Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!sun!l5!laura
From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Science & Philosophy vs Rosenism
Message-ID: <174@l5.uucp>
Date: Wed, 2-Oct-85 17:57:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.174
Posted: Wed Oct  2 17:57:20 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 08:14:51 EDT
References: <1495@pyuxd.UUCP> <2197@pucc-h> <1510@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 29

In article <1806@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>
>Because you haven't been listening (apparently).  Free will means the ability
>to act independently of physical constraints, whether from the surrounding
>environment, or the insides of one's own body.  Think about what religionists
>mean when they speak of "free will" to choose between right and wrong.  Clearly
>they are referring to an ability to make a choice regardless of one's physical
>make-up:  choosing not to sin despite the physical desire to do so.  Can you
>act contrary to your physical make-up without an external agent to do so for
>you INDEPENDENT of your make-up?
>
Rich, it is you who are not listening. This is the third time I have tried
to make this point. If you will read philosophy for a bit you will see
that this is *exactly* what a lot of philosophers are claiming.  They claim
that you are NOT CONSTRAINED by either YOUR PHYSICAL MAKEUP or YOUR
ENVIRONMENT when you make a FREE CONSCIOUS DECISION. Your free conscious
decisions are not determined. That is the claim. Not that they are
determined by a physical agent external to your physical self (ie a soul)
but that they are not determined at all. They either are self-determing (which
makes human beings free agents) or they arise spontaneously (as in how an
electron decays), but they are not determined.

You are prefectly free to disagree with this. You are not free to reinterperet
what everybody says in light of what you think they must mean.  

-- 
Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa