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: Acausal Brain Activity, again Message-ID: <1472@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 09:21:19 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1472 Posted: Mon Aug 12 09:21:19 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 06:56:16 EDT References: <1243@sjuvax.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 33 > The context of my > posting, however, was the seemingly endless free will debate. In > particular, I was responding to Rich Rosen's challenge to "show that > there is something more going on in the brain than causal neural > activity (not an exact quote, I'm afraid)." In this context, nothing > is negligible, since Rosen has insisted that only a strictly > "micro"-level description of the world has objective validity. My > only point was to show that if he indeed rejects the objective > validity of "macro"-level descriptions, then he must also reject his > hard determinism. [MOODY] What is "rejected" is the illusion present in many macro models when viewed at the base leve, e.g., sun rising. > That the brain is a deterministic machine is a > description at an emergent level, as Paul Torek's reminder suggests. > But if Rosen doesn't insist that only "micro"-level descriptions have > objective validity, then he has lost whatever facsimile of an argument > he might have had for insisting that all descriptions of free will as > an emergent phenomenon are erroneous. He can't have it both ways. In only insist that the macro models be consistent with what is really going on at the micro level to be a solid model of reality. > I hope this clarifies things. It rehashes some things I've already > posted. I did not bring this subject up in order to demonstrate that > quantum indeterminacy is, in itself, a kind of freedom. That would be > a very perverse kind of freedom indeed. If it can be called a "freedom" at all. -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr