In his book, “The illusion of conscious will ” Wegner asks, “Does the fact that thoughts usually proceed actions actually prove that thoughts are the cause of actions? ”. You assume they do.
I don’t know why you think I am assuming this. Regardless of the causes of your opinions, one thing which is not the cause is a coherent set of probabilities. In the same way, regardless of the causes of your actions, one thing which is not the cause is a coherent set of preferences.
This is necessarily true since you are built out of physical things which do not have sets of preferences about the world, and you follow physical laws which do not have sets of preferences about the world. They have something similar to this, e.g. you could metaphorically speak as if gravity has a preference for things being lower down or closer together. But you cannot compare any two arbitrary states of the world and say “Gravity would prefer this state to that one.” Gravity simply has no such preferences. In a similar way, since your actions result from principles which are preference-like but not preferences, your actions are also somewhat preference-like, but they do not express a coherent set of preferences.
All that said, you are close to a truth, which is that since the incoherence of people’s lives bothers them (both in thoughts and in actions), it is good for people to try to make those both more coherent. In general you could make incoherent thoughts and actions more coherent in two different directions, namely “more consistent with themselves but less consistent with the world” and “more consistent with themselves and also more consistent with the world”. The second choice is better.
Does an electron prefer a lower orbital? Is this a physical thing which has a preference about the world? Indirectly it shows that matter prefers to have less energy. You could say the universe prefers entropy. Consciousness is simply awareness of our preferences.
I don’t think you understood the argument. Let’s agree that an electron prefers what it is going to do, over what it is not going to do. But does an electron in China prefer that I write this comment, or a different one?
Obviously, it has no preference at all about that. So even if it has some local preferences, it does not have a coherent preference over all possible things. The same thing is true for human beings, for exactly the same reasons.
You don’t Need a preference for every possible scenario. You only need a basic set that covers every possible scenario. For example, let’s say you don’t like spicy food. You don’t have to try chicken curry, beef curry, mutton curry, fish curry, from every curry shop in every city, in every country in the world, to know you won’t like it. A basic set of preferences can cover all situations.
In his book, “The illusion of conscious will ” Wegner asks, “Does the fact that thoughts usually proceed actions actually prove that thoughts are the cause of actions? ”. You assume they do.
I don’t know why you think I am assuming this. Regardless of the causes of your opinions, one thing which is not the cause is a coherent set of probabilities. In the same way, regardless of the causes of your actions, one thing which is not the cause is a coherent set of preferences.
This is necessarily true since you are built out of physical things which do not have sets of preferences about the world, and you follow physical laws which do not have sets of preferences about the world. They have something similar to this, e.g. you could metaphorically speak as if gravity has a preference for things being lower down or closer together. But you cannot compare any two arbitrary states of the world and say “Gravity would prefer this state to that one.” Gravity simply has no such preferences. In a similar way, since your actions result from principles which are preference-like but not preferences, your actions are also somewhat preference-like, but they do not express a coherent set of preferences.
All that said, you are close to a truth, which is that since the incoherence of people’s lives bothers them (both in thoughts and in actions), it is good for people to try to make those both more coherent. In general you could make incoherent thoughts and actions more coherent in two different directions, namely “more consistent with themselves but less consistent with the world” and “more consistent with themselves and also more consistent with the world”. The second choice is better.
Does an electron prefer a lower orbital? Is this a physical thing which has a preference about the world? Indirectly it shows that matter prefers to have less energy. You could say the universe prefers entropy. Consciousness is simply awareness of our preferences.
I don’t think you understood the argument. Let’s agree that an electron prefers what it is going to do, over what it is not going to do. But does an electron in China prefer that I write this comment, or a different one?
Obviously, it has no preference at all about that. So even if it has some local preferences, it does not have a coherent preference over all possible things. The same thing is true for human beings, for exactly the same reasons.
You don’t Need a preference for every possible scenario. You only need a basic set that covers every possible scenario. For example, let’s say you don’t like spicy food. You don’t have to try chicken curry, beef curry, mutton curry, fish curry, from every curry shop in every city, in every country in the world, to know you won’t like it. A basic set of preferences can cover all situations.