(E.1) The actions of
living things, including humans are dictated not only by the
physical laws of nature at the atomic level but also by the experiences
they encounter in nature at the macroscopic level of
living things which we shall call biologism or by
the more common name, biological determinism .
(E.1.1) A rock can only respond to rain in
only one deterministic way and that is to remain unmoved as the laws
of nature determine its fate in time present as
it had in time past. It cannot undertake a deterministic
action to get out of the rain. Given enough time, the cause of
the rain will result in the effect of the rock, driven by the material imperative
of entropy, to wear away into smaller and smaller pieces of rock
which are widely dispersed into the soil of its environment.
This is exactly what happens when large mountain ranges
wear away over millions of years. Today, the soil of the Appalachian Basin and
the sand of the Outer Banks on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean is full of the
sediment produced as the Central Pangaean Mountains began eroding some 295
million years ago. Geologists estimate the now-vanished mountain in modern-day New Hampshire
and North Carolina may have been taller than Mt. Everest. The Appalachian Mountains of today are remnants of them. But at no time did the mountain itself
play any role in the action of big rocks turning into tiny
grains of sand. The huge mountains were entirely under the ascendency of
the laws of nature at the atomic level.
On a smaller scale, a solid cube of ice left on a hot
sidewalk will turn into a liquid puddle of water when, as the laws of
nature dictate that it must, the thermal activity of the water
molecules reach the level of melting temperature of ice. No action other
than this solid-liquid transformation is a possible outcome. Likewise, placing
the puddle of water in a saucepan on a hot stove the liquid water will turn
into gaseous steam. When the water is boiling, steam is the action resulting
from the cause of the thermal activity having reached the
boiling temperature of water. Again, no action other than this
liquid-gas transformation is a possible outcome.
The inability for a cause or
causes to result in only one possible action we
shall call absolute determinism.
(E.1.2) Living things with brain
, however, have closed feedback systems that allow more than one course
of action, all of which function according to the laws of
nature. Rather than remaining immobile like the stone when acted upon
by its environment, the feedback systems can result in multiple
possible courses of action induced by a single cause.
This is the effect of The effect for animals like humans
may either seek shelter from the cause of the rain or, like
the rock, remain unmoved in it. Similarly, at a more basic level, is
the "fight or flight or ignore" reflex action to a sudden sound.
The resulting behavior is the product of a complex series of experiences and
in a complex biological response to them as the a ction may
be taken. This we shall call biologism or the more commonly
used biological bi ological determinism that
is enabled by a complex closed-loop biological feedback system in living things
that ultimately determines which of two or more possible actions
are taken in response to a single causative event. It is
this biological determinism that we encounter first hand in our
lives every passing moment. Indeed, we are like a pin
ball fall through a pin ball machine. The action the pin
ball takes is absolute deterministic at the atomic level
but the action of the pin ball on the scale at which we live
appears to be entirely random as we bounce with biological
determinism from "peg" to
"peg" through life. The number of possible paths we might take
as we fall through the pinball machine of life are incalculable. Nature
calculates empirically but our brain only makes a
best guess of which path to follow.
The biological feedback system, being composed of the matter that
is the living entity , can only follow
the laws of nature no more or less so than mountains that
became sand on the seashore. The laws of nature are
inviolate even in living things. The most significant
difference is that most living things are mobile and can
take actions based on indirect of subjective causes. Changes
in nature follow in lockstep one behind the
other. But the living thing does play a role in its course
of “action” those steps take by way of
its electrochemical feedback system which, of course, itself must abide by
the inviolate laws of nature. As a material entity,
living things have no means of avoiding or violating them. That
would require a supernatural entity apart from nature and
we have no evidence whatsoever of any such an entity.
(E.1.3) The ability for a cause to
result in more than a single particular action in
living things we shall call absolute biological determinism. That
is to say it dictates the path that the underlying absolute
determinism at the atomic level will take.
(E.2) While the beating of our hearts is ruled entirely by
the absolute determinism dictated by the laws of nature, biological
determinism has no physical aspects and is dictated entirely by nimbus of
the mind and and, more specifically, the nimbus
of emotion. The “fight or flight” action all sentient
things with brains, for example, is triggered by the
emotion of fear and the resulting action for
fight or flight or ignore is decided by the brain based on
the intensity of the fear. Does the likely outcome of
the action of fight outweigh the likely the
outcome of the action of flight? That is, to ask the most
fundamental question of all, what is in my best interest to do? Similarly,
the choice of chocolate or vanilla ice cream is triggered by the emotions of
“like” and “dislike” with the dominate one dictating the choice.
(E.3) The use of the knowledge gained from experience which
we shall call reasoning can create emotions resulting
in the actions of biological determinism.
Sentient knowledge that it might rain and the emotion of
dislike of getting wet can result in the biological determinism to
take an umbrella with you. This results in the creation of the emotion
of satisfaction that you will not g et
wet rather than the emotion of fear that you might get wet.
However, should you not have knowledge that
it is raining and you like walking in the rain, result in not taking an
umbrella with you and engendering the the emotion of
pleasure. New emotions are built on the back old emotions.
So why is biological determinism not free will?
Because your emotion of dislike of getting wet is not itself
the product of free will. You had no choice in the matter.
Your brain evaluated the sensory data as emotionally
favorable, emotionally unfavorable, or emotionally ambivalent. Your
dislike of rain is the product of a biological process of experiencing
r ain in time past which resulted in an emotion of
dislike of the experience and memory of it
having stored as brain memory. You did not will yourself
to like or dislike the experience. Rather your brain evaluated
the sensation of the experience and associated
the negative emotion of dislike with it. That emotion
was established entirely by biological determinism.
Indeed, one “person experience dislike of the rain while
another may experience please from a walk in the rain. The quale of
the emotion of dislike for rain prompts you to bring your
umbrella, not free will . You only falsely perceive in
your mind that free will did. Any
the evaluation of the emotion of dislike will remain
unchanged in your memory until you have an experience with rain
that changes it.
That emotions and their valuations can
be recalled from memory makes them a kind of knowledge that
we might say is recalled emotion in the same sense that the experience
or classes of experience can be
recalled for application of comparisons and evaluations being
made with experiences in time present .
Indeed, the recall of an “emotion” regarding
some observation made through our sensory system is no different than recalling
that the qualia of the stoplight is currently red and not
yellow or green and that means you should STOP rather than GO. As
such, the assertion can be made that“emotions are simply
another form of quale. The emotional quale dislike
of walking in the rain prompts you to bring your umbrella. The absence of rain
prompts no adverse qualia of emotions to prompt
you to bring your umbrella. The quale of
the color red in the stop light prompts you to stop until the quale of
the color green appears in its place. The quale of the
emotion of fear of an automobile crash at the intersection
has sufficient negative valuation to prompt you to apply your foot to the
brake peddle and stop. The biological determinism resulting from
your response to the emotion of fear to either stop or not
to stop irrevocably changes the course of the entire remainder of your life
will be in time future and all subsequent experiences that
you encounter in your environment. But your actions in time
future are a combination of both absolute determinism
at the atomic scale and of absolute biological determinism. The
absolute determinism of a automobile crashing into you and
killing you is the result of the absolute biological determinism of
you not having stopped for the red light. And that you were killed was not
a matter of free will at all.
(E.4) Awareness by t he brain of the experience is
n ecessary for biological determinism but consciousness
is not. Stumping your toe and breaking it is an action
of biological determinism but the first action
of moving your foot away from the obstacle is not. Only of a time
interval of one second or so does the sensation of
the emotion of pain reach your brain and result in consciousness
of the perception of stubbing your toe, the
associated sensation of pain and,
finally, consciousness that your toe is
broken. Further, the actions taken after you have knowledge that
your toes is broken is the effect of biological determinism of either
living with the pain or seek the care of an orthopedic surgeon. Is
your decision driven by the emotions of dislike
of pain or the fear of disease or death of not seeking medical attention
or both? Whatever the case, your brain decides and makes you conscious
of its decision. Should you not known your toe is broken and it
heals on its own, no biological determinism was involved. It
either heals itself or not as dictated by the physical determinism of
its healing by the laws of nature without either your awareness
or your knowledge.
(E.5) Insensate things experience no
biological determinism. A rock is ruled directly
and entirely by the physical determinism dictated by
the laws of nature. A person may use biological determinism to
take action to throw the rock into a pond of water, but
the rock experiences only physical determinism on its
journey into the water and had no input into its being thrown or not thrown.
The motivation behind the biological determinism to
throw or not throw the rock is what make the actions of humans human.
(E) Biological determinism is the cause of the effect of objective conscious actions taken in response to mental processes in the brains of living things. The actions taken are made on the basis of subjective evaluations of sensations in the brain from sensory inputs both in time present and time past. Biological determinism gives rise to the false perception of free will.