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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Dice and Hypotheses (and Flaming Swords)
Message-ID: <1320@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 18:13:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1320
Posted: Wed Aug 21 18:13:37 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 00:10:52 EDT
References: <1221@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1557@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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In article <1557@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>> You seem determined to take [the will]
>> to mean some metaphysical entity.  I think it's much more
>> reasonable to take it to mean "the decision-making faculty of the mind".

>Fine.  I'll agree with that.  That defines "will".

>> This is consistent with what my dictionary says, and neither includes nor
>> excludes souls.  If the will can ultimately be traced to quantum
>> fluctuations, then it's hard to see how it can be called anything
>> but free at this time.

>No, Charles, not at all.  It can be called this:  "dependent on the current
>chemical makeup of the brain, and thus not free".  You say "But that's
>not fully determined; the quantum fluctuations make it indeterministic."
>Fine.  Then it can be called "dependent on the current chemical makeup of the
>brain AND any random quantum fluctuations, and thus not free".  Unless
>the will determines the random quantum fluctuations.  In that case, what is
>it if not a "soul", an entity external to physical cause and effect?

Rich, for at least a month now you have confused "dependency" with
determinism.  If you stand in a raquetball court, and hit the ball around
with a racket, the walls CONSTRAIN the position of the ball, and the position
of the ball is DEPENDENT upon the walls, but the path of the ball is
DETERMINED at least in part by you.  The presence of constraints is
unimportant, unless they are total.

As for the quantum fluctuations, they are not EXTERNAL to the the mind in
any meaningful sense.  They are part of the decision process of the mind, and
therefore part of the will.  Therefore, the will would then be free (i.e.,
undetermined by external causes).

>> In any case, the question is largely moot, since at this point no
>> hypothesis about how the mind decides has any experimental basis.

>But some hypotheses are rooted in presumption of things that people would
>like to be so, rather than possibilities that make sense in light of
>evidence.

Since there are no probabilities, your attack on free will is rather obviously
motivated by you need to defend atheism and attack Christianity.

>> Our ignorance of anything else
>> about how the brain functions and produces consciousness (whatever that is)
>> is almost absolute.  There's no basis for saying, for instance, that "since
>> mechanics is deterministic, so is the brain" or any similar analogy.  We
>> simply don't know enough about the brain to justify any such analogy-- not
>> even in chemistry.

>We don't know enough about the brain to make rash assumptions about which
>way it is different from "mechanics", if indeed it is different at all.
>You have some sort of stake (apparently) in believing that the brain is
>somehow different.  I have no such stake, and thus far no reason to believe
>otherwise.

Sure you do.  Everyone who cares anything at all about cosmology has a stake
in the resolution of the question.  Certainly you do, Rich; if the will does
turn out to be free, then that's one less weapon you have to support your
attacks upon God.  Responsibility becomes a quite tangible reality.

And besides, there's no basis for saying that we know enough about the brain
to make assumptions about how it is like Newtonian Mechanics, if indeed it
is like Mechaincs at all.  *I* am arguing that the possible theories of the
function of the brain include some which allow free will.  I'm not the one
who is steadfastly determined to exclude free will.

>> Wrong.  That's your outdated concept, not mine.  It's highly intuitive to
>> talk about the Will as if it were a being, but I think it's quite
>> sufficient to define it as a process.

>But if you are to call it a FREE will, that means something else entirely.
>That has implications that it is unconstrained by, independent of, the
>physical world around it.  Not outdated, quite relevant.

No, No, NO. It implies that it is at least PARTIALLY unconstrained.  And
any definition of the world implies that it is dependent upon the world
(unless you are only interested in schitzophrenia).  Why do you persist in
this error?  Would you care to defend yourself by showing exactly HOW it
implies absolute lack of constraint?

Charley Wingate

  "What the hell's a gigawatt?"