Timeline for answer to Is free will even experienced? If not, can this be evidence for epiphenomenalism? by Olivier5
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| Sep 8, 2023 at 14:43 | comment | added | Olivier5 | @JMac The info on the "read only" memory has been written in the chip by someone, and therefore it is possible to do so. Nevertheless, your point that I may overstate the case is well taken. I should say: "If folks can envision or believe that brain events cause mental events, why can't they envision / believe that the reverse is possible? It would be natural, since all (simple) physical processes are in theory reversible." | |
| Sep 8, 2023 at 13:13 | comment | added | JMac | @Olivier5 It could be impossible though, like a (perfect) computer affecting its read only memory. "Might possibly" means we cant rule it out, whereas "must be able to" means that we've already ruled it in, which requires more than just not ruling it out. | |
| Sep 8, 2023 at 10:52 | comment | added | Olivier5 | @JMac Not sure I see a huge difference between "must be able to" and "might possibly". The point is that if brain events can affect mental events, the reverse is also possible. It cannot be said to be impossible. | |
| Sep 8, 2023 at 10:29 | comment | added | JMac | @Olivier5 But your computer can only send information back to inputs that have some sort of feedback system with the computer, and not everything that can give the computer information is capable of receiving it from the computer. So when you say "If brain events can cause mental events, then vice versa is also possible: mental events must be able to cause brain events." it isnt justified, at best you could say "mental events might possibly cause brain events". | |
| Sep 8, 2023 at 6:45 | comment | added | Olivier5 | @JMac The point is not it that each and every cause to effect relationship must run both ways all the time. The point is that it could, potentially. So for instance, if the movements of your mouse can generate electric current, then it follows that electric current can generate movement. If your mouse can send information to your computer, then it follows that your computer can send information to the mouse (eg when pairing). | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 22:12 | comment | added | JMac | Another good analogy could be through computers. "Brain events" could be the "read only memory" while "mental events" are the rest of the computer. The computer can use the information from the read only memory to cause events in the computer, but those events can never change the read only memory. They just access it as part of a system that does other things besides affecting the read only memory. I guess even more clear would be a computer input like a mouse. Physically moving it affects the computer, but the computer has no way to move the mouse. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 22:00 | comment | added | JMac | @Olivier5 But the domino example is a pretty clear case where "A causes B" doesnt mean "B causes A", when you define A as pushing the dominoes, and B as the domino stack falling over. Therefore you cant take it as a general rule. It's not even clear how you are trying to fit touching and pushing a domino or vice versa into A and B. Like, the cause and effect are just different in those cases. Touching the domino causes a push on it. The opposite of that would be "pushing the domino causes it to be touched", which typically isn't how we would talk about the cause and effect there. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 14:28 | history | edited | Olivier5 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 7, 2023 at 14:16 | comment | added | Olivier5 | @NuclearHoagie "It is rather silly to argue that if pushing a domino causes it to fall over, that the domino falling over can cause you to push it." Well, if it is silly, don't say it. What I am saying is: if I can touch and push a domino, then potentially a domino can touch and push me. IOW: if A can impact B, then B can impact A. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 13:08 | comment | added | Nuclear Hoagie | @Olivier5 Physical processes are not theoretical concepts. In practice, there is no such thing as a reversible process. Newton's third law does not address causation in any way and is entirely irrelevant. It is rather silly to argue that if pushing a domino causes it to fall over, that the domino falling over can cause you to push it. Temporally, effects must come after causes, it is nonsense to say that an event was caused by something that hasn't even happened yet. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 10:20 | comment | added | Olivier5 | "If you watch a movie and that makes you feel something, then you're feeling isn't going to influence the movie" It could. If Ihate the movie enough, I could decide to destroy it, for instance. More generally, any commercial endeavor (such as cinema) implies an exchange: clients will pay money to get the product, and this money will fund continuous production of the product. Any business is a two-way street. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 10:03 | comment | added | haxor789 | @Olivier5 Atomic fusion has the same problem as entropy, that is during fission you release energy that dissipates randomly while the reverse process would thus require that you'd concentrate energy in addition to the split products, which is not going to happen on it's own. Though why do you focus on the exact process to begin with? Like if you watch a movie and that makes you feel something, then you're feeling isn't going to influence the movie, but it may very well influence your decision making in the real world. So it can have an effect without being a direct reversal of the process. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 7:31 | comment | added | Olivier5 | @deceze I think of atomic fusion as simply fission in reverse. And I have very little sense of what goes on in my brain. It's all purely theoretical: neurotransmitters, mirror neurons and brain waves are familiar ideas but that's about it. I have no clue what matter actually is. Ideas are more familiar than things. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 6:39 | comment | added | deceze | The same process in reverse is what's the issue here I think. Even putting entropy aside, not every process can simply be reversed, except by reversing time. Once you've split an atom via one process, putting it back together will require a somewhat different process. — Anyway, with regards to mental events: that really depends on what "mental events" are. If you're talking about your conscious experience of whatever goes on in your brain: we have no clue what consciousness actually is and whether it can do anything besides passively experience stuff. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 6:24 | comment | added | Olivier5 | To be a bit pedantic, entropy is a concept, not a process. Now there are processes that appear unreversible due to "entropy", such as hot and cold water put together becoming warmluke. But my understanding is that the reverse of these are just highly unlikely to happen. Not technically impossible. In any case, it remains the case that if A can impact B via some physical process, then B can impact A via the same process in reverse. There is no one-way street and no dead end to causality. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 6:14 | comment | added | deceze | Some processes are only reversible by turning back time, since entropy only goes one way and prevents the exact restoration of a previous state. | |
| Sep 7, 2023 at 5:54 | comment | added | Olivier5 | @NuclearHoagie And yet, all physical processes are in theory reversible, all chemical reactions work both ways, and Newton's third law states that if object A exert a force on object B, then B exert a force on A. There's no such thing as "one-way causality". | |
| Sep 6, 2023 at 19:10 | comment | added | Nuclear Hoagie | I don't understand the premise that an arbitrary cause-effect pair can be reversed such that the effect is actually the cause. It is simply not true that if A can cause B, B must logically be able to cause A. | |
| Sep 6, 2023 at 15:38 | history | edited | Olivier5 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 6, 2023 at 15:04 | history | answered | Olivier5 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |