body were not thought to be radically different in kind; their difference seemed just to consist in a difference in degree of properties such as fineness and mobility.
...
[T]he first thing that might strike us about the theories of soul adopted by the two dominant Hellenistic schools, Epicurus' Garden and the Stoa, is the doctrine, shared by both, that the soul is corporeal. A number of Stoic arguments for the claim that the soul is a body have come down to us."

Ancient Theories of Soul: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/

[Consul]

Sorry James, gibberish is one of my favorite words, right up there with gobbledygook.

but I’ll ask you: what do you think is the difference between teleonomy and teleology?

I don't see any appreciable difference between the two, both require the existence of intelligent order. The order or reason is required to engender purpose.

"Nature (organic and inanimate) abounds in processes and activities that lead to an end. Some authors seem to believe that all such terminating processes are of one kind and 'finalistic' in the same manner and to the same degree. Taylor (1950), for instance, if I understand him correctly, claims that all forms of active behavior are of the same kind and that there is no fundamental difference between one kind of movement or purposive action and any other. Waddington (1968) gives a definition of his term 'quasi-finalistic' as requiring 'that the end state of the process is determined by its properties at the beginning.'
Further study indicates, however, that the class of end-directed processes is composed of two entirely different kinds of phenomena. These two types of phenomena may be characterized as follows:

Teleomatic processes in inanimate nature. Many movements of inanimate objects as well as physicochemical processes are the simple consequence of natural laws. For instance, gravity provides the end-state for a rock which I drop into a well. It will reach its end-state when it has come to rest on the bottom. A red-hot piece of iron reaches its end-state when its temperature and that of its environment are equal. All objects of the physical world are endowed with the capacity to change their state, and these changes follow natural laws. They are end-directed only in a passive, automatic way, regulated by external forces or conditions. Since the end-state of such inanimate objects is automatically achieved, such changes might be designated as teleomatic. All teleomatic processes come to an end when the potential is used up (as in the cooling of a heated piece of iron) or when the process is stopped by encountering an external impediment (as a falling stone hitting the ground). Teleomatic processes simply follow natural laws, i.e. lead to a result consequential to concomitant physical forces, and the reaching of their end-state is not controlled by a built-in program. The law of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics are among the natural laws which most frequently govern teleomatic processes.

Teleonomic processes in living nature. Seemingly goal-directed behavior by organisms is of an entirely different nature from teleomatic processes. Goal-directed behavior (in the widest sense of this word) is extremely widespread in the organic world; for instance, most activity connected with migration, food-getting, courtship, ontogeny, and all phases of reproduction is characterized by such goal orientation. The occurrence of goal-directed processes is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the world of living organisms.
For the last 15 years or so the term 'teleonomic' has been used increasingly often for goal-directed processes in organisms. I proposed in 1961 the following definition for this term: 'It would seem useful to restrict term 'teleonomic' rigidly to systems operating on the basis of a program, a code of information' (Mayr 1961). Although I used the term 'system' in this definition, I have since become convinced that it permits a better operational definition to consider certain activities, processes (like growth), and active behaviors as the most characteristic illustrations of teleonomic phenomena. I therefore modify my definition, as follows: A teleonomic process or behavior is one which owes its goal-directedness to the operation of a program. The term 'teleonomic' implies goal direction. This, in turn, implies a dynamic process rather than a static condition, as represented by the system. The combination of 'teleonomic' with the term 'system' is, thus, rather incongruent.
All teleonomic behavior is characterized by two components. It is guided by a 'program', and it depends on the existence of some endpoint, goal, or terminus which is foreseen in the program that regulates the behavior. This endpoint might be a structure, a physiological function, the attainment of a new geographical position, or a 'consummatory' (Craig 1918) act in behavior. Each particular program is the result of natural selection, constantly adjusted by the selective value of the achieved endpoint."

(Mayr, Ernst. "The Multiple Meanings of Teleological." In Toward A New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist, 38-66. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. pp. 44-5)

Also see: Teleological Notions in Biology

[JamesOfSeattle]

Thanks, Consul. The bottom line, Felix, is that even though you don’t see a difference between teleology and teleonomy, a lot of scientists and philosophers do see a difference. I’m going with them.

*
[and I’m gratified to point out Mayr’s move to a process definition (“A teleonomic process or behavior is one which owes its goal-directedness to the operation of a program.”) which is consistent with my views, although I might quibble with the requirement of a program, depending on how a program is defined.]

[ThomasHobbes]

Dualism is an ancient assumption based on the observation that 'something' must leave the body upon death. Ignorance about the most basic workings of the body leads to the idea that the pneuma and/or psyche must 'depart', acts to 'explain' motionless corpses.

It's important to mention that ancient substance dualism is essentially different from Cartesian substance dualism, because it's ....

No.
It's noting more than a post-hoc adjustment to preserve what is still a bag of bones.
"Essentially" the same old, same old.
Polishing a turd might make it look a little nicer but it still stinks.

[Mosesquine]

No scientific evidence supports dualism so far.

Dualists have been appealing to (alleged) scientific evidence for parapsychological phenomena or ones such as near-death or out-of-body experiences.

No near-death experience is definitely proved as scientific evidence so far.

[ThomasHobbes]

Dualists have been appealing to (alleged) scientific evidence for parapsychological phenomena or ones such as near-death or out-of-body experiences.

No near-death experience is definitely proved as scientific evidence so far.

I think it is worth noting the word "NEAR".
So people who have no died think they have experience death. Um??

[Mosesquine]

No near-death experience is definitely proved as scientific evidence so far.

I think it is worth noting the word "NEAR".
So people who have no died think they have experience death. Um??

People who have not died may think to experience death. However, merely thinking to experience death is not the same as really experiencing death.

[ThomasHobbes]

I think it is worth noting the word "NEAR".
So people who have no died think they have experience death. Um??

People who have not died may think to experience death. However, merely thinking to experience death is not the same as really experiencing death.

Of course. What did you think I meant to say?