ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (04/24/85)
As a relative newcomer to this debate, I decided to dig thru our system
archives to catch up on the notorious net.philosophy Free Will debate.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken. Flames will receive random response.
At one point, two definitions of Free Will were being discussed:
A) freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior
causes or divine intervention
B) the belief that man's choices ultimately are or can be voluntary, and
not determined by external causes
(B) was generally selected as the topic of discussion.
The indomitable Rich Rosen has argued more ferociously than most.
His argument seems to run, roughly:
If you have free will, the `agent of choice' must either reside
within the physical world, or without.
1) If the agent of choice resides within the physical universe, then it
is just a bunch of chemicals. But chemicals have no power to decide
which course they take:
...since their behavior is fully determined. { LATER AMENDED TO: }
...since their behavior is fully determined by biochemical equations
up to quantum randomness, after which behavior is nondetermined
rather than chosen by an agent.
2) If the agent of choice does not reside in the physical world, then
it is an external agent. QED.
{Furthermore a `ghost-in-the-machine', in turn, must have some
mechanism itself that causes it to decide, thus, it does not
have free will}
Rich, have I represented your arguments accurately?
-michaelellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (06/10/85)
Some comments on Rich Rosen's position for those who are interested... > [Free Will] - the belief that man's choices ultimately are or can be > voluntary, and not determined by external causes > > [Rich's] argument seems to run, roughly: > > If you have free will, the `agent of choice' must either reside > within the physical world, or without. > > 1) If the agent of choice resides within the physical universe, then it > is just a bunch of chemicals. But chemicals have no power to decide > which course they take since their behavior is fully determined by > biochemical equations up to quantum randomness, after which behavior > is nondetermined rather than chosen by an agent. Several problems here. First, this argument confuses a set with its elements. If an `agent' is made out of chemicals, does that mean it IS just chemicals? Second, this argument presupposes that the behavior of higher level phenomena is reductionistically determined by the behavior of its parts. Check out discussions on the Einstein/Podolsky/Rosen experiment if you would like examples of scientific phenomena that appear to violate this assumption. Third -- just what is the connection between the chemicals' `random behavior' and the `agent of choice'? Blind insistence that such randomness is the cause of the agent's choice, rather than the effect, (or even something else..) seems most unconvincing to me. > > 2) If the agent of choice does not reside in the physical world, then > it is an external agent... > > {Furthermore a `ghost-in-the-machine', in turn, must have some > mechanism itself that causes it to decide, thus, it does not > have free will} This presupposes that all phenomena, even in a hypothetical universe, must be reduceable to causal connections among mechanistic parts. Suppose that `in the non-physical universe' of the `ghost-in-the-machine', agents have no `internal mechanisms'? Or if they do, that such mechanisms do not fully `determine' the choice of the agent? =========================================================================== Rich has pointed out that one of the problems with Free Will is the inability of its proponents to supply an adequate noncontradictory definition. I concur with this criticism, and wish to add that existing philosophical language seems to be unable to grasp known scientific phenomena as well. Many intuitive ideas force themselves upon us, not because they are consistent with our flawed preconceptions of the universe, but because they suggest a deeper truth than our language and philosophical notions can capture. Maybe `Free Will' is such an idea. SMASH CAUSALITY!! -michael