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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Free will: there ain't no Sanity Clause
Message-ID: <164@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 20:10:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.164
Posted: Thu Aug 22 20:10:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 04:09:03 EDT
References: <1495@pyuxd.UUCP> <2197@pucc-h> <1510@pyuxd.UUCP> <1001@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <1562@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 47
Summary: Last try before I give up

In article <1562@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>I'm passingly familiar with some of Dennett's other work.  The point is
>that in the long run he makes the same fallacy that people in this
>newsgroup insist upon making:  the Humpty Dumpty position that says "I
>can take this word and redefine it to mean this and no one will be any
>the wiser".  You can't get away with that in this life.

There seems to be a consensus in net.philosophy that "free will" in
the sense preferred by RR is incompatible with determinism of any
kind, and also that some form of determinism holds true for the real
world (perhaps one or two people would take exception to either of
these statements).  The disagreement that several people have with
Rich is over his claim that there is only one "real" meaning (or
definition -- not exactly the same thing) of the term "free will",
just as there is only one true meaning of "Santa Claus" (assuming
that this is indeed the case), and that some people are
illegitimately redefining the term in order to give free will a place
in the real world, just as one might redefine "Santa Claus" if one
wished him really to exist (although I don't see how it would fulfill
any wishes -- presumably what we are wishing for is the jolly old elf
himself and his sleigh-full of toys).

Now I'm sure that Rich has already set forth his reasons for his
position, but I don't understand what they are; so I would like to
invite Rich to state, as clearly and concisely as he can, his reasons
for believing that, in the context of the free will/determinism
debates, the term "free will" and the terms which are usually treated
as synonymous in philosophical discussion ("freedom of the will",
"freedom", "liberty") have, and have always had, only one valid,
univocal definition, namely the one that Rich advocates, and that
usages of these terms which depart from this meaning are illegitimate
Humpty-Dumptyisms.

This is not a "mere" dispute over words; it is not a trivial
question.  Anglo-American philosophers have spent much of the last
century trying to understand the relation between language and
reality.  

Ancient riddle:  Why can't Santa Claus and Mae West be together in
the same phone booth?  Obviously because Santa Claus doesn't exist.

My conclusion:  If this sentence is true, then Santa Claus exists.
Furthermore, *this* sentence is false and Santa Claus does not exist.
Therefore Santa Claus exists.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes