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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Rosen on reason, etc.
Message-ID: <636@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 18:47:18 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.636
Posted: Wed Mar  6 18:47:18 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 02:47:58 EST
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Organization: Huxley College
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> When you start looking at physical laws, though, you are left with
> things which, at some point, have no explanation. Why do you get
> a liquid when you mix the 2 gases hydrogen and oxygen? No matter
> how much chemistry you tell me I can say ``why?'' until you are
> backed up against teh wall and forced to say (shout in frustration)
> ``because that is the way the universe works!!''.

And the only way that this is NOT considered a viable answer (once a
truly ultimate level has been reached---if indeed it can be) is if one
ASSUMES that there MUST be some intent to it all, that there MUST be
some force of direction and purpose associated with the action.

> From one perspective,
> Special Relativity looks like a kludge -- a bag -- stuck on the edge
> of the nice perfect model of Neutonian physics. Why do particles behave
> differently at high speeds than at low speeds? Why is the speec of light
> that precise value and no other? Why is *that* value Plank's constant?
> Why is there a universe at all? Because, you know, the universe works
> that way....

Exactly.  Perhaps some-"where" else, another universe works another way.  So?

> I know that you are insistent that the existence of free will implies a soul.

By implication of the definition.

> I think that you are insistent that ``if all the relevant facts
> were collected then it would be possible to predict the actions of
> any given individual and thus demonstrate that they were not really
> free at all''. This assumes that the complexity of an organism has
> nothing to do with it predictability, but only with the difficulty
> in obtaining all the relevant facts.

"Predictability" is not a facet or feature of an object or organism.  The
notion of an object's predictability only has relevance in relation to an
observer doing/attempting some sort of predicting.  *Its* "complexity" is
not the issue, but rather the complexity of it as situated in its surrounding
universe.

> You may be correct in this, but, on the other hand, is it really a
> stranger, or less plausible notion that out of complexity arises real
> (as in cannot be predicted by anyone, even a theoretical someone who
> could obtain all the facts and understand them) freedom? Is this
> notion any ``stranger'' than the notion that matter and energy are
> the same? or that space and time are not independent?

No, it's not.  But, again, all you have to do is redefine freedom to get
your answer in the form that you want it.
-- 
"It's a lot like life..."			 Rich Rosen  ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr