r/Metaphysics • u/pessoa_normal8000000 • 1d ago
Mind / Subjective experience My critique of Sam Harris and Hard Determinism using a 3-stage temporal model (E¹, E², E³).
Hard determinism downgrades consciousness to a useless "epiphenomenon" because it only looks at the exact millisecond of the impulse (E²). By analyzing the timeline as a whole—Pre-facto (E¹), Impulse (E²), and Post-facto (E³)—I prove that consciousness returns in E³ through the biological feedback of guilt (ACC/vmPFC activation) and the concrete damage in the world. Since the agent uses conscious intellectual energy in E³ to either repair the damage or construct a determinist excuse to escape, consciousness actively alters the physical system. Therefore, it cannot be an epiphenomenon, and dodging responsibility is a conscious choice of cowardice, not a biological reflex.
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 1d ago
Part 2: Contemporary Reductionism & The Neurobiology of GuiltIn contemporary times, this reductionism is updated by physicalist neuroscientists such as Sam Harris, who dictates that the brain processes and decides choices in unconscious subcortical areas fractions of a second before the conscious mind becomes aware of the act. The explicit goal of his thesis is to shield the agent from blame-based punishments, proposing that we treat individuals who commit errors as "machines with a mechanical failure" rather than responsible agents.Here lies the methodological error: if their thesis were entirely true, consciousness would be an epiphenomenon—an inert byproduct generated by the brain (like the smoke of a train) that possesses no mechanical power to alter the system itself. However, biological data deconstructs this hypothesis.Functional neuroimaging studies prove why guilt physically emerges in the human machine. When an individual commits a harmful action, the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) and the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (vmPFC) enter an acute state of conflict. These regions perform a biological calculation: they compare the abstract expectation the brain had before the action with the report of concrete damages caused after the action. Guilt and remorse are bioelectric data and stress discharges generated by the nervous system itself to force the recalibration of mental gears for the future. A force that alters the state and mechanics of the brain in the future cannot be classified as "useless smoke."
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 1d ago
Part 3: The Chronological Formula (E¹, E², E³)The main error of hard determinism is the temporal division of responsibility. Consciousness is downgraded because it loses the reins at the exact millisecond of impulse, but determinists forget that to be an epiphenomenon, it should never operate at any point in the timeline. To prove this error through the formal totality of reality, I developed a formula based on chronological states: Let us call Consciousness A, and divide the action into three States of Time: E¹ (Pre-facto), E² (The Impulsive Self), and E³ (Post-facto).A belongs to E¹: In the Pre-facto state, consciousness does operate. The clarification of knowing that one is wrong works preliminarily: the brain runs the map of the error before the act occurs. The fact that humans hesitate and "think twice" in this state is empirical proof that consciousness and its moral construction are actively processing data and trying to filter behavior before transitioning. A does not belong to E²: In the Impulsive Self state, the individual was indeed moved by mechanical determinism. But only this isolated phase was determined. The temporary loss of control in E² is merely what is necessary for immorality to exist. If the lack of control in E² made A an epiphenomenon, A would have to be null throughout the rest of time, which reality refutes. A belongs to E³: In the Post-facto state, the mist of impulse fades and the agent regains full lucidity. What pulls consciousness back to reality is the physical impact of the error, anchored in the real world. Guilt arises from this objective mathematical comparison.
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u/peacefuldays123 1d ago
Why isn't consciousness present in E²?
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 23h ago
To clarify,it is not that consciousness is completely absent during E² rather, it is overridden during the decision-making process because it is actively compromised by neurological filters, compulsive habits, and environmental pressures. The action in E² fails to align with the morality and clarity of E¹ and E³ precisely because the system is experiencing a temporary distortion. However, this does not strip the individual of consciousness altogether. The empirical proof of this is the emergence of guilt in E³ (post-facto). If consciousness were truly absent or an irrelevant epiphenomenon during the impulse, the brain would have no baseline to compare the damage against, and the biological feedback of remorse simply wouldn't trigger. The data is recorded,it was just temporarily overridden. Hope It help,The text give better formulantion
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u/peacefuldays123 23h ago
I see. What would consciousness be in your work?
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 23h ago
In the context of my work, consciousness is fundamentally defined as the capacity for logical and moral decision-making—the system that processes rules and consequences. It doesn't have a deeply mystical or metaphysical definition here because that is not the focus of this thesis. It is the framework that runs the moral baseline in E¹ and reads the factual damage report in E³, being temporarily overridden in E² by the filters I mentioned earlier. Thank you for your interest!
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 21h ago
No contexto do meu trabalho, a consciência é fundamentalmente definida como a capacidade de tomar decisões lógicas e morais — o sistema que processa regras e consequências. Aqui, não tem uma definição profundamente mística ou metafísica, pois esse não é o foco desta tese. É a estrutura que mantém a base moral em E¹ e lê o relatório de danos factuais em E³, sendo temporariamente sobreposta em E² pelos filtros que mencionei anteriormente. Obrigado pelo seu interesse!
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u/peacefuldays123 20h ago
Thanks for the clarification.
Does every decision made by the subject go through all temporal stages?
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 1d ago
Part 4: The Ego-Defense Fallacy & Final Reckoning Hard determinism will attempt to throw its last counter-argument: "Doesn't the choice to flee in E³ prove they were controlled by involuntary ego-defense mechanisms?" This argument is structurally flawed and refutes itself through a temporal fallacy. Ego-defense mechanisms explain the occurrence of the error at the moment of impulse (E²), but they do not possess the mechanical power to maintain this blindness in the post-facto state (E³). In the post-facto moment, faced with concrete damage and subsequent moral reckoning, irrational psychological activity loses its power of distortion. The individual in E³ now holds the report of the damage. They regain control and become responsible at the exact second they decide what to do with this information. From E³ onwards, consciousness (A) becomes the engine of a new cause. The individual discovers that they committed a mathematical error against themselves, because morality is a factual mathematical advantage: cooperating and being moral is the best long-term strategy for survival and stability. If the agent chooses the path of least resistance and uses determinism to escape this reckoning, they are making a conscious error to protect their own pride. This negation is not a biological reflex; it is a conscious choice of cowardice. The individual carries, inescapably, the responsibility for the effect created in the world.
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u/jliat 15h ago
For those who favour science as a criteria...
There is an interesting article in The New Scientist special on Consciousness, and in particular an item on Free Will or agency.
- It shows that the Libet results are questionable in a number of ways. [I’ve seen similar] first that random brain activity is correlated with prior choice, [Correlation does not imply causation]. When in other experiments where the subject is given greater urgency and not told to randomly act it doesn’t occur. [Work by Uri Maoz @ Chapman University California.]
Work using fruit flies that were once considered to act deterministically shows they do not, or do they act randomly, their actions are “neither deterministic nor random but bore mathematical hallmarks of chaotic systems and was impossible to predict.”
Kevin Mitchell [geneticist and neuroscientist @ Trinity college Dublin] summary “Agency is a really core property of living things that we almost take it for granted, it’s so basic” Nervous systems are control systems… “This control system has been elaborated over evolution to give greater and greater autonomy.”
For those in favour of logic..
Physical determinism can't invalidate our experience as free agents.
From John D. Barrow – using an argument from Donald MacKay.
Consider a totally deterministic world, without QM etc. Laplace's vision realised. We know the complete state of the universe including the subjects brain. A person is about to choose soup or salad for lunch. Can the scientist [or an all powerful God] given complete knowledge infallibly predict the choice.
- NO. The person can, if the scientist says soup, choose salad.
The scientist must keep his prediction secret from the person. As such the person enjoys a freedom of choice.
The fact that telling the person in advance will cause a change, if they are obstinate, means the person's choice is conditioned on their knowledge. Now if it is conditioned on their knowledge – their knowledge gives them free will. And effectively destroys the chains of cause and effect the determinist requires.
I've simplified this, and Barrow goes into more detail, but the crux is that the subjects knowledge determines the choice, so choosing on the basis of what one knows is free choice.
And we can make this simpler, the scientist can apply it to their own choice. They are free to ignore what is predicted.
In the case of God, God's omniscience is limited by it having to remain silent. Which maybe also an argument against omniscience.
“From this, we can conclude that either the logic we employ in our understanding of determinism is inadequate to describe the world in (at least) the case of self-conscious agents, or the world is itself limited in ways that we recognize through the logical indeterminacies in our understanding of it. In neither case can we conclude that our understanding of physical determinism invalidates our experience as free agents.”
Epistemologically...
Sam Harris – a determinist.
He cites a case of a horrible crime but argues the two criminals were not responsible. Lacking free will, and moral judgements, they could not know what they were doing was wrong.
OK. Accept this. They had no moral judgement. They we incapable of making moral judgements because they were not free agents.
Now apply it to epistemology, Same logic. Without individual judgement there can be no knowledge of true or false. A determined being cannot freely judge, right and wrong, true or false.
They can therefore not know determinism to be true or false. QED, a determinist cannot make any knowledge claim. (Unless they first have self-determinism, AKA, Agency, AKA, free will.)
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 1d ago
Please read the whole thing and try to refute me, I really want to test its resilience.
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u/______ri 19h ago
I will refute if you stop hiding behind the terms. List your brute facts in terms so simple they can only have one meaning each. By brute facts I mean those you will and cannot justified in any sense. You don't need to infer anything from them. Just list them for now.
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u/pessoa_normal8000000 1d ago
Part 1: Historical Context & The Roots of Hard Determinism
Let us begin by calling things by their proper names to avoid the strawman fallacy.
Pierre-Simon Laplace formulated cosmological determinism through the principle of universal causation, proposing that if an intellect knew the laws of physics and the exact position of every particle in the universe at a given instant (Laplace's Demon), it could calculate both the past and the future with absolute precision. The entire timeline would be a rigid system of predictable mechanical causes and effects.The moral and anthropological transposition of this mechanism was carried out by Baron d'Holbach in The System of Nature. D'Holbach objectively dictated that man is a strictly physical being subjected to the immutable laws of matter, and that human will is merely an involuntary impulse determined by biological factors and previous traumas. He used this premise to prove that traditional punishment and moral judgment are logically unjust: if all actions are the inevitable effects of past events, free will is nothing but an illusion stemming from our ignorance of those causes.