From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!npoiv!npois!cbosgd!nscs!rew
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: determinism vs free will
Article-I.D.: nscs.289
Posted: Mon Aug  2 16:33:09 1982
Received: Tue Aug  3 01:21:23 1982



Just to continue the discussion, may I assert that a belief in
determinism does NOT require a belief in a god.  Those who think
that it does often believe that if things are determined then
there is some cause of those things, and (ultimately) that there
is some FIRST CAUSE that set everything off.  This, of course,
assumes that there is (was) some beginning to things and eventually
will be an end.  For a moment, let's assume that any sequence of
events (including future events) is fixed but that no causation
is involved.  That is things happen in an order that is completely
predictable but not because of any interrelation between events.
Beginnings, ends and causes are all human attempts to understand
the sequence of events.

Now that we have that straight, how about the idea that sequences
are just an order imposed on random events by human consciousness?

Bob Warren
cbosg!nscs!rew