Nate is this a carry over form our aside into FW&D?
If so you may want to follow up on what Don found about Thomas Metzinger. It is kind of interesting but it likely won't make you feel better (at least at first). It will however address some of the assumptions you are making.
One reason I suggest that hard determinism is wrong is that the universe appears to be probabilistic down to a subatomic level. There are clear *trends* or higher order probabilities but there is also an element of chaos. These conditions exist across a kind of asymptotic relationship of proximity and dependence from certainty to impossibility and never quite reach, but instead infinitely approach one extreme or another for any given set of conditions.
I counter the Free Will argument the same way. There exists a sort of mirror image of that asymptote predicated on a variety of factors that grant the will a form of intentional expression within *limits* the restrictions of which define choice. But choice is never a single option, and within the range of possibility there are not simply better and worse options but also the chaotic alternative of synthetic or intuitive *invention* for choice.
Being No One:The Self-model Theory of Subjectivity 2004-01-30
According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as "selves" exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model". In "Being No One", Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is.
BTW folks I find some of this intriguingly consistent but a bit too Buddhist or [:o] existentialist for the average American and westerner. I doubt
telling people they are *self less* is going to carry enough memetic weight to overcome their fixation with self interest.
)
More on the *intentionality relation* BTW nice find Don, and yes it is appropriate.
What makes a phenomenal state a subjective state?
http://cleamara18.vu...4/Metzinger.pdfBook Review -
Being No One, by Thomas MetzingerMIT Press, 2002 Review by Kenneth Einar Himma, May 25th 2003
BTW Don and Nate I can see that this leads directly back to what I have been arguing about self identification with an external model of a spiritual soul versus a biological model of the mind. I can also see that that the reasons for choosing intention over potential are strong, but dangerously dissatisfying politically.
However it should be possible to rephrase the arguments in more socially palatable terms. It might help Don if you didn't seem so eager to suggest such Hobbsean examples sometimes. [g:)]
the phenomenal model of the intentionality relation (PMIR), which provides a functionalist model of the experienced subject-object relation that forms the basis for the perspectival dimension of self. A PMIR depicts a relationship between the system, which is transparently represented to itself, and some (possibly internal) object in the world. For example, the PMIR currently operative in your body would depict, among other things, your state of being someone who is currently reading a review of Metzinger's book.
I am not really side tracking you Nate. If you look at the example you've chosen to evaluate, you are presuming a tiered model and that sets up your relationship of self with respect to other selves in a manner that presumes the competitive evolutionary model.
Metzinger is suggesting there may be a sort of a step up from that relationship to a toward a more objective relation. Meaningfulness for individual life then goes beyond self relational and then acquires a
potentially higher meaning.
This could be dangerously altruistic [!
]