mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (09/05/85)
In article <1634@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes: >> Rich, please define this "you", the nature of which apparently allows it to >> *possess* "your brain", "your desires", and "your actions". It sounds >> pretty metaphysical to me. If you insist on restricting discourse to >> the truly mechanistic and basal, then I think that you have no >> more justification for treating "you" as more real than "free will". >> [BALTER] >" Anyway, "you" refers to the entire physical entity >encompassed by your existence, your body and all things in it. I don't >see where that's getting "metaphysical" at all. Doesn't this rather presume, without any real empirical evidence, that personal identity resides entirely in the body? Why isn't it possible that the mind (which is to say, the brain-state and activity) is the sole repository of identity? Why is it so important that the activity occurs in flesh rather than in silicon? >Of course, the inadequacy of language is debated about and discussed. >What do you think Dodgson was writing about when he wrote his little ditty >on Humpty Dumpty? I noticed zilch in the way of response to my extraction >from the Annotated Alice regarding this very topic and the very way >people in this newsgroup seem to be doing much the same thing. Considering the way you think it is perfectly acceptable to make up your own private definition of phrases like "free will" and "soul", you have no room for criticizing others. >This topic is the issue you put forth so well >yourself---the notion of how past history and experience affect and determine >future actions, a death blow to the notion of "free will" in its pure sense. >It is NOT a death blow to what Torek and I have referred to as R-E-A, >or to the notion that humans can learn the process of thinking rationally >and learn the most open and positive ways of living IF they have the mindset >to achieve it. What puzzles me is the insistence of so many people that >things like this SHOULD be called "free will", even though "free will" >means something else entirely. Are you attached to this term emotionally? Unfortunately, this definition of free will is entirely Rich's, and is tied to his (again) private definition of souls (which definition is, I might add, riddled with all kinds of inconsistencies). Essentially, this argument comes down to this: we refuse to acknowledge Rich's demands to be sole arbiter over the meanings and implications of language, particularly of philosophical terms. Rich seems to want to turn philosophical language into some sort of atheistic newspeak, where it will be impossible to talk about philosophy of religion at all. He makes up a definition of "free will" which he (erroneously) claims to refute, and then claims that, since this or that religion or moral system is based on "free will", the system must be false. Not for the moment does he bother to consider that they may not be using his contrived definition. Real philosophy, honest philosophy at least would consider their claims according to their own definitions. Charley Wingate