tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post273382096430731008..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Aristotle's Darwinian Ethics (2): Deliberate Choice Versus Free WillLarry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-25422688160342009872010-09-09T07:28:13.855+01:002010-09-09T07:28:13.855+01:00If we think about the mind as emergent from the ac...If we think about the mind as emergent from the activities of the brain, then we can begin to really understand the nature of free will. Since, as Hayek observed, one can only fully understand things less complex than you are, and only partially those of the same (which would include one's own mind, of course) or greater complexity than you, then an extended metaphor based on a less complex level may help:<br /><br />Suppose you were a conscious amino acid. The material world consists, for you, of fellow biochemicals, and you know too that you are made up of atoms, and that those atoms are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. You go about your business, acting as an individual amino acid, sometimes joining into larger groups (proteins), and then separating out from them. You wander around your society of biochemicals, imagining that this is all there is.<br /><br />And then one day, a nucleic acid comes to you and tells you that you are part of this larger entity, that your mind is not entirely your own, but that there is this thing out there, this "cell" of which you are a part, that comes in and influences your actions. All that you thought were your choices or merely random events is in fact run by this higher level of complexity known as the "cell." It is not that you don't have choices -- you can be in this or that part of the cell, you may attach yourself to a tRNA, to a protein, to a short polypeptide, etc. -- but you are now informed that there is a greater purpose involved, that you are part of this larger cell, and that your actions help to keep this cell alive.<br /><br />Now, from the point of view of the amino acid, the cell will seem, in relation to you, "immaterial." It will make no sense from your material point of view. It will seem very strange indeed. You may believe in the cell, or not. There will be discussions among your fellow biochemicals regarding the nature of the cell. Is it material? That is, if it even exists. The "cell" theory does seem to make a lot of things make more sense -- but it is nonetheless troubling. If it is not material in the same sense as a biochemical, is it really material? From our more complex, emergent human perspective, the cell seems to be just as material as as its constituent biochemicals. While, on the other hand, our "mind" appears to be just as immaterial as the cell is to the biochemical.<br /><br />We look at things fron a neurological perspective, and cannot find "free will" there. However, if there is in fact a mind emergent from the actions of the neurons of the embodied brain, then it will have patterns of its own that will be able to affect the actions of those neurons. The mind emerges from the bottom-up, from the actions of the brain, but the mind in turn acts in a top-down fashion to affect the actions of the brain. This top-down action is "free will."Troy Camplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com