Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site sjuvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cadre!psuvax1!burdvax!sjuvax!tmoody From: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Acausal Brain Activity, again Message-ID: <1243@sjuvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 10-Aug-85 01:52:17 EDT Article-I.D.: sjuvax.1243 Posted: Sat Aug 10 01:52:17 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 06:16:29 EDT Distribution: net Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA. Lines: 39 [] In a recent posting, I pointed out that the extremely small scale of the events involved in neural electron transfer would render them subject to quantum indeterminacy. Paul Torek, in a private communication, pointed out that the large number of such interactions involved in typical congitive processes might tend to make the quantum indeterminacy negligible. He suggested that I say something about this (a good idea), so here goes: Paul is right, I think, but the tricky part has to do with the word "negligible." If the debate were strictly concerned with the prediction of human behavior, then I would agree that neural indeterminacy might indeed be negligible, although it *need* not be. This is an interesting question in its own right. 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. 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. 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. Todd Moody {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody Philosophy Department St. Joseph's U. Philadelphia, PA 19131