Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site frog.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!tdh From: tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: the unicorn Message-ID: <262@frog.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 16:22:50 EDT Article-I.D.: frog.262 Posted: Fri Aug 9 16:22:50 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 23:34:16 EDT Reply-To: frog!tdh Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA Lines: 81 > From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) > Message-ID: <1402@pyuxd.UUCP> >> One of the criteria for selecting or creating a meaning for >> a word is usefulness. That is the epistemological principle >> of economy in concepts. >> >> It is true that the meanings of "free will" used by Rosen >> and Torek (excepting r-e-a) have been used for a long time. >> However, there is one important difference between the two. >> Rosen's meaning is entirely useless (except as an >> argumentative foil!). For that reason, it would be >> epistemological treason to yield to Rosen's contention that >> "free will" means what he says it does (despite historical >> precedent), let alone merely what he says it does; better >> to not bother arguing that point. [HUDSON] > It is true that the meaning of the word unicorn as commonly used > has been in existence for a long time. However, that meaning > is entirely useless!! It does not describe a real thing that > exists! Thus, let's change the meaning of the word unicorn so > that it becomes "useful". Let's, say, make it equivalent to > "horse". There now we have unicorns. And we all WANT to have > unicorns, just like we want to have freedom, right? So it must > have been the "right" thing to do... Faulty analogy, Rich. You would have been better off with "frizbotzin". Unfortunately, that would not have served your purpose either, would it? The criterion is not the incarnation of the concept, but the reality of its referents and constituent concepts. "Unicorn" conveys several useful concepts. The unicorn was a strange animal reported (apparently carelessly) to have been encountered on expeditions. Like other legends, this "unicorn" deserved investigation into what brought the legend about (e.g. hippopotami). (I don't know where the unicorn/ark legend came from. Perhaps it was only a literary creation of the Irish Rovers.) I have yet to hear the legend of "free will". (Was Shakespeare a libertine? :-) The unicorn is also a symbol of defiance, challenging the rule of the lion. (I recall that there were other symbolic meanings attached to the unicorn, but my reference is at home.) Absurdity needs no similar symbol; such symbols abound. Since the unicorn has a fairly clear relation to the horse in its physical appearance, it is easily the subject of cartoon and fiction. As such, it can anthropomorphically take on character. Now try portraying a "Rosenoid free will". I suspect that even Monty Python would fare badly at it. >> Rosen's definition deviates from extending the common >> meaning of "free", which is not a matter of "micro" versus >> "macro", or "now" versus "the past", but of perspective and >> degree. > Thus if I perceive or feel that I am free, I am. May I recommend > Aldous Huxley's book "Brave New World". After reading that, tell me > if those "everybody's happy nowadays" people are free. I read it (on my own, of course) long ago. It was not so much that their wills were controlled. Their minds were disabled; they were de-humanized; their basis for consciousness was obliterated (to degrees according to class). Freedom does not apply to unconscious animals. Huxley's rulers turned humans into animals. It is not surprising that an authoritarian political framework was the setting. No one -- not even the mentally nondisabled -- was free there. What Huxley illustrated was the remaining human spark under the foulest conditions. (I concede that that might not have been his intent. I grew to despise literature, thanks to a string of inept teachers. I have not read background on Huxley.) David Hudson