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!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr
From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Mechanism and Determinism
Message-ID: <1485@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 18:45:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1485
Posted: Mon Aug 12 18:45:13 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 06:52:13 EDT
References: <573@mmintl.UUCP> <1185@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 88

> As I understand it, free will is essentially the assertion that the process of
> consciousness can in fact decide; it is the antithesis of the assertion that
> all human behavior is caused. [WINGATE]

If a decision is not a cause, then what is?  If you are referring to a decision
outside the realm of so-called "physical" cause and effect, you are talking
about something on the order of a soul, though you have denied this
repeatedly.  But, yes indeed, you got it right:  free will is the notion
that there can be behavior and thought and action external to "physical"
cause.  To believe in such a notion requires a willful agent external to
the realm of cause and effect.

Unless you're just claiming that quantum physics winds up causing things
at the macro level.  Such random elements, limited in effect, have as
much to do with free will as...  hot fudge sauce.

> To deny free will, therefore, I think you must show two things:
> 
>   (1) That random fluctuations in processing are unimportant.
> 
>   (2) That all behavior can be traced inevitably to external causes.

Or internal causes that are caused by the innate make-up of the person
(surely not "self"-determined, more likely determined by parental genes)
AND any experiences thereafter (clearly external by definition).

> This leads us to to a long list of positions:
> 
> (A) Soulism: A supernatural entity is the ultimate cause of behavior.

A necessity if you are speaking in terms of a will independent of the
constraints of physical reality.

> (B) Physical Soulism: A physical entity unlike matter or energy as we know it
>     is the ultimate cause of behavior.

1) Why?  Why even speculate about other forces, physical or not (?) that are
the ultimate cause of behavior?  Why not just the physical things we know about
and love?  Or are you specifically seeking a causative force that allows
such independence because you want to think of yourself that way?  What's more,
if you are talking about some other physical entity, it would thus be a part
of the physical universe and thus subject to the laws of cause and effect.

> (C) Quantum indeterminism: Quantum events are so important that the sources
>     of behavior are truly random.

Now THIS is wishful thinking if ever I heard it.  Because the behavior
of particles at the quantum level is indeterminate to human observers, THIS
gives us free will???  What about rocks?  Don't THEY have quantum level
actions going on?  Why aren't rocks conscious and decision making objects?
Why can't the rock decide not to fall or roll?  Surely it has those same
quantum events going on...

> (D) Natal Independence: The initial presence of randomness in the brain 
>     precludes the development of causality in the mind.

This may be an explanation of why some people never learn to think, too
much randomness (perceived) in their brains.  (Directed at no one in
particular, just an observation.)

> (E) Combinations of C and D.
> (F) Various combinations of the denial of the above.

i.e., quantum alchemy

> I think we can ignore the first two.

But they are NECESSARY if you are talking some real form of free will.
I guess you've just thrown the baby out with the bath water.  Good riddance.

> The third essentially denies mechanism,
> since it asserts that gross behavior is truly not predictable, even
> probabilistically.  One can argue at length whether or not this constitutes
> free will.

Or one can argue briefly:  "No it doesn't, because will implies an agent
determining action, not just random events."  "Oh, OK."  Very brief.

> Position D, however, is the most potent.  It essentially asserts
> that, however the brain works, there is an initial random component at birth
> which does not dissipate.  In this case, processing can be mechanistic, yet
> there is still free will in the strongest sense.

Whatever random component you wish to insert, it offers little "willful"
agency, just a random variable thrown in with the mechanism.  Hardly "free"
or "will".
-- 
"Do I just cut 'em up like regular chickens?"    Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr