Determinism and Free-will.

According to strict determinism, free-will is an illusion.

My questions are: What then is the role of consciousness ( The I Am-ness - The will ) if it doesn't have any control whatsoever over the organism? Why does neuronal activity trick " us " into feeling that we determine some of our actions? Why did nature evolve this sense of ' I Am-ness' if it is not dictating any actions at all?

The "I" is not subject to determinism, it is an expression of determinism.

The present is the ongoing manifestation of the past, therefore the "I" is the ongoing manifestation of past processes that brought it about.
You are not a spectator to causality, you are an effect of causality. To think that the "I" is a separate entity upon which determinism is applied is to fall into the error of language which presupposes an actor who performs an act: I think therefore I am.
The actor is the act, therefore the I is also the thought: thought therefore existence.

Any desires that a consciousness possesses do not spring from nothing. Consequently any choices can only be made through deterministic factors.

Apaosha wrote: " The actor is the act, therefore the I is also the thought.."

Not sure I agree with that; I can still sense the " I Am-ness" without thoughts, i.e., via meditation. I think I know what you are saying, that is to say, " I think therefor I am " is redundant as " I think" already implies an "I" that exists.

So what is the function of the " I " from an evolutionary perspective?

The "I Am-ness" is thought, consciousness, awareness. One can think about prior thoughts or perception, which is the looking back, but the awareness itself is thought.

The "I" is a convention of language. The original latin is better: cogito ergo sum.

Otherwise you have the notion that a subject (I) can be disconnected from the action it performs (thought)..... further that the subject can be disconnected from the world in general such that it can be said to be subject to a tyrannical deterministic effect.

The past is everything. All that I am is a consequence of the past. Without the past I have no future. Without the past, there can be no future.

The notion of Free Will seems to me like a nihilist trying to excuse or escape the determining past that brought him about, to dismiss what limits him or restricts him, or reminds him of his failures or of his ultimate horizons.
Like a liberal who thinks an individuals nature can be corrected through proper training.

Designer people without pasts.

apaosha wrote:

The "I Am-ness" is thought, consciousness, awareness. One can think about prior thoughts or perception, which is the looking back, but the awareness itself is thought.

The "I" is a convention of language. The original latin is better: cogito ergo sum.

Otherwise you have the notion that a subject (I) can be disconnected from the action it performs (thought)..... further that the subject can be disconnected from the world in general such that it can be said to be subject to a tyrannical deterministic effect.

The past is everything. All that I am is a consequence of the past. Without the past I have no future. Without the past, there can be no future.

The notion of Free Will seems to me like a nihilist trying to excuse or escape the determining past that brought him about, to dismiss what limits him or restricts him, or reminds him of his failures or of his ultimate horizons.
Like a liberal who thinks an individuals nature can be corrected through proper training.

Designer people without pasts.

I agree with you on awareness being the " I ". But the thoughts are not the " I"; they are distinct.

Could it likewise not be said that your mention of " The past is everything - without the past, I have no future" is a case of nihilistic-conservatism? Just like how the nihilistic-liberal constantly mentions the future, how the future utopia is everything.

And in regards to people's nature, I think it is a combination of nature (genes ) and nurture ( lifetime experiences ). If it was pure nature ( inherent ), then people would not be able to be brain-washed.

The "I" is thought, it is an analytical awareness which considers, conceptualizes and formulates.
As I said, you are assuming that there is a subject/predicate relationship, a preconception derived from language.

If you still think there is a distinction, then describe a thought without a thinker, or a thinker without a thought.

What is the I when it is not thinking, when it is not aware, when it is not conscious?

What is a consciousness when it is not conscious?

Quote :

Could it likewise not be said that your mention of " The past is everything - without the past, I have no future" is a case of nihilistic-conservatism?

It's a case of me being realistic.

There would be no "me" without the past. I am it's consequence and it's ongoing manifestation as it moves into the future, it's becoming.

I am not a conservative, who looks backward to past utopias, nor am I a liberal who looks forward to the hoped for coming utopia.

I am the past as it moves into the future.

Apaosha wrote: " What is the I when it is not thinking? "


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OM! Pure I Am-ness without thoughts.


The "I" can continue without thoughts.

A plant is I=Am-ness ...a vegetable is.

In meditation one still thinks, and this is why one experiences it as a relief.
With meditation the mind shrinks it's perceptual-event-horizon, to it's most immediate form.

Consciousness is an self-organizing, self-ordering, pattern, part of existence, which perceives existence; self-consciousness is a part of consciousness perceiving itself perceiving.

A simple animal is purely conscious, I-Am-ness. It simply perceives, is conscious, and has no ability to perceive itself perceiving.
This is why when it sees its own reflection it cannot recognize itself. It only perceives otherness.
It's senses are outwardly focused.

Meditation is the cutting away of the mind from perception, to the point where it has no future, no past, and no self to perceive or to be perceived.
It is self-hypnosis.
It is a trance where only self-consciousness remains.
The senses are turned inward, towards the internal processes of the organism's aggregate energies.
The brain never stops functioning, no more than it does during sleep, but it tunes out of reality.
It is an extreme form of solipsism, where not even the imagining of the world is permitted.

The sensations are not brought into focus, but the brain never stops functioning.

A brain-dead man still lives, without having anything we would call lucid thoughts.
He lives as a plant would, as pure, sensation.

I, the self, the ego, does not require self-consciousnesses or a sophisticated form of consciousnesses to remain an emerging unity.

Self (ego) is a term referring to the totality of processes, the aggregate energies, participating in the self-ordering, self-organizing, self-maintaining, emergent unity we call an organism.
All these actions are what the self is.

No action, no self.
There is no "I" which just happens to act.
This is what Judeo-Christians, and the common type of modern nihilist believes.

Your action is not something you just happen to do ...it is you expressing your selfness.

i would distinguish 3 conceptions of the self: the actuality of experiential process, the identity-ego, and the Cartesian subject.

the first would be the "true" self, so to speak; one needn't formulate any conceptions for this self to be evident; it is the pre-conceptual presencing of one's consciousness, in whatever form.

the second requires memory in order to exist, as well as a discriminating intellect. first, the mind takes hold of experiences in spite of their passing in time as memories; then, the intellect discriminates and chooses more substantial experiences as reference points of individuation and distinction.

the third is a purely fictional abstraction born entirely out of onto-theological logic. the so-called non-experiential self in meditation is simply a very abstract, ineffable form of experiential being, a sort of non-sensual (if by sensual we mean the five senses) "force-feeling". in post-Platonic metaphysics, Process is deemed unreal in favor of the purported ontological supremacy of entities in stasis. instead of tracing the sense of self by means of careful phenomenological investigation (which would reveal that a sense of a unified self is the product of experiential continuity and memory), it is assumed that the "true" self is some sort of mysterious, formless entity that is separate from experience, a dark ghost behind the shifting shadows. it is the same logic that erroneously concludes that substance-essence (ousia) and form-essence (hypostasis) are separate things that are somehow prior to manifestation/presencing (aletheia). such errors are the result of the careless reification of the ordering processes of the intellect into distinct entities.

to so deem such concepts as inherent in themselves instead of necessarily emergent patterns of intellection is to downplay the utter importance of memory and individuated perception in the sculpting of higher levels of consciousness. moreover, it is the remembering of all change, form, temporality, distinction, and individuality, those aspects of reality decried by so many metaphysicians as "imperfect" or "evil", that are the very means by which metaphysics is even conceivable in the first place. to seek "salvation" from time and distinction is to wish death upon one's self.

there are no "things" underlying process; Being IS process.

Eulogy wrote:

i would distinguish 3 conceptions of the self: the actuality of experiential process, the identity-ego, and the Cartesian subject.

the first would be the "true" self, so to speak; one needn't formulate any conceptions for this self to be evident; it is the pre-conceptual presenting of one's consciousness, in whatever form.

Consciousness....animal sensuality.
No perception of self is required, because perception IS self.  

