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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Dice and Hypotheses (and Flaming Swords)
Message-ID: <1583@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Aug-85 15:01:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1583
Posted: Sat Aug 24 15:01:19 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 12:50:25 EDT
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Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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> 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.

But in this closed system you describe, the constraints ARE total.  What
determines the way in which you will position yourself next and the way
you will hit the ball.  The actions of the ball, AND any acquired components
of your own mindset that make you react in certain ways.

> 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).

"Part of the 'decision' process"? You are really determined ( :-) ) to force
fit this notion in order to "get" freedom here.  How do the fluctuations
decide to happen?  Does it constitute freedom, or just randomness.  What
emotional stake do YOU have in "getting" freedom that you go to these absurd
lengths?

>>>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.

No, Charles, just another example (not necessarily related---it isn't just
those Christians talking about free will) of the same type of thinking.

>>>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.

I think you're confusing me with Mr. Damager God himself, Paul Zimmerman.  :-)
I haven't been "attacking god". Just because you see an interdependency between
free will and god doesn't mean there is one.  There can be a god without free
will and there can be free will without god.  The problem is the erroneousness
in both notions taken individually and separately.

> Responsibility becomes a quite tangible reality.

Because you want it to be?

> 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.

No, you are steadfastly determined to forcefit free will at any cost.   If
it means throwing out all we know and understand, big deal!  As long as you
"get" you freedom.  Sounds real shoddy to me, Charles.

>>>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?

This "error"?  Is it an error solely because you disagree with it?  Your
definition of "at least partially unconstrained" (how so?) leaves much to be
desired.
-- 
Meanwhile, the Germans were engaging in their heavy cream experiments in
Finland, where the results kept coming out like Swiss cheese...
				Rich Rosen 	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr