[ExI] Supervenience and the Placebo was Re: willpower defined

Sat Apr 23 15:44:30 UTC 2022

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 7:35 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Quoting Bill Wallace:
>
>
> > Here we go again with definitions.  An abstract concept only exists as we
> > define it.
>
> Not so. Many abstract concepts spookily exist independently of brains. I
> think it takes a brain.
> The orbits of planets were ellipses long before intelligent primates
> named them such. An abstraction is in some ways a compression
> algorithm for reality. Like a shorthand symbol for a meaningful
> recurrent pattern or relationship between elements of set that still
> tries to maintain the "shape" of the set. Anything you expend the
> energy to define must has some value to you, your genes, your god or
> country. If you don't believe me, then believe Tolkien. His Hobbits
> ultimately proved to be worth billions.
>
>
> > Suppose I have an approach-avoidance conflict. I am stuck in the middle
> and
> > can't make up my mind.  Trying to get rid of an addiction can be thought
> of
> > like this.  In the brain there may be opposing excitatory and inhibitory
> > forces that are equal.  Now I see something on tv or read in a book that
> > adds one iota to the approach side, making doing it more attractive, and
> so
> > I do the thing, whatever it is.  I have trouble calling this willpower.
> It
> > may look like this to others.
>
> Call it whatever you want. Ganas, from Spanish is a fine word for it, also.
>
> >
> > Now consider all traits as being in a huge set.  We pick out certain ones
> > and call the total willpower (or just about anything).  Someone else
> comes
> > along and picks out a slightly different set and calls that willpower.
> The
> > two argue:  one says that's more like persistence than willpower and the
> > other disagrees.  Who is right?  Neither.  Both.  One of them.  Depending
> > on use of the word.  Look at all the flap over the years about what to
> call
> > intelligence.  Is it unitary?  Multifaceted?  Depends on who is picking
> out
> > the parts from the total set.
>
> OK. Maybe willpower is unnecessarily complicated to empirically test
> what I am getting at. Let's look at a well-established medical
> phenomenon replicated by labs the world-wide: the placebo effect. The
> idea being that the mind must be able to cause brain states because
> the placebo effect demonstrates that mind can cause body states
> including the curing of illness. And if the brain generates the mind,
> then it is the most convenient part of the body for the mind to
> influence.  I certainly do not dispute the placebo effect, but I think I
> am missing your point.
>
> > Being forced to eat beets is a different force than what holds the Moon
> up
> > there.  Pretty sure about that.
> >
> > Mind over matter is dualism and makes utterly no sense to me.  bill w
>
> Bill, if you believe in the difference between hardware and software,
> then you are a dualist. If you don't believe that software can affect
> hardware, then you haven't been paying attention. Supervenience is bad
> philosophy because it doesn't explain empirical evidence. How can one
> explain the placebo effect, the ability for sugar pills to have a
> therapeutic effect based no more than on a belief, without dualism and
> downward causation and mind over matter?  A belief, like anything else,
> is a product of our brains.  There is no difference between what the brain
> is doing and mind, except that a lot of things are being done, like
> digesting food, that do not normally enter the mind.  People can influence
> their heart rates and blood pressure, though it takes biofeedback training
> for most people.  No, not a dualist in any sense.  Brain activity does not
> create mind - it IS mind - conscious and unconscious.  bill w
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 18, 2022 at 12:37 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Quoting Bill Wallace:
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 7:37 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
> >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Not every experiment has to be done like a clinical trial.
> >>>>
> >>>> Take 100,000 people.  Also have each of them them to an objective
> >> observer
> >>>> in their life.  Ask each of the 10000 their goals for the next year.
> >> In a
> >>>> year, check with the participants and their observers, to see whether
> >> they
> >>>> completed their goals.  Split the 'did complete' and 'didn't complete'
> >>>> groups into 2.  Match individuals in each group to an individual in
> the
> >>>> other who is matched in terms of income, race, age, sex, as much as
> >>>> possible.  Discard unmatched participants.  The difference is
> willpower
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Yeah, or some other more or less equivalent term.  I think they need to
> >> be
> >>> matched on goals, the goals rated as to difficulty and so on. and I
> could
> >>> quibble a bit about their environments, but I more or less agree.
> bill w
> >>
> >> IMO, the most fascinating thing about will-power is that it exists and
> >> is thus quantifiable. The reason this is surprising is because modern
> >> functionalist, physicalists, and materialists insist that brain makes
> >> mind in a one way causal relationship termed supervenience. That is to
> >> say that a brain state should be able to cause and mind state but a
> >> mind state should not be able to cause a brain state.
> >>
> >> Since, even in cases of addiction, willpower is often defined
> >> colloquially as "mind over matter", this would violate supervenience
> >> because "mind over matter" would be labelled as downward causation and
> >> forbidden.
> >>
> >> Near as I can tell, willpower would have to defined as the triumph
> >> over-riding of one part of the brain against another. Such as one's
> >> frontal lobe overcoming ones limbic system and allowing one to fight
> >> off a craving for any particular stimulus.
> >>
> >> Stuart LaForge
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 1:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
> <
> >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> EXample:  a couple, male and female, go to a party.  The guy's
> >>>>> ex-girlfriend is there.  We observe his interactions with people.  He
> >> talks
> >>>>> to others, including the ex and his date observes body language,
> facial
> >>>>> expressions and so on.  We see signs in her of anger and just being
> >> upset.
> >>>>> She talks to him and they leave the party.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Well, does that look like jealousy?  Sure does.  But how do we know
> >> it's
> >>>>> not a stomachache?  Or leaving to study for a test?  Or or or.We
> don't.
> >>>>> What we need is more observations of that couple in various
> situations
> >> and
> >>>>> maybe just interview them and ask what is going on.
> >>
> >> Jealousy might be another bizarrely "causal" states of mind. The sheer
> >> number of people that have through history been murdered by somebody
> >> in a fit of jealous rage should be relatively high.
> >>
> >>
> >> Stuart LaForge
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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