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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Cohesive Unity
Message-ID: <1080@ames.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 16:09:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1080
Posted: Tue Aug 13 16:09:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 05:49:37 EDT
References: <1386@pyuxd.UUCP> <1100@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1431@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 57

>> But there is no evidence against the possibility
>> that some behavior does in fact (for instance) reflect quantum fluctuations.
>> [WINGATE]
>
>"No evidence against the *possibility*"?  Surely there's also no evidence
>against the possibility that submicroscopic giraffes from space hidden in
>our brain perform all our "free will" functions for it, connecting the wishes
>of our "soul" to the physical body (their necks, of course, reaching into
>hyperspace to a realm we know not of, ooh!).[ROSEN]

	I would agree that quantum uncertainty is not a very powerful
argument for free will, but that just makes your insistance on pure
determinism that much harder to understand. Do you have some "wishful-
thinking" attachment to pure determinism, or have you simply failed to
realize that allowing a random factor in physical events does not equate
to allowing free will, or any kind of will for that matter? The two issues
are slightly related, but only slightly.
	I'll concede this much: it's possible your juggernaut approach
to arguing free will, your way of crushing the life out of anything presented
as being pro-free-will on a sentence-by-sentence basis, has simply obscured
your real opinion on this side-issue of QM. If so, perhaps you should
clarify: do you *really* equate the idea of genuinely random events with
"submicroscopic giraffes", or is it just the supernatural implications
you see in any notion of "free will" that you want to ridicule? If you
think QM is off the topic, fine; but say so. If you're really disputing
the validity of QM, though, how about some reasons?

>Yes, indeed, plenty of
>human behavior APPEARS to be random, Charley.  Plenty of lots of things
>APPEAR to be random, but on closer examination, we find something holding
>it together.  A bit more complex than some people who prefer one-sentence
>explanations for things ("God did it!"), but perhaps they're just too lazy
>to examine things in that dreaded "scientific" way.  One look at the universe,
>one careful look, will show you how many "random" things really have very
>simple physical processes at their root, complexly interweaving with each
>other to give the illusion of "randomness" to the casual (or causal---oh,
>I used that one before, sorry) observer.

	20th century science does *not* come down on the
side of strict determinism. Quantum effects are not just things that
appear to be governed by statistical processes because of the inadequacy
of our ability to make fine enough measurements; they *are*, *fundamentally*,
statistical in nature, with a genuine random element. There *is* no cause
for some specific atom of U-235 to decay at the precise moment that it
did; it was random, uncaused.
	Yes, there is still a minority view in physics that holds to
a strict causality. But if your intent is to support that position,
you should really at least take the trouble to address yourself a bit
to the issues, which are physical, not philosophical. This arrogant
insistance that pure determinism speaks with the Voice of Science is
simply wrong.

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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