felcher@reed.UUCP (William Abernathy) (05/07/85)
Free Will? Who cares? If you're so worried about free will, I'll direct
you to the Reef of Solipsism. Could This All Be A Big Practical Joke?
Is there a Great Deceiver? Gnaw on that for a while. Descartes couldn't
find his ontological ass from a hole in the ground when it came to
solipsism. But enough random kvetching.
Ever heard of Heidegger? He totally pimps ("flames" I hear is the net.
parlance) on religion. Dig on this:
"Indeed the call [of conscience] is precisely something which *we
ourselves* have niether planned nor prepared for nor voluntarily performed,
nor have we ever done so. 'It' calls, against our expectations and even
against our will. On the other hand, the call undoubtedly does not come
from someone else who is in the world. The call comes *from* me and yet *from
beyond me and over me.*
"These phenomenal findings are not to be explained away. After all, they
they have been taken as a starting-point for explaining the voice of con-
science as an alien power by which Dasein is dominated. If the interpretation
continues in this direction, one supplies a possesor of the power thus posited,
or one takes the power itself as a person who makes himself known - namely
God. On the other hand one may try to reject this explanation in which the
caller is taken as an alien manifestation of such a power and to explain away
the conscience 'biologically' at the same time. Both these explanations
pass over the phenomenal findings too hastily. [Get this] Such procedures are
facilitated by the unexpressed but ontologically dogmatic guiding thesis
that what *is* (in other words, anything so factual as the call) must be
*present-at-hand*, and that what does not let itselft be Objectively
demonstrated as *present-at-hand*, just *is not* all."
Okay, so it's a little out of context, but this dude puts an existentialist
bazooka to the drab ontology you guys are bandying about. Immolate me.
See if I care. I don't know thing one about computers.
I can't even type.
luv'n'hugs
William Abernathyschwrtze@csd2.UUCP (Eric Schwartz group) (05/13/85)
Possible answers to the question "Why Z?", where Z is an event. 1) Z is a consequence of Y, where Y is an event. 2) Z is a manifestation of the will of Y, where Y is an agent (e.g. Joe, god...). 3) Because. The bazooka in the base note takes the form of possibility 3, above. Regards, Bill Light