Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: More ... definitions of free Message-ID: <1231@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17-Jul-85 18:55:41 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1231 Posted: Wed Jul 17 18:55:41 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 20:27:44 EDT References: <6156@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1041@pyuxd.UUCP> <3@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1212@pyuxd.UUCP> <864@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 87 Keywords: free >>>The influences of the external environment on choice aren't direct. They >>>operate ONLY through INTERNAL factors -- which make choices directly. >>So? They're not direct? The choices themselves aren't implemented "directly" >>by that definition, either. That seems to be just doubletalk to get around >>the fact that THEY ARE QUITE SIMPLY *NOT* FREE as I said above. What >>determines the configuration of the "INTERNAL factors", if not the same >>processes? > The configuration of the internal factors is caused by inherited traits > and previous experiences -- no argument there. But what I'm saying is > that when the *immediate* causes of one's behavior are internal, the action > is free. Yes, there was a time when the factors that are now internal > were externally caused -- in infancy, for example. And that means that > *an infant's behavior* is not freely chosen. But it doesn't mean that > the adult's behavior is not freely chosen. How so? This is a perfectly example of what you claim that my reductionism doesn't do, but in fact, as shown here, it does. You've claimed that my "reductionism" doesn't show any flaws in the more "macro" level thinking. But here, the fact that the baby's behavior is not freely chosen implies that later behavior CANNOT be freely chosen. When is the demarcation point at which the baby's/child's non-freely chosen behavior suddenly becomes the adult's freely chosen behavior? There is no such point! Throughout one's life the experiences and catalogued knowledge constructs accumulate. If anything, at first, the baby is MORE free, in that he/she doesn't have any (or many) prior experiences to color the "current" one and the interpretation and cataloguing of it. But does the baby control its environment, what happens around him/her? Since that environment, what occurs during infancy, throughout childhood, and into adulthood, builds that storehouse of catalogued knowledge which in turn affects all subsequent storing and cataloguing processes, the resulting actions/decisions/thoughts are dependent on all of this, and thus not free. >>>Freedom of choice refers mainly to PRESENT influences on one's actions; if >>>THOSE are INTERNAL then it's FREE. Past conditions make a choice unfree >>>only if they trace a completely external (to the person's volition) chain >>>of cause-and-effect to the time of the choice. >>BUT ALL THOSE PAST EXPERIENCES ARE JUST INSTANCES OF THE SAME TYPE OF PROCESS >>THAT OCCURRED IN THE PAST!!!! Thus those "past conditions", those states >>in the brain that result from past experiences, were achieved through the >>same process as "present" experiences! And thus, the experiences of the >>baby taken as an example, the baby whose experiences were not of his/her >>own choosing, you answer your own argument---ALL the experiences can be traced >>to external chains of cause-and-effect! > You mean: all the chains of cause-and-effect can be traced to a point at > which they are external. Granted. But my point was that NONE of the chains > of cause-and-effect in an ordinary choice are without some point at which > an internal factor is involved. "Free" means "INdependent, UNfettered". Just because one element of the set of the factors involved internal things (freely created?), doesn't make it free. They'd ALL have to be "INTERNAL" factors for that to be true. And since the internal factors themselves are not "freely created", even that case is a wash. > Let's use a diagram -- time on the vertical > axis, with the most recent time at the bottom, and two parallel lines > representing the "boundaries" of the "internal". Chains of x's represent > chains of cause and effect that influence an action. > > ------- x ------- x x ------- > | | x| |x x| | x > | x | x x x x | x > | x x | |x x| x |x | x > | x x | | x x |x | x | x > | x x | | x x | x | x > | x x | | x x| | x | x > | x x | | x x| | x | x > > Now, based on your (interpretation/) definition, only the (impossible) > left diagram shows a free choice. But on my interpretation, the center > diagram shows a free choice also, because all the causal factors > *operating at the time of the decision* are "internal". Only the > right-most diagram represents an unfree action; the completely external > chain (someone else's decision, say, to use physical force on the > hapless person depicted at right) makes it unfree. You seem to be saying "Because 'your' (i.e., my) definition prevents us from having any freedom, it must be false." Can you give a specific example of the middle case? Moreover, what if some of external X's had been Y's? What then? -- "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr