From my understanding, brain activity occurs much too slowly and at too large of a scale to be affected by quantum effects.
From my understanding, brain activity is somewhat analogous to weather. For weather you have inputs and outputs, and the current state of the atmosphere. The conditions are always changing so you get different outcomes at different times. With the brain, you have sensory input coming in from the world around you, and this interacts with the current state of your brain to produce the outputs we experience.
I probably used the wrong terminology. The question is whether a particle would decay at a different rate if the conditions could be reset or if we could go back in time. And like verifying the speed of light travels the same speed in both directions, it’s something that may be practically assumed, but nevertheless defies observational verification.
I’ve read something that may also fall along this line with verifying wave function collapse theory. But I could be totally off.
If in your view quantum fluctuation cause your fingers to snap, but you are mistaken into thinking you are the one acting, then this conversation has been a long time coming
You will never know however, if more or less delay in your game and the subsequent timing of your leaving the links and its causing you to wait for a stoplight or get a green one, for instance, is a minute precursor factor in a complex sequence of events of timing and placing in God’s providence that could affect someone’s life for their good and to his honor. Think “butterfly in Beijing effect” and then about the timing and placing of events in a providential sequence that you already know about (it’s funny, but Maggie comes to mind ; - ).
Hmmm,… (thought to myself): I have lots of outputs, but I can’t imagine having first hand knowledge of “causing” many, much less most, of them. For example, Cowen and Keltner report 27 distinct categories of emotion bridged by continuous gradients. I’m fairly certain that my emotions are caused but I have no “first hand knowledge” of causing any of them which makes me an unreliable witness to having caused any them.
Moreover, as a subset of the infinite number of dimensionless atoms in the cosmos, I am hard pressed to imagine that any individual dimensionless object–whether one of many in the subset that I would call “me” or one of the many that are not me–could possibly be the uncaused cause of any event in the cosmos. And yet, … there are subsets of those dimensionless objects that claim to be the cause of events in the cosmos.
When I notice disfunctional behavior in someone else, I usually give them the benefit of the doubt and suspect there is some kind of suppressed trauma in the person’s past.
I have a real appreciation for my own and other people’s complex multi layered psychology.
But when it comes to making simple choices and causing basic actions, I am puzzled by all the uncertainty about it.
Neurobiology is one of the most complicated and least understood parts of biology. I would be puzzled by anyone who claimed to have certainty on the subject.
On the left is the proposition “Cosmos makes no sense”.
On the right is the proposition “Cosmos makes complete sense”.
The heavy vertical line in the middle marks the mid-point between the propositions: i.e. half of the cosmos never makes sense at any moment and the other half makes sense at any sense.
So how certain are you of either proposition or any point on the continuum?
Interesting question. We are talking about a person acting. I don’t see the connection you are drawing.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
73
Building up a reponse:
Best case Christianity is infinitely better than anything else. Christianity stands on the giant shoulders of ancient Jewish culture. And, if it’s warranted, transcends it. There are many Jews who would completely agree with me about their culture’s fables. If Christianity is warranted, it’s still on the giant shoulders of Jewish fables, Jewish theocratic jurisprudence, as well as the sublime, timeless, radical, truly prophetic, i.e. telling forth, the ball which Jesus picked up and ran to touch and victory with. Warranted Christianity is more intellectually satisfying. Judaist thought evolved superbly along with it, but cannot compete. Because of my second statement:
Roses are red, violets are bluish, if it wasn’t for Christmas, we’d all be Jewish.
: ) no. Judaism would have had no more traction in a secular-pagan Greco-Roman empire than it did in a Christianized one. Statistically Jews are more likely to secularize or convert, Muslims far less.
Judaism alone is no intellectual basis for believing in God. It has no hook. Its claims aren’t outrageous enough; it’s far too tribal.
Yes. I completely agree with it. Without caveat. Jesus swathed Himself in the telling forth of the prophets, took their mantle. And all the humanitarianism He could find in Moses.
Maybe this will help. I eat a sandwich. I take in the nutrients from the sandwich. That’s me doing it. How is that happening? That has to do with the physiology of my gut. My gut is still part of me.
I act. I make decisions. That’s me doing it. How is that happening? That has to do with neurobiology. My brain and nervous system are still part of me. It is me.
Good Lord! What do you have against retracing steps in the long and winding road of a thread or a portion of a thread?
Time for a trip down memory lane: …
T_acquaticus said, in Post #58:
You responded, in Post #61, with:
Piqued by your post, I wondered, publicly in Post #65,
about outputs that I experience yet have no “first hand knowledge of causing any of them”, and
given my belief that the cosmos consists of dimensionless atoms moving through Absolute Space during Absolute Time, if all those atoms are the uncaused cause of any event in the cosmos, even though subsets of the cosmos claim to be the cause of some or all of the events in the cosmos.
To which you replied, in your Post #66, with:
I responded, focusing on your self-acknowledged inability to understand all uncertainty, and I posed a continuum between two propositions and “how certain you were of either proposition or any point between them.”
If you’re absolutely certain that the cosmos makes sense, well and good.
If you aren’t, then your uncertainty is part of “all the uncertainty” that puzzles you, no?
