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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Pfui
Message-ID: <482@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 10:16:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.482
Posted: Fri Aug 23 10:16:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 00:53:40 EDT
References: <1276@pyuxd.UUCP> <2145@pucc-h> <1313@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 88
Keywords: logic chopping
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2408 net.religion:7465

>>      Perhaps you could clear up just one little detail for me, Rich.  If
>> the definition of free will which *you* use is the real, historically used
>> definition of the term, why has the existence of 'free will' been a subject
>> of debate for so long?  From your definition, it's obvious that 'free will'
>> does not exist, but the existance of free will has been debated by 
>> philosophers for centuries, at least.  Were they dim, or were they using
>> a different definition? [SONNTAG]
>
>Obviously not.  It wasn't quite so "obvious" to them, perhaps, because
>they wishfully thought up things like souls and such to account for what
>they perceived as free will.  The notion that souls (or agents external
>to physical reality---whatever that means) do not exist is not fully accepted
>even today. [Rich Rosen]

    Whether or not `X exists' depends on one's general axioms, definitions,
    etc about `reality' ie - Metaphysics.

    For example, Rich, your metaphysics seem to indicate that everything is
    physical matter and interactions thereof (which would seem to deny
    reality to awareness, but that's not important), that anything mental is
    illusory, that all phenomena are reductionistically determined by
    causes.

    Assuming that I have truly characterized your metaphysics:

        `acausal' spontaneous decay MUST have a cause.
	`free will' cannot exist because, by definition, all things
	            are determined.
	`external to physical reality' is bogus, by definition

    The above would clearly result by logical necessity.

    However, you'd have to also conclude, if everything has a cause, that:

        There is also a cause for `awareness'. (let's call it a `luos')
	There is also a cause for the universe. (let's call it `Dog')

   Of course, they are physical entities, and they are reduceable, like
   everything else, to lower level entities. But they would seem to be
   required by your Metaphysics.

   Anyway, I believe the Greek philosophers (Aristotle, etc.), used the
   words `soul' and `God' not out of faith, but out of logical necessity, by
   force of the fundamental axioms of logic and their basic metaphysical
   assertions, just as I `proved' the existence of luoses and Dog.

   Sorry if I've misunderstood your metaphysics. I'm simply trying to 
   understand what you believe, so we may all understand you better.

   Please clarify..

>Many people who rooted their thinking in religious beliefs just took it for
>granted that there were.  The fact that this definition depends on such
>things as souls does not ipso facto make it bad.  In fact, it makes it quite
>good if you happen to believe in such things.  Unfortunately, such a belief
>is a form of circular reason.  (We have free will because we have souls,
>which we know to exist because we have free will, because...) It is only
>without the added notion of souls, which serves only to make our wishful
>wishes come true, that the definition of free will becomes "obviously"
>wrong.

    Who has ever given that argument? And who are all these freewillers that
    `wish for' souls to exist? 

    Furthermore, the circular argument pro-free will you just presented is as
    empty as the your favorite anti-freewill argument:

        If free will exists, then it must be a physical phenomenon
	All physical phenomena are determined by causes
	therefore free will is determined by causes
	but if it is determined then it is not free

    This is not unreasonable; it logically flows from your axioms.

    But freedom, like love or beauty, is a real and irreducible state of
    mind (for some of us), even should our universe be totally deterministic.

    Can I exist now?

-not Rich Rosen

    The body indeed has a genuine ruler
    but that is the way itself
    the mysterious order which runs through all things
    which we follow spontaneously
    as soon as we cease to use rationality to analyze alternatives

-Chuang Tzu