Consciousness and Self 

Have you been tricked?

The laws of the universe have built you and given you a mind which appears to “think for itself”. 

The mind you have knows enough to survive and reproduce, and it was built to do this. It knows what it wants, but it doesn’t know what it is!

It is not designed to know the truth of what it is, or what it is really doing. The truth doesn’t matter, only results do, such as surviving and reproducing.

So natural selection has not given you a mind which is party to what is true. For example: it is using desire, repulsion, pain, pleasure, thirst and hunger to promote reproduction, or hunting for food. Rather than explaining to you the need to create new life and how to do it, or to shop, or hunt for proteins or carbohydrates to maintain your body and give you energy. It’s just “I’m hungry” and that “forces” you to do something about it.

Similarly, thirst can get painfully panicky if you don't obey-instead of a communication from mother nature saying “ water is needed “.

Physical harm triggers physical pain as a punishment for causing that harm. It doesn't explain about  the damage of burns, cuts, broken bones etc -  it just doles out pain by the bucket load according to the damage.

You don't get knowledge or truth from mother nature - only cruel manipulation in the form of pleasure or pain  to make you do what is required for evolution to continue at its best.

But: mother nature isn’t really cruel, and even doesn’t know that she is doing that. Things just happen by themselves.

Nothing is controlling anything.

Everything just happens!

Can Thought be True

The self-refuting nature of determinism is about the refutation of rational thought by determinism itself.

How could a determined thought be lucky enough to be rationally true? If a thought is not constructed by individual logic, where is the rationality?

If a determined thought is constructed by previous thoughts and ideas, could this be a rational process as well as a determined process?

Can one determined thought lead to another determined thought in a process that is consistent and logical? 

Can anything be determined and also follow some other reasoning goal such as truth or meaning.

Thought may be out of human beings’ hands, but still follow a path determined by natural laws of physics.

But why would physical laws have an interest in logical or truthful thought or gaining knowledge?

Is there an answer to this?

Unconsciousness

Everything is really unconscious.

What thoughts or images play across the screen of consciousness?

What will you think next?

What will you say next?

All are unconsciously decided.

Do What You Want

As they say - you can do what you want, but you can't want what you want . 

Even the existence of consciousness having evolved as an adaptation of a control mechanism for living things is understandable. Even then further: the development of a central identity that feels things and thinks things, as a further adaptation to facilitate avoidance of damage (e.g. pain),  and taking advantage of opportunities (e.g. desire). Abstract qualities that have evolved by natural selection. 

But the most mystifying quality is that of subjective awareness itself in the present moment like now! -  writing this, being alive, eating, breathing, talking, now! In this moment - the feeling that goes with this present awareness.

It's normal and mechanical for it to happen, according to laws of determinism, but to feel aware and alive as someone, seems something else again. Something outside of an adaptive quality of evolution, or even something outside matter, space and time .

Yet adaptation and evolution have no idea what they are creating. The process is simply chemical change in genes, and anything that works better is selected for. It doesn't have to be true. It just has to improve chances of natural selection. It just has to work.

DNA and evolution have no idea they have created a concentrated source of consciousness manifesting subjective awareness and identity, which appears to experience things personally.

And even more astounding is the fact of determinism when applied to this so-called “person", this subjective experience. The very thoughts this so-called “person” has, are already determined by the universe. The person (e.g. me now) writing this, is thinking that their thoughts and ideas are being created by their own ability to ponder and work things out. But it is really the case that all these thoughts are occurring word for word, by determined electrochemical reactions in the brain. The person thinks and believes they are made by their own spontaneous awareness and could have been different if

 they chose. But determinism dictates that all material events are the result of previous material events. There is nothing else.

So a person (say me now), realizing the truth of this, must suddenly stop dead with the realisation that what they are thinking, word for word, is a predetermined foregone conclusion. So there's no point in thinking any further.

But further thinking does occur, because that is what is determined. Realisations and insights into the nature of thought are just as determined as ignorance of how thought works and the false conclusions drawn.

Determinism reveals that the universe, including you and me, goes along automatically with no autonomous influence from anything since it was set in motion. It does it all by itself. 

The problem can now be seen to be that determined “I” or “me” believes it is doing things. That is what is determined. I am determined to believe I am doing things in the world, when I'm actually not. This mistaken belief is perfectly created by the deterministic universe.

All the above words, sentences and ideas are occurring in “my” mind as determined, and in the reader's mind also. But determined ideas have no goal or guarantee to be true. 

So do all these words, sentences and ideas really represent anything that is true? Or do they mean anything at all? Presumably any reader interprets them in a determined way. So what can be discovered or described that’s bound to be true. 

You could say that nothing is true, only determined!

So you would have to ask if there’s anything in a line of inquiry or scientific research that has meaning or logic at all.  Given all is determined by physical chemical processes. Matter has no interest or abilities in terms of reason or knowledge. If they did exist, where could those qualities have come from? 

You would have to say that as informational systems in living organisms became more and more complex, “truth” and “true” knowledge came to be recognised as a valuable adaptive tool within evolution. 

Knowledge systems must have self-booted and come up with strategies of logic and reason that worked in the environment. These, combined with subjective awareness owning the thinking processes, seemed like real individuals doing the thinking, deciding and choosing.

This has led to a society of molecular machines that cooperate and communicate, and feel and believe they are the agents doing it all. Whereas what must in truth be really happening, is that physical determinism is doing it all, as it has done from day one.

There is no other agency than physical law governing physical matter.

All matter has already been set in motion, and all that can happen is from then on it obeys the laws of physics.

Nothing else is involved or exists and this world is the result.

The thing is, the most amazing fact is, that an “I” exists. That you or I exist at all. All that humans accomplish could be done by robotic biological or mechanical machines, that have no “I” inside to be angry, sad or happy, or clever.

In fact you would have to say that all that humans accomplish is achieved without an “I” to run things. Because the “I” is simply a feeling of doership that goes along for the ride. It is created and used by evolution, along with bones, muscles and nerves as a survival tool for organisms. 

Everything I do is done by the physical world and the “I” is also created by the physical world. Thinking or desiring is experienced in the mind, as “I”, but the actual decisions, concepts and actions are carried out automatically, according to the laws of physics.

Most animals and plants are completely unaware of their lives, and yet live perfectly well according to their physical metabolism. 

In humans things are done through the “I”, but not by the “I”.

For instance the “I” is useful for social interactions. Say your thirsty,- very very thirsty, and you are desperate for a drink. You are strongly desiring a drink, and thinking I must get a drink of something, and you think about how. When you get the drink you feel satiated and almost a joy in quenching the thirst.

The whole process of getting liquid into the body is a personal experience in the mind. This also occurs for lesser levels of thirst and for many needs of the body. 

The “I” has evolved as a sort of center which can be made to feel good, bad, happy, sad, proud, guilty and so on, and these are signals that the body needs to do something - to take action. 

Emotions and feelings are powerful motivating forces that force the body to act and this is often done through an “I”. 

However, various animals and plants can take in water without it being signaled by a feeling of thirst, and without an involved “I”. 

Not a Single Thing

You can’t say a single thing without it already being determined, and thus the result of the past, rather than you.

As all particles obey rules and everything was set in place at the big bang, the rest is history.

Lots of people realize this and realize there can be no such thing as free will, only the feeling. 

And then people (like me) go on and say things in favor of determinism because it’s true, and things against blame and praise and punishment because it’s based on the lie of free will.

But the first word I utter, or idea or keystroke on the laptop is already determined. The world is exactly as it is at this moment because it is determined to the last particle. One person ranting against free will, and another for free will is already determined. Determinism is in place before, during and after each moment. Determinism is the prime mover and any discussion about it is also determined.

So the problem of how to understand how the world operates, while living a life in it, is much more difficult than can be possibly imagined.

You are determined to think and feel you have free will, and even to choose to believe in determinism. But determinism got there first. Determinism dictates your every move. Including anything you believe, or someone else believes.

The world can’t be better or different. The number of people believing what they believe is exactly as it is due to the laws of nature. But even if you try to spread the belief in determinism to create a better world, that’s perfectly OK too, because that’s also determined.

Coming from a free will and free choice view of the world, everything we do is sensible because it agrees with our determined feelings. But from a deterministic view of the world everything we do is ridiculous, because it is based on the genetically determined false premise of free will and choice.

So to us sentient beings, what is true (determinism) feels ridiculous, and what is false (free will) feels right and true.

We are upside down and back to front, and to try and understand that on the hop, and not just as a theory, is the most significant and beautiful challenge a human being could be determined to undertake.

What to think

Given the determined mind/brain, what you should be thinking about, and deciding on, and what others should be thinking about is all out the window. There is only what you or others think as has been determined.

Even the above considerations and ideas are totally arising from previous causes, and those causes are simply the effects of even earlier causes.

You might fear losing your drive and ambition because what will happen will happen so why try? But try or not, that will be determined. You may sit on the couch forever after believing in determinism. But that would be determined, not a choice up to you.

Likewise you might fire up and throw yourself into a project as a result of coming across the philosophy of determinism (I did). This is also determined in spite of feeling as if it was a powerful personal choice.

Whatever happens is already determined and influences and learning may seem to set your mind on a course to take, but the influences themselves were determined, and thus, so are any resulting actions.

Something Else

The combination of hard determinism and biological evolution traps us in a very awkward place. We have been constructed by something else, and every move is carried out by something else. Every move. Every thought. Every outcome. All done by something else, other than me. Even the me is done by the something else, meaning there is no me, apart from something else acting as a me.

What Thought of Thinking?

You would have to think that something thought of thinking in the first place. Before creating it. 

How could conscious, thought, thinking, subjectivity and a self, just happen?

Even to try to understand is hard work. You have to find the science (for laypersons) and look up the dictionary and read around then still choose what can or cannot be believed.

What is not known and what is not understandable to the layperson has to be taken on trust. It’s hard work but you can inch your way forward, discarding most philosophies and books as you go.

For every theory there’s an anti theory and as you wade through, things get simpler and a lot less. In the end there's only particles. That’s all there is. And the particles interact in their own way as they have always done, according to the laws of physics, the laws of nature.Bodies are particles and so are brains and thought consists of chemical and electrical interactions of particles as observed by science. 

Thought is not understood, yet enough is known to predict there will be no surprises and it will be explained in terms of physics. The subjective self and introspection are elusive and complicated, yet originate via the chain of biological and social evolution.

You can’t identify or read a thought by looking at its particles interacting, not yet, but you can be sure they’re connected and are the same thing.

Be Determined

There is no deeper understanding or greater understanding, only determined understanding.

Because all thought is determined it may seem silly to try and get a grasp on, and understand determinism. But that scenario is determined to occur, or not. So relax and be determined.

Self Refutation

It’s not so much “self refutation” with regard to philosophical arguments about determinism. That is, one person accusing the other of presenting a theory that refutes itself - that also.

But it’s more about one person thinking in their own mind about determinism, or any other thought or argument they felt they chose to adopt, or thought up.

Given determinism to be true, those thoughts refute themselves from the beginning, because any determined thought comes from elsewhere. It is caused by the past, it is not created or discovered or thought up by the person. A person thinks they can think anything they want, but thoughts are determined (being matter in motion) and so any thought language is self-refuting.