From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxj!mhuxv!mhuxm!pyuxjj!rlr
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: determinism vs. free will
Article-I.D.: pyuxjj.255
Posted: Mon Aug  2 09:52:34 1982
Received: Tue Aug  3 01:04:17 1982

I don't believe that determinism requires a god at all.  Determinism (to me,
anyway) means that all the actions that take place in the universe are fixed
*only* because of the ultimate extrapolation of "cause-and-effect".  This
applies to living things taking action "of their own initiative" and non-living
things moving, changins shape/form, etc., due to physical laws.  (Actually,
the two are one in the same.)

And now, a ridiculous example:
	A rock falls down from a mountaintop (let's assume 'natural' causes),
killing the parents of a young man.  Having been very close to his parents,
he becomes extremely despondent.  He fails to eat properly, takes to drinking
(alcohol, that is), as a result becomes mentally unstable and shoots the
person living next door to him.

OK, where was the free will?  Did he choose to become despondent, or did he
do so because his upbringing/genetic material/chemical composition cuased
(read 'caused') him to be despondent?  Did he choose to eat poorly and start
drinking, or did his background/chemical makeup cause him to behave that way,
and in turn, did these factors cause these eating/drinking habits to promote
his mental condition??  And why did he shoot his neighbor?  Was it something
the neighbor said that triggered the man's anger?  Why did the neighbor say
that particular thing?  What was he doing there at that time?   The same
"cause-and-effect" rationale can be used to describe the neighbor's actions.

My point is not to prove that determinism wins out over free will.  (I don't
think I did a very good job of that.)  What I'm trying to point out is the
lack of a need for a 'god' in such a system, just an initial action (the
creation of the universe?) to trigger the "effect-casue-effect-..." chain
that follows (I can't seem to spell 'cause' right more than two times in a
row).				Rich Rosen pyuxjj!rlr