Henri Bergson's description of the Intellect

[bethelpro]

ce nul

[ComplexEmergence]

Just to cite this beautiful passage: H Bergson, Creative Evolution, pg 29-30 (copyright 1911, trans., A Mitchell, originally published 1907, [same year as Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon])

[0ThouArtThat0]

Nick, if the future were 100% unknowable, no life whatsoever could exist or have evolved. The only reason we are here is because our bodies are good (not perfect) at predicting nature's habits. The future is certainly unknown, but not 100%. It is very much conditioned by the past, though certainly there are unexpected phase transitions at times.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Nick, I think the body that does things does in a sense 'know' what it is doing. There is no central controller directing or rationally understanding this 'knowing', but nonetheless, the body is not blind. We can pencil in that ego-consciousness as some disembodied, perfectly rational control center is a complete fiction.

[cozmikzen]

i cant explain craving & desires, but if u zoom out from pizza specifically, we do know generally, that we will eat something.

what ever pathways develop in the brain is giantly influenced by experience. past experience points in in a direction of an expected outcome. when we find success, we repeat the pattern. even if that success is "trying something new". plus, we dont just learn from our own experience, but also by observation of others experiences.

its a cumulative process.

[cozmikzen]

ok, maybe its because the present and the future isnt 100% unknowable. our experience has shown us that what may happen in the future (everyday occurances) are mostly probable. it may be 100% unknowable, but it is also, maybe 80% or more probable.

also, what keeps me from saying it, is i deal with truly unknowable things alot. so, in comparrison an 80% probable future isthe reality we live in compared to things that truly are 100% unknowable.

[cozmikzen]

i think some of usknow as best we can. there is always that element of unknown in the future which we cannot 100% commit to. i know, after this comment, i'm going to bed. But, i could fall down the stairs & go to the hospital instead. maybe we cant know anything. the present & past are subject to interpetation and memory, which contains errors & non-omniscience. the future is always subject to a supernova lol.

maybe we cant know for sure, but we do have intentions. maybe intention is key.

[cozmikzen]

i know i will cook supper tomorrow, unless some irregular occurance disturbs the plan. i dont have to experience making supper tomorrow to know that i will. my body hasnt done it yet. but i know the ingredients and actions to make it happen.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Well, I can catch a baseball that is thrown my way, so somehow my body knows what to do next... but as I said, I agree that the little ego-man inside the skull is a fiction. It does nothing, knows nothing. The body catches the ball, not the "I."

[0ThouArtThat0]

Humans don't always know what they are going to do in the sense that the intellect can only approximate the future by modeling the past. Much of life is creative in nature, meaning it moves in unexpected directions, and so often times we have no way of assuring the result that we intend.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Nick, I agree with you that the "I" does not pick and choose how to behave/what to think, etc. What I am picking on you about is the degree to which, after accepting the idea that the "I" is impotent, you seem resigned to the fact of determinism (even though you don't like to say it).

[0ThouArtThat0]

I am rather trying to find a middle ground, such that there is no strict free will and no strict determinism. Instead, there is a natural continuum running through the whole of nature (our inner experience and our outer behavior) that, while mostly constructed out of habits, is also capable of unexpected (though often seen as intelligent after the fact) leaps into novelty. These leaps are not something you or I do, but something the whole of nature does.

[LimpLoser]

I was visited by Alan Watt's ghost, he said " i made good money from talking shit and lying to people. " Then he vanished leaving a smell of vanilla in the air.

[LimpLoser]

Good stuff-- There is no such thing as a non-human truth.