Eulogy wrote:

the second requires memory in order to exist, as well as a discriminating intellect. first, the mind takes hold of experiences in spite of their passing in time as memories; then, the intellect discriminates and chooses more substantial experiences as reference points of individuation and distinction.

I don't see a difference from the first here.
This sensual engagement results in the storage of data, experiences, which inform this sensual perception.

But I can see the beginning of a self-consciousnesses here.
Once the organism evolves the ability to recall, to remember, further and further back, there is a detachment of past from the immediate, creating this dualism of past self and presence.
When the mind begins to project into the future, this detachment can turn to a complete delusion, as the projected has no foundation in anything perceived or in the past (nature), and is a fabrication, or a fantastic recombination of elements that do not refer to anything sensual ...or, in the extreme, it becomes nihilism where the past (nature), and the present, are dismissed as illusions.
Nihilism, used properly, is this nullification of all which is perceived, experienced; all that is present, that appears, is apparent.
This is the start of a schizophrenic first stage of consciousnesses as it develops self-consciousness.
Jaynes described it as the Bicameral mind.

The gradual splintering of consciousnesses creates the illusion that one is other than one's form, one's presence, one's appearance. It also creates the possibility for the divine experience, God talking to us.
It also creates the possibility for narcissism; the schism distancing one part, the idealized, sanctified part, from the other, the base, the earthly, the mundane.        

Eulogy wrote:

the third is a purely fictional abstraction born entirely out of onto-theological logic. the so-called non-experiential self in meditation is simply a very abstract, ineffable form of experiential being, a sort of non-sensual (if by sensual we mean the five senses) "force-feeling". in post-Platonic metaphysics, Process is deemed unreal in favor of the purported ontological supremacy of entities in stasis. instead of tracing the sense of self by means of careful phenomenological investigation (which would reveal that a sense of a unified self is the product of experiential continuity and memory), it is assumed that the "true" self is some sort of mysterious, formless entity that is separate from experience, a dark ghost behind the shifting shadows. it is the same logic that erroneously concludes that substance-essence (ousia) and form-essence (hypostasis) are separate things that are somehow prior to manifestation/presencing (aletheia). such errors are the result of the careless reification of the ordering processes of the intellect into distinct entities.

Yes.
I've described how this comes about, in my view and in brief, above.

This schism of consciousnesses from self-consciousnesses becomes the noumenon/phenomenon, the mind/body, or the ideal/real, division.  
I consider this a primitive first stage of an evolving self-consciousnesses.
The mind is burdened with reconstituting unity, or to harmonize the divide creating a cohesion.  

Metaphysically speaking, it is this looking back, which is what consciousness is, which self-consciousness attempts to attach to the present ...to shrink the distance between noumenon and phenomenon - meditation tries to do this.

The most common practice is to increase the distance, to detach completely by pushing away the past, leaving the present, the immediate in a limbo. This limbo is disillusionment, and the only remedy for a mind finding itself in this situation is escapism in the most immediate: materialism hedonism.
The schism is not bridged, using art, but it is increased further creating a psychological confusion, a sense of loss of self, a lack of identity.

Satyr wrote:

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When you say free will here, do you mean it like the capability for reflective consciousness?
If all were ordered then there would probably be no form of consciousness, (even) no life at all.

Yes...consciousness is of world....self-consciousness is awareness of self in relation to world or in relation to other.
If all were ordered consciousness would only evolve as an observer of what has already been determined.
Willing would not be 'free' but also predetermined...in accordance to a pattern.

The only way I can find to rescue will and liberate it from determinism is chaos, defined as randomness.
This also gives an explanation as to why we evolve consciousness...not as mere witness to what is following a pattern, but as a reactive agency because not everything follows an ordered pattern, but is unpredictable, random.
Now we can say that will is free to the degree that chaos participates in causality.
It is free in that it has to react, make a choice, in reaction to what is forever unpredictable.
Consciousness and will, as the focus of consciousness, evolved to deal with chaos.

If all were ordered all would be automatic reactivity, not requiring awarness
Eventually all would evolved a prescribed reaction to what was repeating and inevitable.

The only alternative is to explain consciousness as a evolved method of out-competing another.
We become conscious to increase the efficiency of our already predetermined reactions...but this makes free-will a myth and it implies that we exist, as ideas, in some divine mind, which is using us to entertain itself.

Life is ordering. Our bodies decay, everything falls apart. Life is resisting this falling apart. Life IS this activity of resisting. If all is ordered then presumably nothing falls apart, nothing to resist to, so no life.
Life is locally decreasing the level of entropy (level of disorder). In other words life is locally ordering.
If everything is already ordered and there is no ever increasing entropy which could be resisted then there is no life.

What the people who believe the world is getting more ordered every day do is invert chaos and order.
The unknown is thought of as the trusted saviour.
If only we break down what exists today, the future will be better.

It's true that space is a limiting factor, if you break down existing order there is room for something else but this something else does not magically spawn and it's not necessarily better. In fact, if the existing order had to be removed for this new order to emerge then it was probably not that good at competing in the first place.

Linear time is the experience of increasing chaos, of expanding time/space, of fragmentation.
From near-absolute order movement towards near-absolute chaos.

In the process the emergence of a new near-absolute is inevitable....perhaps it has already occurred.

apaosha wrote:

The "I" is not subject to determinism, it is an expression of determinism.

The present is the ongoing manifestation of the past, therefore the "I" is the ongoing manifestation of past processes that brought it about.
You are not a spectator to causality, you are an effect of causality. To think that the "I" is a separate entity upon which determinism is applied is to fall into the error of language which presupposes an actor who performs an act: I think therefore I am.
The actor is the act, therefore the I is also the thought: thought therefore existence.

Any desires that a consciousness possesses do not spring from nothing. Consequently any choices can only be made through deterministic factors.

I have thought about this alot. I used to be sure that free-will was fake, and that life was a movie and you could not ever escape your fate.

But after thinking about it for years I don't really know. Scientists haven't covered much ground in areas of consciousness exploration.

There is a theory called the "Multiverse" which my theory may sound like, but it is different. The multiverse theory refers to an infinitude of universes, with different physics codes. My theory is different. My theory is more like Tree theory, where there are 2 possibilities or branches of quantum atoms, and each possibility enters its own slightly different dimension. The longer time goes on the bigger the divergence. Free will would fit into this as part of Tree theory, our decisions take us on a different journey and different dimensions within Tree theory.

Randomness implies that an event in the causative process is not bound to have predictable outcomes. If this is the case then any event could have any outcome, or no outcome, or an event could occur out of nothing.
How does the process of randomness work?
Randomness breaks the concept of flux because it introduces tributaries and channels to the river that have no source of their own, they -just happen-, randomly, for the sole purpose of adding unpredictability in order to avoid determinism. It would be like: causality is a river, the past flowing forwards as present, and occasionally you get things dropped into it from an unknown (or no) source.
Free Will defined as an evolutionary reaction to randomness is not really free will either. It's determinism plus a random number generator, the product of which would still not be "ours", we would be the product of it. IE the sum total of past interaction that preceded us plus RNG from whatever would manifest the effect "consciousness" which would go about thinking and making decisions based on the above.
It would still be reaction, not action as a first-mover, not Free Will. If you're to say that you are making a decision that is purely your own, or partially your own, then you have to introduce an element of something-from-nothing or self-caused in order to avoid it being the product of past. Reality precedes consciousness.
So the choices are determinism, ex nihilo, causa sui or a combination.

Determinism doesn't need to be a divine plan for the universe. It could just be the path water takes as it flows down a hill, the path a river takes as it follows it's banks; the pattern that results from the path of least resistance. Beyond that, there's no more information available.

I conceptualize it in this way....

We can only perceive order, so we can only perceive chaos via order.
Because chaos cannot be organized it cannot create unities that can be perceived by an organism with the sensual acuity of a human.
It always remains on the smallest scale.
It affect patterns and this effect is integrated into unities that can be perceived...so random energies can only be perceived indirectly through their effects on patterns.
The mind interprets it as change that cannot be explained, cannot be rationalized...as the inexplicable...as behaviour that is irrational....a hint of the irrational in the rational.

Man understands it mystically, and creates mystical order that assimilates the chaotic within their order.

Some exploit this by mystifying what is ordered, wanting to reject, hide from what is threatening.
Chaos serves the purpose of escapism - nihilism.

Philosophy I about demystifying, or rationalizing the mysterious which is what chaos is.

Order is defined as consistent, repeating, predictable....probability as opposed to possibility.
Therefore, a river would flow down the mountain in a predictable way.  
Science studies order....and so makes predictions.

Philosophy studies order and chaos, as it manifests as presence.  
It can use order to direct toward higher or lower probabilities.
It is also spiritual, dealing with what cannot be predicted....and how to deal with it.

apaosha wrote:

Randomness implies that an event in the causative process is not bound to have predictable outcomes. If this is the case then any event could have any outcome, or no outcome, or an event could occur out of nothing.
How does the process of randomness work?
Randomness breaks the concept of flux because it introduces tributaries and channels to the river that have no source of their own, they -just happen-, randomly, for the sole purpose of adding unpredictability in order to avoid determinism. It would be like: causality is a river, the past flowing forwards as present, and occasionally you get things dropped into it from an unknown (or no) source.
Free Will defined as an evolutionary reaction to randomness is not really free will either. It's determinism plus a random number generator, the product of which would still not be "ours", we would be the product of it. IE the sum total of past interaction that preceded us plus RNG from whatever would manifest the effect "consciousness" which would go about thinking and making decisions based on the above.
It would still be reaction, not action as a first-mover, not Free Will. If you're to say that you are making a decision that is purely your own, or partially your own, then you have to introduce an element of something-from-nothing or self-caused in order to avoid it being the product of past. Reality precedes consciousness.
So the choices are determinism, ex nihilo, causa sui or a combination.

Determinism doesn't need to be a divine plan for the universe. It could just be the path water takes as it flows down a hill, the path a river takes as it follows it's banks; the pattern that results from the path of least resistance. Beyond that, there's no more information available.

To be honest, consciousness discussions are about the hardest discussions you can discuss. The mechanic or engineer simply has no time or patience for consciousness discussions because it is so unphysical.
I respect you and Satyr taking the time to make consciousness discussions.
However, blame my half-brown mind but I simply, cannot keep up with the whole thing. I am more a slow and steady thinker kind of like a general of war. Random discoveries just pop in my head. I must carefully think over this whole thread before I can immediately derive any certainties.
Although to be honest, I'm not sure if it's my half-brown mind at all. It could be that the nature of consciousness discussions, are best suited as an HD render of a movie. You can put the movie on the heavy-graphics settings and render the best movie possible, but it will take forever.
So I cannot for sure say you are right or wrong yet, my mind needs to deeply render the situation.

But I will say this. By flux do you mean, a closed loop, like a magnet flux? The idea of an energy balance where the explosion of the universe, eventually collapses into itself and big bangs again?
There are very few things in nature that are perfect fluxes, the very idea of a perpetual motion machine is hard to come by. It is no guarantee the universe will actually collapse on itself at all. And this is my guess of how Multiverse theory came to be. A subconscious notion of eternal consciousness, as nothingness is infinite and thus has no dimension, no substance, the substance of nonexistence is a paradox as nonexistence cannot exist, thus the subconscious feeling of this manifests Multiverse, when this universe is dried up surely another will appear? The subconscious rejection of the multiverse, manifests tendency in belief of a collapsing universe, flux universe.

I'm not sure I understand your river analogy, mainly because, the analogy uses violations of physics. It says that tributaries just randomly appear and teleport into existence, and that sourceless things seem to appear out of thin air. Thus it confuses me.

The other half of the confusion is that I was thinking of a river theory of my own, but it was different. My river theory is that how, in a computer simulation, if a human player, not fixed rotational coordinates, drops a bucket on a mountain, every time you drop the bucket it will form different rivers and tributaries, every time. And this is the metaphor of society.
Society is completely unpredictable. But in certain areas, totally predictable. Back to my river metaphor, if you drop a bucket on a mountain, after each restart, you are going to usually see the same rivers over and over again, if the mountain has a crack in it. But the further out from the mountain you get, you get a divergence.

And this is what quantum physics seems to say. I am not a formal expert in the matter but it seems to say that each atom has 2 different positions in space. And since each atom has both 2 different positions, they all average each other out collectively, as a collection of atoms you will always get collectively predictable behaviors, similar to how if you flip a penny 100 times it averages out to 50 heads, so the more atoms in a system, the more it will look like a solid-state system. Thus the difference between solids and liquids.

Science can simulate water flowing down the mountain and create an illusion that looks almost the same as reality, eventually improving the illusion to look the same. But can it truly predict the water flowing down the mountain? No, if you walk on the mountain, pour a bucket, no scientist can draw an exact picture of whats going to happen. They can just give generalities, saying the water will have a high probability of flowing a certain way.
And this is exactly what science does, it takes a chaotic unpredictable world, focuses on phenomenon that are simple and predictable, and maps equations to simple predictable phenomenon. Newtonian physics gives equations of gravity and physics, which are simple and predictable. But it does not give equations of social situations, or how to become president, or other less predictable things, such as behavoir of water. Some other scientists tried to tackle it but still have problems, it is one of the million dollar questions.

Now in terms of simulation, there are two options. The simulation can run consistently, each frame with the exact same equations, regardless of CPU heating up. In an absolute frame world, each pour of the bucket, with the buckets origin and rotation using fixed coordinates, would result in exactly the same outcome. But in a simulation, such as a videogame, where framerate must be sacrificed, where the simulation occassionally skips a frame, each pour of the bucket would create a unique tributary system. And this is what Quantum physics, or at least my understanding of quantum physics seems to say. It seems to say that life is not comprised of solid 1's and 0's, but rather, life is a kind of quantum computer, which atoms are in two different states and potentials, but not in the sense of being coherently a 1 or 0, but that it is a 50/50 of being a one or zero. Thus the bucket thing, would be essentially based on a quantum computer, and I'd imagine if you ran such a sim in a quantum computer, it would give different tributaries each time, even in a frame based sim. Although, my understanding of quantum fluctuations could be wrong, and I am not an expert.

If we talk predictability then, as I understand it, the further you look into the future the less accurate your predictions will be even if you had perfect tools to measure everything.

Things behave predictable on a macro level and there also only if studied and viewed on a macro scale.
On the very small scales matter behaves in a chaotic probabilistic way, an so far as understood fundamentally unpredictable probabilistic way.
It's when we look at larger scale that this chaotic behaviour on the very small scale becomes predictable due to averaging out and presenting the probabilities in very certain terms.

If I throw a dice there is a 1 in 6 chance to throw a Six. Doesn't matter how often I have thrown a Six in a row before, each time the chance is again 1 in 6.
I can't be sure what will happen at the next dice throw.
But if I were to throw the dice ten-thousand times I'd be pretty sure that on average there would be about 10000:6 = 1667 Sixes. (If it's an ideal dice, otherwise it would vary a bit and each dice would have its proabilities for each side).

Edit:
Well, actually, if you look into the future and want to know a certain detail, a small part comparatively small to the whole set of influences and causalities then you have a difficult time to know what will happen to a small thing in the future.
But, the large picture, the macro scale becomes inevitable.

Yes...you cannot predict because the variables are too many, and because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and because of chaos.

The further into space (possibility) you project a potential probability, a theoretical probability, the higher the risk of being wrong.
So, higher from lower life is determined by this ability to successfully project further into the future.
What is projected?
Precedent....knowledge/experience = data.
Data offers insight as the mind can find patterns in the patterns = understanding.

I thought about it again and I added this:

Edit:
Well, actually, if you look into the future and want to know a certain detail, a small part comparatively small to the whole set of influences and causalities then you have a difficult time to know what will happen to a small thing in the future.
But, the large picture, the macro scale becomes inevitable.

Yes...because chaos works on the micro, and is absorbed into the macro.
Your judgment will adsorb the random error as a slight divergence.

Then you will adjust and repeat, if you will it.
This makes consciousness constant, dynamic...corresponding to the dynamism of Flux.
This is why I spoke of harmony.
A convergence of mind and world, which is never absolute. An approach.

Guest wrote:

So what is the function of the " I " from an evolutionary perspective?

Most of this is beyond my pay-grade, but, one of the fallacies Dennett uses in "Consciousness Explained" is to associate the "I" as if it is an evolutionary defense mechanism.

I am not sure if you are using the fallacy, or if it is simply accidentally implied by your wording.

Dennett's fallacy seems to say that consciousness came to be as an effort to improve the organism's defenses.
When what is really going on, is that we don't really know much about consciousness, and dennett didn't explain consciousness, no consciousness was explained.

What we do know, is that we are all on an internet board of intellectuals. We simply assume that stupid people, and animals, have consciousness, but we really do not know. We just feel it with our gut, or borderline psychic abilities. Essentially, we say solipsism is silly, because our gut tells us so. By solipsism I mean partial solipsism, partial solipsism is the idea only 12 or so people in the world are actually conscious, the rest being p-zombies. In our gut, this feels silly or does it? Though one might be able to wholly imply that total solipism cannot happen, can one really prove or disprove that maybe 100, or less, are truly consciousness? Our morality then speaks, that we should give them the benefit of the doubt, and treat them well, in case we are unsure.

But most likely, evolution did not conspire to create consciousness, it simply seems that consciousness, very hard to explain and, just happens to connect with evolved organic lifeforms and read their data inputs. The data inputs are then transformed into something outside of themselves, the hard problem of consciousness. We do not "Smell" webs of nuerons, somehow the webs of neurons undergo a ethereal transformation, into the consciousness of smells.

apaosha wrote:

The "I Am-ness" is thought, consciousness, awareness. One can think about prior thoughts or perception, which is the looking back, but the awareness itself is thought.

The "I" is a convention of language. The original latin is better: cogito ergo sum.

Otherwise you have the notion that a subject (I) can be disconnected from the action it performs (thought)..... further that the subject can be disconnected from the world in general such that it can be said to be subject to a tyrannical deterministic effect.

The past is everything. All that I am is a consequence of the past. Without the past I have no future. Without the past, there can be no future.

The notion of Free Will seems to me like a nihilist trying to excuse or escape the determining past that brought him about, to dismiss what limits him or restricts him, or reminds him of his failures or of his ultimate horizons.
Like a liberal who thinks an individuals nature can be corrected through proper training.

Designer people without pasts.

I have thought about this more, still no answer of consciousness for you.

But I have answer to this particular post at least.

We do seem victim to a tyrannical deterministic effect. Do you have any explanation why you were born with the genes you have today? For all you know, you might have been born in Brazil. We have no idea, why consciousness happens to just enter some places and not others. For example, you may have been born in Brazil, and I may have been born in Australia. It seems like some deterministic effect without us knowing why.

And the tyrannical, deterministic effect can happen, with or without free will. It is the hard problem of consciousness. Nobody knows why a bundle of neurons seems to have a "consciousness cloud" attached to it that always follows it around and is married to it. But the consciousness cloud might not have an agency of it's own, it could just be unwittingly "along for the ride." But to the consciousness cloud, it does not "feel" that way, it has this "feeling" of having choice.

Now as for liberals, its a mix of nature and nurture (some say 50/50, others say 66/33.) Some tastes are just hardcoded, for instance rap music and love of beats seems to be so hardcoded you cannot persuade them otherwise. I don't think all nature can be retaught, but some can. And this leads into the question of reincarnation: How can a being of higher taste, who hates rap music, die of old age, and then reincarnate as a rap music lover? Then there is this feeling, that maybe spirit/souls do infact exist.