jim@ISM780B.UUCP (08/28/85)
>Because that's the definition. What you call free will is hardly free. >If you cannot will your desires (and thus your actions) into or out of >existence, you are dependent upon the way your brain happens to be at that >time, and thus you are not free. If it's NOT predisposed to doing what you >describe, due to not having learned it or other possibilities, then >it won't happen. 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. It seems to me that, just as it is legitimate to speak of "you", where the term refers to a conceptual subset of the universal process, it is legitimate to speak of "free will", as a characterization of certain aspects of that subset. If you insist on restricting discourse to the truly mechanistic and basal, then I think that not only do you have no more justification for treating "you" as more real than "free will", but in fact you have no justification for the use of *any* word or concept. Rather than indulging in these childish interminable attempts to demonstrate that you are right, you would be treating yourself better to realize that many "philosophical" debates come down to the fundamental inadequacy of using language or any other form of conceptualization as a tool for analysis, especially of empirical phenomena. We can use computers to solve problems for us, but the computers will never be able to solve their own problems flawlessly, no matter how sophisticated they become, because they will always be subject to flaws in their design and to the limitations of the symbol manipulation facilities which have been built into them. The same goes for humans (clearly very fancy computers from the mechanist's point of view). From the mechanical point of view, whether or not a human will claim a given argument and insist that it is correct is conditioned by its past history and is thus not "free". This applies even to the human called "Rich Rosen". So rather than wasting breath on pronouncements of what is true, we should spend more time trying to understand how language and other forms of conceptualization work, and how they limit us. Examining the *processes* by which we come to conclusions is more fruitful from a philosophical point of view than the mere conclusions themselves, especially when the conclusions are merely illusions we use to stroke our egos (whatever an ego is). -- Jim Balter (ima!jim)
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (09/03/85)
>>Because that's the definition. What you call free will is hardly free. >>If you cannot will your desires (and thus your actions) into or out of >>existence, you are dependent upon the way your brain happens to be at that >>time, and thus you are not free. If it's NOT predisposed to doing what you >>describe, due to not having learned it or other possibilities, then >>it won't happen. > 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. It seems to me that, just as it is legitimate to speak > of "you", where the term refers to a conceptual subset of the universal > process, it is legitimate to speak of "free will", as a characterization of > certain aspects of that subset. If you insist on restricting discourse to > the truly mechanistic and basal, then I think that not only do you have no > more justification for treating "you" as more real than "free will", but in > fact you have no justification for the use of *any* word or concept.[BALTER] "Restricting discourse"? 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. And no, it is not equally legitimate to speak of "free will" just because you say so. > Rather than indulging in these childish interminable attempts to demonstrate > that you are right, you would be treating yourself better to realize that > many "philosophical" debates come down to the fundamental inadequacy of > using language or any other form of conceptualization as a tool for > analysis, especially of empirical phenomena. I always find it amazing that those who disagree with my points for whatever reason must always be the ones who can say nothing but "you are being childish when you disagree with me". 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. > We can use computers to solve > problems for us, but the computers will never be able to solve their own > problems flawlessly, no matter how sophisticated they become, because they > will always be subject to flaws in their design and to the limitations of the > symbol manipulation facilities which have been built into them. The same > goes for humans (clearly very fancy computers from the mechanist's point of > view). From the mechanical point of view, whether or not a human > will claim a given argument and insist that it is correct is conditioned by > its past history and is thus not "free". This applies even to the human > called "Rich Rosen". So rather than wasting breath on pronouncements of > what is true, we should spend more time trying to understand how language > and other forms of conceptualization work, and how they limit us. Fine. That in and of itself would make another very interesting topic. But that is not this topic. 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? Are you married to it? Are you expressing a wish to sleep with it and have its baby? It's almost "immoral" the way you seem to want to fornicate with the English language... -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr