We were speaking of Truth, PatrickHenry, not scientific knowledge per se. Many people do not make a distinction between the two, literally believing that if science can't demonstrate it, then it is something that need not concern us. You know there are many people like that just as well as I do. Including philosophical materialists, who ape the methods of science, applying them to their own areas of inquiry whether or not they are the proper tools for the job.
"First, the word will refers to a state of mind or a capacity of mind. It is in some way associated with conscious experience. The philosophical concept came into existence because we have a direct sense that “free choice” is a human capacity. Second, for will to have any meaning, it must be possible for the mind to affect events – for the mind to control the body. The concept of will is not compatible with the classical conception of physical processes. Classical physics would demand that nature grind out blindly and automatically the consequences of any initial action. Any mind attached to such an automaton would be only a passive observer. Such a mind would not be able to control any aspect of its body’s behavior. It would be a captive bird in the brain cage, and there would be nothing to call “will.” Thus the concept of will demands that before the mind comes into play, before the mind acts on matter, the physical laws must allow – must specify – a range of potentialities as to what the body could do, and the process that selects from that range of possibilities which possibility will happen must be clearly outside of the prescriptions of the physical laws. That is to say, the physical laws must be underconstrained.
"Finally, the concept of will requires that when the mind does interact with the brain, the physical brain and body will then do one of those things that physics permits so that the thing the mind willed becomes the state of the brain and the action of the body."
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Just wanted to point out that there are several concepts in the above passage that are not material things, such as mind, consciousness, will, philosophical concepts, even physical laws. Ordinarily, science does not want to deal with such things (making an exception, of course, for physical laws). However, the “measurement problem” in quantum mechanics, the problem of the QM observer, "who" makes a selection (i.e., exercises choice or will) from a range of potentialities in a state vector -- these are issues the Copenhagen School of QM prefers to leave vague and undefined -- arguably demands that science somehow learn to deal with the problem of mind or consciousness. The "spillover" of quantum theoretical insights into biology promises to be quite interesting, once physicists get "serious" about the problems of consciousness -- assuming, of course, they ever do.
I think it's fair to say that this is physicist Evan Harris Walker’s opinion in the matter, at least. Unlike some, he is entirely unwilling to leave the status of the observer to classification as a “measurement event” or even “kumquat,” as some people are wont to do….
Questions for my old friends PH and Lev: Do the higher primates have this sort of “ineffable,” intangible, yet completely real thing, such that we can say they have mind, consciousness, will? To what extent are the higher primates capable of revising and reshaping their world, at will? If they don’t have this ability now, do you think it is conceivable that the higher primates will be able to do this in the future? If so, what would the precise mechanism need to be to cause this to happen? [“Marrying up...?” :^) ]
People who seek the TRVTH outside the rhelm of verifiable knowledge give me the heebie jeebies, like the folks who flew airplanes into the WTC.
I have a simple way of catagorizing people. There is a scale of good and evil, and people are born somewhere along the line, perhaps shoved this way or that by upbringing or experience. There is a scale for conscience and empathy. Scales for verbal and mathematical reasoning, scales for physical, musical and various other talents -- all of which have an inborn component and a component due to training.
The thing that separates my view of people from the view of the crowd is that I believe that little or nothing of a persons merit on any of these scales is correlated with ideas and beliefs. Nothing that makes a person good or kind or interesting or valuable is at all related to belief in any religious dogma or adherence to a political or philosophical ideology.
For proof, you need go no further than thes threads, where the best people in the world can't agree on anything.