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,net.religion
Subject: Re: Pfui
Message-ID: <1582@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Aug-85 14:50:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1582
Posted: Sat Aug 24 14:50:21 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 03:29:44 EDT
References: <1276@pyuxd.UUCP> <2145@pucc-h> <1313@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 44
Keywords: logic chopping
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2417 net.religion:7471

>     Assuming that I have truly characterized your metaphysics:
> 
>         `acausal' spontaneous decay MUST have a cause.
> 	`free will' cannot exist because, by definition, all things
> 	            are determined.
> 	`external to physical reality' is bogus, by definition
> 
>     The above would clearly result by logical necessity.

Indeed.

>     However, you'd have to also conclude, if everything has a cause, that:
> 
>         There is also a cause for `awareness'. (let's call it a `luos')
> 	There is also a cause for the universe. (let's call it `Dog')

Or let's not.  Dog (or its reversal) has specific connotations of a
consciousness in charge, and louses (or whatever) have a connotation of
separateness from the physical entity.

>     Furthermore, the circular argument pro-free will you just presented is as
>     empty as the your favorite anti-freewill argument:
> 
>         If free will exists, then it must be a physical phenomenon
> 	All physical phenomena are determined by causes
> 	therefore free will is determined by causes
> 	but if it is determined then it is not free
> 
>     This is not unreasonable; it logically flows from your axioms.

But your first statement uses a word that makes no sense in the context.

>     But freedom, like love or beauty, is a real and irreducible state of
>     mind (for some of us), even should our universe be totally deterministic.

Love and beauty are observable phenomena by individuals.

>     Can I exist now?

No, stay in your cage. Outside of reality.  Where there are no causes.
-- 
Meanwhile, the Germans were engaging in their heavy cream experiments in
Finland, where the results kept coming out like Swiss cheese...
				Rich Rosen 	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr