esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (03/13/85)
[] laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: > Why does there have to be a ``ghost in the machine'', or, alternately, > no ability to effect changes by choice in one's life? That I started > out as an undifferentiated cell zygote that did not have language ability > does not mean that I had to stay that way -- why is ``free will'' any > different? Exactly. "Free will" is an ability, and like language ability, it is an ability one can come to have without exercising that ability. That is, there is no infinite regress involved in having the ability to make choices, any more than there is in having language ability. > I also thought that Rosen implied that one had to freely choose to > have free will -- something which I do not think Torek ever implied. > I think that Torek implied that you are stuck (``condemned'' in > Jean Paul Sartre's view) with freedom. You are "stuck" with freedom in the sense that you cannot just will it away. Also in the sense that you did not have to choose to have it in order to have it. However, you can damage your brain and thereby eliminate the basis for freedom. BTW, I agree with Laura that predictability (or lack of same) is not the same as free will. When we talk about choice we are not talking about predictability or lack thereof. rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) writes: > Are we going to do this again? In recent discussions with Paul Torek, > I've been trying to explain that the concept of free will as it is > commonly defined DIRECTLY IMPLIES the notion of a soul or external agent. But it ain't so... > To be truly *free* to make any "decision", the agent of choice MUST be > outside of the realm of cause and effect, external to the physiochemical > makeup of the brain and body. Wrong again! > True freedom has nothing to do with rational evaluative capabilities. > True freedom would involve the ability to make decisions independent of > ANY external physical cause, INCLUDING the rational evaluative processes. > If one is truly free, one is truly free to choose either rationality or > irrationality at will, and not simply based on making a rational choice. Such a "choice" is the logical equivalent of a square circle. The notion of choosing between rationality and irrationality involves the person in *representing* the options to himself. But such a representation itself would already involve the use of reason. And there could be no basis for such a choice, since reason must be used to see why the basis for choice justifies the choice. The fact that Rich's definition of free will leads to such absurdities shows that it should be rejected. rwh@aesat.UUCP (Russ Herman) writes: > When you say "I have language ability", that's a self-evident truth. ... > But when you say "I have free will", that's like saying "I have a > personal deity". Actually, when you say "I have free will" while making (what we ordinarily would describe as) a choice, that's a self-evident truth too. (!) > Have you ever known any clinical paranoids? They're *wonderful* at > reasoning. Only problem is that their perceptions are out to lunch. They're wonderful at logic, maybe. Perception involves some use of reason, I think (as Kuhnians et. al. will insist, it's not just the reception of neutral data), at least when it comes to making judgements based on our sensory input. Anyway, please feel free to substitute "reason and experience" everywhere I previously said "reason", and you'll get my meaning. > How can you or I prove whether our core values are rational, or a product > of our social and familial conditioning? [why not both --pvt] We certainly > start from the latter position. Then, how can we distinguish between > being rational and rationalizing? It's simple; you search for biases in your conditioning that lead you to irrationality. In the beginning you find plenty; as you proceed it gets harder to find error ... you never get to perfect rationality, but you can approach it asymptotically. --The aspiring iconoclast, Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Don't hit that 'r' key! Send any mail to this address, not the sender's.
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) (03/14/85)
> > rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) writes: > > Are we going to do this again? In recent discussions with Paul Torek, > > I've been trying to explain that the concept of free will as it is > > commonly defined DIRECTLY IMPLIES the notion of a soul or external agent. > > But it ain't so... [PAUL TOREK] > > To be truly *free* to make any "decision", the agent of choice MUST be > > outside of the realm of cause and effect, external to the physiochemical > > makeup of the brain and body. > > Wrong again! This would seem to be the "argument by assertion" or the "because I say so" style of reasoning. C'mon, Paul! You're just making assertions that my point is wrong because you don't like it, but you offer nothing to either show it to be wrong or to show the opposite (your point) to be true. Arndtian reasoning has no place here. >>True freedom has nothing to do with rational evaluative capabilities. >>True freedom would involve the ability to make decisions independent of >>ANY external physical cause, INCLUDING the rational evaluative processes. >>If one is truly free, one is truly free to choose either rationality or >>irrationality at will, and not simply based on making a rational choice. > Such a "choice" is the logical equivalent of a square circle. The notion > of choosing between rationality and irrationality involves the person in > *representing* the options to himself. But such a representation itself > would already involve the use of reason. It would seem this way only if you presume that reason is the only method of making choices, which is a bogus assumption. > And there could be no basis for such a choice, since reason must be used to > see why the basis for choice justifies the choice. Reason *must* be used only if reason *is* used. (Sort of a cause and effect reversal there.) If one doesn't care whether or not one has made a reasonable choice (an argument presented by religious believers who have said to me: "Well I couldn't care less what your evidence against this is, I *still* believe it, despite the logical reason to stop doing so!"), then one is not obliged to use reason to make choices. > The fact that Rich's definition of free will leads to such absurdities > shows that it should be rejected. Yes, indeed. The definition, when analyzed closely (something Paul has repeatedly chastised me about :-), shows many such absurdities. And you're right, it should be rejected. And since that definition (not yours) would seem to be the commonly accepted definition of what free will "is", you have just claimed that the very notion of free will should be rejected. Can we go home now? Again, as Schopenhauer said: "A man can do what he wants to, but he cannot want what he wants to." -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/14/85)
3 points...
1. It doesn't do any good to say ``a soul gives me free will''. Where
did the soul get it? At some point you will have to say ``just because
it did''. WHy is the soul level to be preferred over the body level?
(if you have evidence for the existence of souls, this could be a very good
reason, of course.)
2. If you are using what you believe or what you feel as a tool for reasoning,
then it does not follow that you are not reasoning. Your conclusions may
be lousy, however.
3. Schopenhauer may not be the last word on the subject. There are a good
many schools of self-help, meditation, hypnosis and so on which
expressly try to change what you want. saying ``well, they couldn't
change that you wanted to change your wants'' doesn't work -- some
competing schools try to undo what you had done somewhere else.
You do have evidence that people stick with certain decisions or
beliefs, but that is not sufficient.
Laura Creighton
utzoo!laurarwh@aesat.UUCP (Russ Herman) (03/18/85)
(> Paul Torek; * Laura Creighton) > Actually, when you say "I have free will" while making (what we ordinarily > would describe as) a choice, that's a self-evident truth too. (!) Tautological. How can you demonstrate whether, in that precise situation, I am making a choice. Perhaps I'm compulsively lying. (!!) > You are "stuck" with freedom in the sense that you cannot just will it > away. Yes, but I could perform acts that would diminish my freedom, like committing a crime and getting thrown in jail. But I think here we're starting to confuse "free will", which is a binary valued attribute, with "freedom", whose values lie along a continuum. > [Paranoids are] wonderful at logic, maybe. Perception involves some use > of reason ... at least when it comes to making judgments based on our > sensory input. I don't consider judgment part of perception. I hear a loud bang. If I'm walking down a Beirut street, I'll dive for cover. If I'm sitting at the symphony, I'll assume it's the kettledrum. Hearing the sound is "perception". The following part is what I label "interpretation". Suppose I perceive people looking at me, and looking away, and looking at me, and looking away... . Now I could interpret that as "They're looking at me because they're going to get me", in which case I'm paranoid; or as "They're looking at me because I'm such a handsome devil...", in which case I'm simply crazy :-); or as "They're looking at me because, oops, maybe my fly is undone", in which case I am being rational. But the first interpretation I make occurs without rational mediation as to which one it will be! And my ability to generate subsequent interpretations is not under immediate control. Here is where free will and freedom collapse into a black hole. * It doesn't do any good to say "A soul gives me free will". I agree. Iff you have free will, you can allocate the possessor of that attribute to that part of you, iff you wish to identify some part of you as a soul. Frankly, I find it completely appropriate to correlate so closely two things you can't prove you have! * If you are using what you believe or what you feel as a tool for for * reasoning, then it does not follow that you are not reasoning. Your * conclusions may be lousy, however. Then again, your conclusions may be better. Beliefs and feelings are appropriate *data* for decisions, particularly feelings. There is another decision-making tool, besides reason, available to humans - intuition. But that is a separate topic. -- ______ Russ Herman / \ {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!aesat!rwh @( ? ? )@ ( || ) The opinions above are strictly personal, and ( \__/ ) do not reflect those of my employer (or even \____/ possibly myself an hour from now.)
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/18/85)
I don't think you understand me, Russ. I am not trying to find a chunk of me and say that ``this bit gives me free will''. What good would that do? Assuming that I thought that I found it, the next obvious question is ``what makes that free''? This is relatively useless, then. If I have free will, then, I want to identify it with the whole I. But, I am very interested in demonstrating that I have free will. If I do not have free will then there is no point in me bothering with ethics, politics, doing a good job at work, using casts appropriately so that lint passes my code, trying to treat the people I love with more respect and in other ways trying to live a better life. I mean -- who cares? I can't choose to improve myself, I can't choose to be evil, I can't sin and I can't accomplish anything. All I can claim is that sins, accomplishments and everything else happens -- I have no credit one way of another. If I actually believed that I had no free will then I would go kill myself tomorrow. What ever would be the use of anything? I think that free will is a self-evident truth. Now, the implications that one can draw from the existence of free will (that we have souls, that God cares about ethics) may be entirely bogus. But I do not think that it is possible to explain why human beings try to find out about the truth without either assuming that they have free will, or that it happened by chance. I suppsoe it could be chance .. but it is a rather long shot, wouldn't you say? For instance, take the proposition ``knowledge is good''. Try to refute it. If you say ``Knowledge is bad for you'' then you are making a statement. That statement is, in itself, knowledge. Thus, you are forced to admit that certain knowlege is good. I do not think that you can ask the question ``does man have free will'' without using the free will whose existence you are questioning. The question implies that there is a true answer to the question and that you would like this knowledge. But why should knowledge interest you? Because it is possible to make mistakes, and you are trying to avoid making them. Aha! By your own effort, in searching for the truth, it is possible to influence your actions so that you will make fewer mistakes! This is an implicit assumption in asking any question. So, in asking the question you are either performing another meaningless action, or you are demonstrating the free will whose existence you are trying to prove. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (03/19/85)
> 1. It doesn't do any good to say ``a soul gives me free will''. Where > did the soul get it? At some point you will have to say ``just because > it did''. WHy is the soul level to be preferred over the body level? > > (if you have evidence for the existence of souls, this could be a very good > reason, of course.) > ... > laura creighton This soul business seems a little dogmatic on both sides. On the one hand, the ability of a thoughtful mind to think powerfully has lacked a decent scientific explanation for centuries. To postulate that a non-observed entity like a soul carrys the ability to think and reason is one way to explain thought, especially via arguments from design which imply that since a soul is attuned to and reacts to a larger world design, it should be able to think complexly, as the world is complex. That is, the things we associate with a soul imply that a soul must be able to think and reason. Hence souls should exist. (Complexity involves imagination -- [a little joke from mathematics] :-)) On the other hand, the soul hasn't been observed, though dogmatists might say that it can't be observed (why, I don't know). But this isn't an argument against the existence of the soul in the absence of another observed mechanism that can think and reason complexly as we do. I don't think we've seen that yet. My own belief is that some observable mechanism which thinks and reasons will eventually be isolated or explained within the human brain. I also expect that that mechanism will do what a soul would do, given a decent correspondance and interaction between that mechanism and the world (this is assumed for a soul). Between the soul level and the body level is no difference of serious consequence, I submit, at least as far as reason and freedom are concerned. Perhaps the language we use to talk about the soul level is hard to reduce to the language we use to talk about the body level, or vice versa. I believe (whether religiously or scientifically, I leave to the gentle reader) that the two once-warring camps will find better and better ways to communicate as biological science becomes more mature. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (03/20/85)
> I do not think that you can ask the question ``does man have free will'' > without using the free will whose existence you are questioning. The > question implies that there is a true answer to the question and that > you would like this knowledge. But why should knowledge interest you? > Because it is possible to make mistakes, and you are trying to avoid > making them. Aha! By your own effort, in searching for the truth, it > is possible to influence your actions so that you will make fewer > mistakes! This is an implicit assumption in asking any question. So, > in asking the question you are either performing another meaningless > action, or you are demonstrating the free will whose existence you > are trying to prove. > > Laura Creighton > utzoo!laura Another funny assumption of this free will debate is that free will is a possession, some kind of {meta}physical capacity in us. That can't be! Free will is a *relation* between a person and her world (world: some bounded space-time continuum of possibility). The question "does man have free will" should be answered, "depends on who and where -- which man[persons] and what world[worlds]". Hence the information that some person asks the question "does man have free will" gives no guidance as to whether that person has free will or not. Try as we might, we can't move our worlds onto the net to be judged. And not all of our worlds are the same. Tony Wuersch
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) (03/21/85)
> But, I am very > interested in demonstrating that I have free will. If I do not have > free will then there is no point in me bothering with ethics, politics, > doing a good job at work, using casts appropriately so that lint > passes my code, trying to treat the people I love with more respect and > in other ways trying to live a better life. I mean -- who cares? I can't > choose to improve myself, I can't choose to be evil, I can't sin and > I can't accomplish anything. All I can claim is that sins, accomplishments > and everything else happens -- I have no credit one way of another. > > If I actually believed that I had no free will then I would go kill > myself tomorrow. What ever would be the use of anything? This is truly sad, because I fail to see why Laura (or anyone) should kill themselves because they don't have free will? I feel quite glad that I am fortunate enough to be alive and to experience life and live through and gain from and enjoy those experiences. Regardless of whether I "will" the things I do or not. The danger is not in denying free will (for good reason, I'd say) causing despondency and despair owing to "lack of ???"; the danger is in allowing such a notion, that without "free will", I am nothing, to be perpetuated! > Now, the implications that one can draw from the existence of free will (that > we have souls, that God cares about ethics) may be entirely bogus. I'll say!! Where do you get such derivations of implications? > But I do not think that > it is possible to explain why human beings try to find out about the truth > without either assuming that they have free will, or that it happened by > chance. I suppsoe it could be chance .. but it is a rather long shot, > wouldn't you say? Isn't everything? (And isn't that the argument against evolution, too?) > For instance, take the proposition ``knowledge is good''. Try to refute it. > If you say ``Knowledge is bad for you'' then you are making a statement. > That statement is, in itself, knowledge. Thus, you are forced to admit that > certain knowlege is good. Take the statement "Snerdfelb is good". Please. By making assertions and defining things after the fact, you are not really saying anything at all. > I do not think that you can ask the question ``does man have free will'' > without using the free will whose existence you are questioning. If I program a machine to ask the question, does it have free will? > The question implies that there is a true answer to the question and that > you would like this knowledge. Questions are just words strung together. They don't necessarily "imply" anything. The question above "implies" no more than the words it strings together. It is only if you assume that asking such a question represents an instance of free will that this "implication" presents itself. But that's some assumption... > But why should knowledge interest you? > Because it is possible to make mistakes, and you are trying to avoid > making them. Aha! By your own effort, in searching for the truth, it > is possible to influence your actions so that you will make fewer > mistakes! ... This is an implicit assumption in asking any question. So, > in asking the question you are either performing another meaningless > action, or you are demonstrating the free will whose existence you > are trying to prove. What am I demonstrating when I ask "Does man have snerdfelb?" It's no more or less meaningless than asking "Does man have ANYTHING ELSE?" Only the answer provides a means of saying whether it was a meaningless action or a worthwhile effort to ask the question. If, in asking a question, you are seeking knowledge about something, asking alone has no bearing on the nature of the answer. Obviously one is searching for information when asking a question. But if the answer to the question you ask is "no", the action was hardly meaningless: you have gained information that you can use in the future. -- "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/21/85)
This is truly sad, because I fail to see why Laura (or anyone) should kill themselves because they don't have free will? [Why not? it is just what my chemicals make me do...] I feel quite glad that I am fortunate enough to be alive and to experience life and live through and gain from and enjoy those experiences. Regardless of whether I "will" the things I do or not. The danger is not in denying free will (for good reason, I'd say) causing despondency and despair owing to "lack of ???"; the danger is in allowing such a notion, that without "free will", I am nothing, to be perpetuated! [RICH ROSEN] Rich, it is a very strange notion of ``I'' that you have that can exist without a belief in free will. What does ``gain'' mean in the absense of free will? what does ``enjoy'' mean? More importantly, what does ``I'' mean? Very little, I would say. Why learn? You cannot influence your actions through your learning. Why love anyone? If you don't it is no reflection on you. Why care about how elegant your code is? It is easier to be sloppy, and no reflection on you if you are. You couldn't change it -- it is just how your chemicals came out. Without a sense of personal meaning, I see no reason to hold onto a belief in the self at all. It was a mistake to ever think I had one -- so I think that I will just go out like a candle now and enter into nirvana. Life is pointless and I quit... > For instance, take the proposition ``knowledge is good''. Try to refute it. > If you say ``Knowledge is bad for you'' then you are making a statement. > That statement is, in itself, knowledge. Thus, you are forced to admit that > certain knowlege is good. Take the statement "Snerdfelb is good". Please. By making assertions and defining things after the fact, you are not really saying anything at all. No, no, no. This is the logical positivist approach. (incidentally, I read a quote by Smullyan the other day. He said that if he were ever to write a Ambrose Bierce type dictionary, he would define a logical positicist as someone who rejects as meaningless any statement he is incapable of understanding. this is the funniest thing I have heard in months...). I am not definitng things after the fact. If you want to go after this one you are going to have to prove that ``knowledge'' is meaningless. Is Knowledge then meaningless, Rich? I don't think so, and I don't think that you think so either. Your actions in posting make you out to be in contradiction if you say this. There is a potential paradox here, but not the one that you suggest. the statement ``Knowledge is not good'' is an instance of knowledge. Thus it is self-referential. Self-referential things have the potiential for paradox. As it turns out, though, this one is safe. The statement ``All Knowledge is not good'' (where not binds to good) is clearly false. THis leaves open the question of the truth of ``Some Knowledge is not good'' of course. > I do not think that you can ask the question ``does man have free will'' > without using the free will whose existence you are questioning. If I program a machine to ask the question, does it have free will? Now, here is an instance where we must be careful of what we mean. what do you mean by ``ask''? If you mean ``print out the question on a terminal'' then I would say ``no''. On the other hand, if you programmed a machine and then it spontaneously came up with the question ``does man have free will'' then I would have to answer that I do not know -- but I would be inclined to suspect that it does. I think of Mike in *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* as being a computer with free will. Personally, though, I wonder if you can ever build and program such a machine. > The question implies that there is a true answer to the question and that > you would like this knowledge. Questions are just words strung together. They don't necessarily "imply" anything. The question above "implies" no more than the words it strings together. It is only if you assume that asking such a question represents an instance of free will that this "implication" presents itself. But that's some assumption... No. All I am assuming is that either men have free will or they don't, and that the expression ``men have free will'' is meaningful. I am not assuming that the answer is going to be ``true'', it could be ``false''. This is the case with any question I pose (since I do not pose questions which I think are meaningless). If I ask ``Does Rich have blue eyes'' then I am assuming that the sentence has some meaning, and that there is an answer to this question -- either ``yes'' or ``no''. [If you happen to have one eye, or one brown and one blue, then you can call to my attention that my question is ill-formed, but that is entirely beside the point. *I* think that the question has meaning as it stands, and is either answerable in the affirmative of the negative.] > But why should knowledge interest you? > Because it is possible to make mistakes, and you are trying to avoid > making them. Aha! By your own effort, in searching for the truth, it > is possible to influence your actions so that you will make fewer > mistakes! ... This is an implicit assumption in asking any question. So, > in asking the question you are either performing another meaningless > action, or you are demonstrating the free will whose existence you > are trying to prove. What am I demonstrating when I ask "Does man have snerdfelb?" It's no more or less meaningless than asking "Does man have ANYTHING ELSE?" Are you going to play Humpty Dumpty again? I do not have any concepts which I do not believe are grounded in reality. Therefore I do not think that nonsense is as meaningful as my concepts. If nonsense became meaningful it would no longer be nonsense. I am *not* claiming that there is anything special about the words I am using to represent my concepts, but I am claiming that there is something special about the concepts themselves. ``Unicorns'' and ``horses'' are both instances of concepts. The first do not exist, and the second do. But neither of them are nonsensical. In the absense of a definition, ``snerdfelb'' is nonsense. My sentences were not nonsense -- though I had not gotten around to demonstrating that they are true. Only the answer provides a means of saying whether it was a meaningless action or a worthwhile effort to ask the question. If, in asking a question, you are seeking knowledge about something, asking alone has no bearing on the nature of the answer. Obviously one is searching for information when asking a question. But if the answer to the question you ask is "no", the action was hardly meaningless: you have gained information that you can use in the future. I did not say that the action would be meaningless if the answer was no, I said that if the answer was no, then the action would be meaningless. These are not the same. a implies b does not mean the same thing as b implies a. But this leads us to wonder why a man has engaged in a meaningless action. Well, if the answer is no, then I argue that all actions are meaningless. However, if the action is meaningful, then this would imply that the answer was not no. [By denial of the consequent]. I know that I cannot prove that all actions are not meaningless, but I think that I have proven that either all actions are meaningless or man has free will. WHich moves us back to the top of the article. If I believed that I did not have free will, I would also believe that all actions are meaningless. Time to quit again... Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (03/26/85)
>> This is truly sad, because I fail to see why Laura (or anyone) >> should kill themselves because they don't have free will? > [Why not? it is just what my chemicals make me do...] It is the fact that your own thoughts as stored in your chemical makeup "make" you do this (i.e., lead you to that conclusion) is what is so sad. >> I feel quite glad that I am fortunate enough to be alive and to >> experience life and live through and gain from and enjoy those >> experiences. Regardless of whether I "will" the things I do or >> not. The danger is not in denying free will (for good reason, >> I'd say) causing despondency and despair owing to "lack of >> ???"; the danger is in allowing such a notion, that without >> "free will", I am nothing, to be perpetuated! [RICH ROSEN] > Rich, it is a very strange notion of ``I'' that you have that can exist > without a belief in free will. What does ``gain'' mean in the absense > of free will? what does ``enjoy'' mean? More importantly, what does > ``I'' mean? Very little, I would say. To you, I would say. The "I" is that which engages in and feels the experiences, and gains from them and learns from them and acquires pleasure from them. The gain is in the enhanced experience of life itself. The enjoyment is in the pleasure of those experiences as experienced by me. > Why learn? You cannot influence your actions through your learning. I don't know where you get that notion. It is only through learning that your experience of life becomes fuller. You don't "change" anything (from a deterministic standpoint, i.e., you would have "learned" anyway), but your actions are in part determined by what you learn and you gain from that. > Why love anyone? If you don't it is no reflection on you. Because it can be such a joyful and enjoyable experience and can lead to growth in both people's lives. > Why care about how elegant your code is? It is easier to be sloppy, and no > reflection on you if you are. You couldn't change it -- it is just how your > chemicals came out. Why are you trying so bloody hard to forcefit your notions of "without free will I wouldn't do any of these things". If your chemical makeup was such that you enjoyed and took pride in your work, you most certainly would. For someone who demands that I go off and read, you'd be advised to check out Smullyan's "The Unfortunate Dualist" before slitting your wrists, Laura. > Without a sense of > personal meaning, I see no reason to hold onto a belief in the self at > all. It was a mistake to ever think I had one -- so I think that I will > just go out like a candle now and enter into nirvana. Life is pointless > and I quit... It's as pointless (or point-ful) as you decide to make it to be. If you've already decided that it's pointless, then there's not point in talking to you, but if you realize that your life is as full as you make it, and don't go off half-cocked depressed about not having "control" of your actions, there's plenty of life to make the most of out there. > I am not defining things after the fact. If you want to > go after this one you are going to have to prove that ``knowledge'' is > meaningless. Is Knowledge then meaningless, Rich? I don't think so, and > I don't think that you think so either. Your actions in posting make > you out to be in contradiction if you say this. Why are you asking me to prove something I don't believe? To what end? Knowledge is as meaningful as its usefulness, as useful as its application. Even without application, pure knowledge can have beauty. >>>I do not think that you can ask the question ``does man have free will'' >>>without using the free will whose existence you are questioning. >> If I program a machine to ask the question, does it have free >> will? > Now, here is an instance where we must be careful of what we mean. what > do you mean by ``ask''? If you mean ``print out the question on a > terminal'' then I would say ``no''. On the other hand, if you > programmed a machine and then it spontaneously came up with the > question ``does man have free will'' then I would have to answer that I > do not know -- but I would be inclined to suspect that it does. What makes you think that human beings don't ask questions by simply going through a series of internal processes and then "printing out the question" or "asking it orally"? Straw man. What makes you think that humans "spontaneously" ask such questions rather than going through such processes as I describe above to do so? > All I am assuming is that either men have free will or they don't, > and that the expression ``men have free will'' is meaningful. It is just an utterance of sounds. It is only as meaningful as its veracity. If it is false, then it is false. > I am not assuming that the answer is going to be ``true'', it could be > ``false''. This is the case with any question I pose (since I do not > pose questions which I think are meaningless). If I ask ``Does Rich > have blue eyes'' then I am assuming that the sentence has some meaning, > and that there is an answer to this question -- either ``yes'' or > ``no''. [If you happen to have one eye, or one brown and one blue, then > you can call to my attention that my question is ill-formed, but that > is entirely beside the point. *I* think that the question has meaning > as it stands, and is either answerable in the affirmative of the > negative.] As are most questions. The act of asking it does not imply its truth or falseness, as any question that can be formed of words can be asked. >>>But why should knowledge interest you? >>>Because it is possible to make mistakes, and you are trying to avoid >>>making them. Aha! By your own effort, in searching for the truth, it >>>is possible to influence your actions so that you will make fewer >>>mistakes! ... This is an implicit assumption in asking any question. So, >>>in asking the question you are either performing another meaningless >>>action, or you are demonstrating the free will whose existence you >>>are trying to prove. >> What am I demonstrating when I ask "Does man have snerdfelb?" It's >> no more or less meaningless than asking "Does man have ANYTHING ELSE?" > Are you going to play Humpty Dumpty again? I do not have any concepts > which I do not believe are grounded in reality. Therefore I do not > think that nonsense is as meaningful as my concepts. If nonsense became > meaningful it would no longer be nonsense. I am *not* claiming that > there is anything special about the words I am using to represent my > concepts, but I am claiming that there is something special about the > concepts themselves. ``Unicorns'' and ``horses'' are both instances of > concepts. The first do not exist, and the second do. But neither of > them are nonsensical. In the absense of a definition, ``snerdfelb'' is > nonsense. My sentences were not nonsense -- though I had not gotten > around to demonstrating that they are true. The point was that your statement claiming that because I am seeking knowledge I am using free will was totally erroneous, plugging in random words to suit the conclusion you want to reach. My asking questions to gain knowledge does not imply use of free will, but somehow you claim to reach that conclusion above. I am politely trying to say "What the hell are you talking about?" It is YOU who are playing Humpty Dumpty here. Any question I ask (about free will or about snerdfelb) have equal POTENTIAL meaning. Only the reality of the answer shows how meaningful the information obtained really was. Remember, though, that even asking a "stupid" question can result in useful information. > But this leads us to wonder why a man has engaged in a meaningless > action. Well, if the answer is no, then I argue that all actions are > meaningless. However, if the action is meaningful, then this would > imply that the answer was not no. [By denial of the consequent]. I know > that I cannot prove that all actions are not meaningless, but I think > that I have proven that either all actions are meaningless or man has > free will. No it doesn't, and I fail to see where you draw such conclusions from unless you're working backwards to get to them. As I said above, meaning and worth of an action are human-based concepts: the meaningless question I ask may have meaning to you based on your situation. Could you please more clearly how this seemingly convoluted logic leads you to a conclusion that because some actions are deemed meaningless/not meaningless somehow leads one to the conclusion of free will. The only thing that's clear to me is the convolution of your own logic in an attempt to "prove" free will. > WHich moves us back to the top of the article. If I believed that I did > not have free will, I would also believe that all actions are > meaningless. Time to quit again... But that's a crock. The actions are meaningful as they are made to be. -- Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/26/85)
I think that Tony Wuersch is talking about *freedom*, not *free will*. If you point a gun to my head you have considerably diminished my freedom, but I don't think that you have diminished my free will. I would grant that certain individuals -- say catatonics, or the severely retarded, or people in comas may not have free will, but then, they aren't the people that are asking the question. People have sent me a lot of mail about this. There seems to be a universal misunderstanding of what I said. Most people who have sent me mail have sent me mail which interprets my argument as follows: people ask ``do I have free will''? in asking such a question, one presumes that the answer is yes. therefore, by force of will, the answer is yes. this argument stinks. Well, yes, I agree that this is a lousy argument, but this is not the one I was making. I will try to be clearer. When I ask ``d o I have free will''? I am implicitly asserting that there is something worthwhile about asking questions. After all, I am bothering to do this rather than doing something else. The reason that it is good to ask questions is that it is a way of acquiring true knowledge. But why should true knowledge be of any use to me? Because, the more true knowledge I have, the fewer mistakes I should make. Aha. if knowledge is important because it enables us to make fewer mistakes, it follows then that we *can* make mistakes. In particular, we are free to make choices, some of which we would consider mistakes. If I do not have free will then I cannot ``make a mistake'' -- every thing that I do is outside of the realm of personal choice and therefore is inevitable. It may be inevitable that certain people speculate on whether or not they have free will, of course, but the hard part is explaining the great bulk of evidence that seems to indicate that it is a good thing to learn since we can avoid making mistakes that way. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/28/85)
Why are you trying so bloody hard to forcefit your notions of "without free will I wouldn't do any of these things". If your chemical makeup was such that you enjoyed and took pride in your work, you most certainly would. This is, of course, the question. The answer is, though, because I would have no reason to enjoy or take pride in my work any more. I could not help but do the things that I did. I don't take pride in *other people's* work, and I don't take pride in the actions of other people. If my behaviour is entirely determined, then I would view my own actions as I viewed the actions of other people -- and indeed, my way of viewing other people would change. Do you write lousy code? Today, I would criticise you for it. But, of course, if you couldn't help but write lousy code, then there is no reason for me to upbraid you for it, since you didn't choose to write lousy code. Are you an Identity Christian? Well, these days I will flame you into the ground. But, of course, if you were not free to not become an Identity Christian, it seems foolish of me to criticise you as if it were your fault, or your responsibility. Do I say I love you? Oh well, today I believe that it is because you and I share similar values and I admire you for having them. Of course, if you are in no way responsible for the values that you have, then it is foolish of me to admire you as if you had anythng to do with it. You just happened to be that way, but I could as easily love someone who shares none of my values, for they just happened *that* way as well. Gee, love seems kind of pointless. Gee -- *EVERYTHING* seems kind of pointless. I think I will pack it in now, now that I understand that there is no such thing as personal responsibility, I don't think that there is anything worthwhile any more. How can you say that life is ``as full as I make it''? What you have been telling me is that *I* *can't* *make* *it*! If I could, if I could really chose to make life more or less full, then I would have free will. But, if I can't, then no life is full -- some only appear more full by a standard that assumes that there is such a thing as personal responsibility. Without personal responsibility, all talk of a ``meaningful life'' is so much crap. Everybody gets what they were destined to get in life. Some people are destined to be called ``meaningful'' and others aren't. But who cares? It wasn't by their actions that they determined what they were destined to get -- what they were destined to get was determined even before they were born out of the equally destined lives of their ancestors. ===================================================================== Why are you asking me to prove something I don't believe? To what end? What is meaningful about knowledge if one cannot influence one's own actions? Knowledge is as meaningful as its usefulness, as useful as its application. Why should I care? Even without application, pure knowledge can have beauty. Again, why should I care? If the future, like the past, is fixed then why should the application of anything interest me? >> If I program a machine to ask the question, does it have free >> will? > Now, here is an instance where we must be careful of what we mean. > what do you mean by ``ask''? If you mean ``print out the question > on a terminal'' then I would say ``no''. On the other hand, if you > programmed a machine and then it spontaneously came up with the > question ``does man have free will'' then I would have to answer that > I do not know -- but I would be inclined to suspect that it does. What makes you think that human beings don't ask questions by simply going through a series of internal processes and then "printing out the question" or "asking it orally"? Straw man. What makes you think that humans "spontaneously" ask questions rather than going through such such processes as I describe above to do so? Rich, I have never said that human beings *don't* do that. I do not think that this notion of doing things is incompatible with the notion of free will. I do not know whether a machine can or can not have free will. When I used the term ``spontaneously'' I meant to distinguish it from the case where I (using the bourne shell) type: PS1="Does man have free will?" export PS1 There. My terminal will print out ``Does man have free will'' a lot, but I don't think that the 11/44 in the department of Zoology has it. On the other hand, if you wrote an AI program that produced a machine that passed the Turing test, and, if one day you walked by it and it typed out at you ``Does man have free will'' then I would have to wonder about it. > All I am assuming is that either men have free will or they don't, > and that the expression ``men have free will'' is meaningful. It is just an utterance of sounds. It is only as meaningful as its veracity. If it is false, then it is false. No. No. No. No. No. Veracity has nothing to do with meaningfulness. ``My father has blue eyes.'' This is a wonderfully meaningful statement. It is also completely false, since my father has brown eyes. In addition, I would contest that it is just an utterance of sounds. It must be more. I never spoke it out loud, and there is no reason to assume that you did either. You interpreted the string of letters in a certain way -- you saw that it represented certain concepts that you already had. I am not asking you to evaluate a string of letters, but rather the concept that that string represents. The point was that your statement claiming that because I am seeking knowledge I am using free will was totally erroneous, plugging in random words to suit the conclusion you want to reach. My asking questions to gain knowledge does not imply use of free will, but somehow you claim to reach that conclusion above. I am politely trying to say "What the hell are you talking about?" It is YOU who are playing Humpty Dumpty here. Any question I ask (about free will or about snerdfelb) have equal POTENTIAL meaning. Only the reality of the answer shows how meaningful the information obtained really was. Remember, though, that even asking a "stupid" question can result in useful information. You misconstrue what I am doing. I will try again. 1. ``Does man have free will?'' is a question. 2. To ask a question is to seek an answer. 2b. [This implies that the questioner thinks that the question is meaningful. If I ask you ``what is snerdfelb'' then I am assuming that this is a meaningful question even though I don't know what snerdfelb is -- I expect that you do. This may be foolish, in that snerdfelb may be meaningless, but, in asking a question I am assuming that it is meaningful.] 3. To seek an answer is to seek the truth. 3b [NOTE that this does not say that TO SEEK AN ANSWER is to seek that the ANSWER BE IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. If I seek the answer the question ``Does my father have blue eyes'' then I am seeking the answer ``no'' which is the truth.] 4. Big Question Time WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SEEKING THE TRUTH? Perhaps there is no significance to it at all, but the standard answer is that one can avoid making mistakes by knowing the truth. One learns what is true to avoid making mistakes. Therefore: [Big Conclusions Time] If ``truth seeking'' is significant, and it is significant because it enables one to avoid making mistakes, then it follows that it is possible to avoid making mistakes. But this assumes that choices are possible, that is that the future is not fixed as is the past, but rather that there are possible futures -- one in which a mistake is made and one in which it is not. It also follows that through one's own thought one can influence which of the possible futures is the one that becomes the present and eventually the past. This is all I want from free will. Therefore: [Little Conclusion Time] In asking the question ``does man have free will'' one is implicitly assuming that the answer to this question is yes. Do you get it *now*? If you don't, it is not because I am twisting words. I am trying to be as excruciatingly clear as I can. I don't know where it is that you are misunderstanding this, but maybe you could tell me -- go slow, because I find it very difficult to follow how you get from certain premises of yours to other conclusions. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (03/29/85)
In article <137@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes: >Another funny assumption of this free will debate is that free will >is a possession, some kind of {meta}physical capacity in us. That can't >be! Free will is a *relation* between a person and her world (world: some >bounded space-time continuum of possibility). The question "does man >have free will" should be answered, "depends on who and where -- which >man[persons] and what world[worlds]". >Tony Wuersch Which person, yes, but which world, I'm not so sure. Couldn't the same constitution of me (my body), subject to the same physical laws, exist in a "world" in which many other things were different? It seems to me that in any such world, "I" would have exactly the same amount of free will as I do in the actual world. Thus I think free will is indeed a function of which person you talk about, but not which world. There is of course the related notion of "freedom" as political-economic-etc. freedom, and what the world around me is like certainly matters for *that* kind of freedom. But that's not the same as "free will", i.e. agency (being an agent). -- "When there's something wrong with the vogue ideas who do you call?" "ICONBUSTERS!" --President, ICONBUSTERS, Paul V. Torek, wucs!wucec1!pvt1047
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (04/01/85)
> In article <137@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes: > >Another funny assumption of this free will debate is that free will > >is a possession, some kind of {meta}physical capacity in us. That can't > >be! Free will is a *relation* between a person and her world (world: some > >bounded space-time continuum of possibility). The question "does man > >have free will" should be answered, "depends on who and where -- which > >man[persons] and what world[worlds]". > >Tony Wuersch > > Which person, yes, but which world, I'm not so sure. Couldn't the same > constitution of me (my body), subject to the same physical laws, exist > in a "world" in which many other things were different? It seems to me > that in any such world, "I" would have exactly the same amount of free > will as I do in the actual world. > > "ICONBUSTERS!" --President, ICONBUSTERS, > Paul V. Torek, wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 If I'm tied up in a chair and gagged in some other world, my constitution might be the same but I would lack free will. "Agency" implies a agent whom a world reacts to. It implies some means of control over the world; as Nozick said, "Just because determinism is true doesn't mean thermostats don't control temperature." If an agent is bound from reacting to the world in a manner meaningful and significant to the agent, then that agent lacks free will. Free will thus depends on the structure of the world. I'm not proposing mine as THE definition of free will; I don't think philosophy works that way. I am proposing it as a reasonable definition, one which helps us develop a sense of free will which we can use in our daily life to make our lives better and happier. ("Sense" as in 'sense and reference', please) As an Aristotelian naturalist, creating useful distinctions such as a pragmatic definition of free will is what I take to be the business of good philosophy. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
egs@epsilon.UUCP (Ed Sheppard) (04/08/85)
> If I'm tied up in a chair and gagged in some other world, my constitution > might be the same but I would lack free will. "Agency" implies a agent > whom a world reacts to. It implies some means of control over the world; > as Nozick said, "Just because determinism is true doesn't mean thermostats > don't control temperature." If an agent is bound from reacting to the > world in a manner meaningful and significant to the agent, then that agent > lacks free will. Free will thus depends on the structure of the world. Tony: I think you've run two concepts together, namely will and capacity. Being bound does not necessarily imply a lack of will, simply a lack of the ability to carry out that will. There is a third component also: desire. Ed Sheppard Bellcore
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (04/09/85)
> People have sent me a lot of mail about this. There seems to be a > universal misunderstanding of what I said. Most people who have sent me > mail have sent me mail which interprets my argument as follows: > > people ask ``do I have free will''? > in asking such a question, one presumes that the answer is yes. > therefore, by force of will, the answer is yes. > this argument stinks. > > Well, yes, I agree that this is a lousy argument, but this is not the one > I was making. I will try to be clearer. > When I ask ``d o I have free will''? I am implicitly asserting that there > is something worthwhile about asking questions. After all, I am bothering > to do this rather than doing something else. The reason that it is good > to ask questions is that it is a way of acquiring true knowledge. But > why should true knowledge be of any use to me? Because, the more true > knowledge I have, the fewer mistakes I should make. Aha. if knowledge > is important because it enables us to make fewer mistakes, it follows then > that we *can* make mistakes. In particular, we are free to make choices, > some of which we would consider mistakes. How you got from "we *can* make mistakes" to implying "we are free to make choices, some of which we consdider mistakes" is not at all clear. We *can* make mistakes. Additional knowledge may prevent us from making mistakes by amending our knowledge base from which our decision-making process makes its decisions. But this does not imply anything about the process of choice being "free". The knowledge base, the current chemical state of the brain, results in a "resulting" decision. The desire to (or not to) increase one's knowledge base (by asking questions) would also be determined by a current chemical state. The willingness to believe and incorporate the acquired knowledge is determined similarly, as are any preonceptions and patterns which you might associate the new knowledge with. Where is the "free will", the choice, in this? > If I do not have free will then I cannot ``make a mistake'' -- every thing > that I do is outside of the realm of personal choice and therefore is > inevitable. It may be inevitable that certain people speculate on > whether or not they have free will, of course, but the hard part is > explaining the great bulk of evidence that seems to indicate that it is > a good thing to learn since we can avoid making mistakes that way. All you've shown is that the word "mistake" may be a poor word. Remember that it is JUST a word, which is a human label placed on a thing or idea. If by mistake you mean "an error in judgment resulting in negative consequences", what caused that error in judgment, if not the current state of your knowledge base? Any judgment you make will be the result of a chemical process based on that state, and thus so will any action you take. If you're trying to say that because we use the word "mistake", we are implying "a bad choice that we made", and thus we must have free will, then I hope I've shown that that's erroneous. If that's not what you're saying, I don't understand what you mean. -- Meet the new wave, same as the old wave... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (04/09/85)
> I think that Tony Wuersch is talking about *freedom*, not *free will*. > If you point a gun to my head you have considerably diminished my freedom, > but I don't think that you have diminished my free will. > ... > When I ask ``do I have free will''? I am implicitly asserting that there > is something worthwhile about asking questions. After all, I am bothering > to do this rather than doing something else. The reason that it is good > to ask questions is that it is a way of acquiring true knowledge. But > why should true knowledge be of any use to me? Because, the more true > knowledge I have, the fewer mistakes I should make. > ... > If I do not have free will then I cannot ``make a mistake'' -- every thing > that I do is outside of the realm of personal choice and therefore is > inevitable. > > Laura Creighton > utzoo!laura Laura's definition of 'free will' seems to be a lagged form of mine. I think free will is the ability at a given moment to exert control over one's world. Laura thinks free will is the ability at a given moment to learn in order that at a later moment one can exert control over one's world (that is, 'not make mistakes'). I would infer from this that if at a later time I am restrained from making a mistake (say by imprisonment or some similar tragedy), then at the earlier time when I was "learning", I then didn't have free will. So at any moment I can never know if I have free will because I can't know if in the future I can use what I've learned. As far as freedom goes, I define freedom in a more-or-less Confucian or Aristotelian way: freedom is the ability to carry out one's duties, responsibilities and obligations to oneself and others without the interference of petty tyrants. I see free will as necessary to bring about freedom, and to defend against tyrants (personal and political). But I don't see free will as the essence of freedom. The essence of freedom is a moral order to which one can aspire. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw --------------------------------------------------------------------------- wakeup ... getup ... wakeup ... When I woke up this morning and got out of bed I had some really fresh thoughts going through my head They were the thoughts that came from a wonderful dream It was a vision of the world working as a team It was a dream ... wakeup ... Just a .. wakeup ... getup from "Wakeup" -- by Run-DMC
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (04/09/85)
> Tony: > > I think you've run two concepts together, namely will and capacity. Being > bound does not necessarily imply a lack of will, simply a lack of the > ability to carry out that will. > > There is a third component also: desire. > > Ed Sheppard > Bellcore I'm glad Ed brings up desire. I agree there is a distinction between will and desire, but I wouldn't bring capacity into it. Desire is what one wants to achieve via will (the world and one's instruments of control coming together), while will is what one can achieve at a given moment. Desire is the goal to which will applies itself. Perhaps Ed has a view of will as a passive learner (by passive I mean via a mode of sitting, watching, and thinking -- maybe active thinking) like Laura Creighton has. What separates desire from will in your perspective? Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There was no guns, there were no tanks, there weren't atomic bombs And to be frank -- oh boy -- there were no arms Just people, working, hand in hand There was a feeling of peace all across the land It was a dream ... wakeup ... Just a ... getup wakeup ... wakeup from "Wakeup" -- by Run-DMC
desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins) (04/13/85)
> The knowledge base, the current chemical state of the brain, > results in a "resulting" decision. The desire to (or not to) increase > one's knowledge base (by asking questions) would also be determined by a > current chemical state. The willingness to believe and incorporate the > acquired knowledge is determined similarly, as are any preonceptions and > patterns which you might associate the new knowledge with. Where is the > "free will", the choice, in this? Prove it. Do you really know how the brain works? Please publish this information, so the rest of us can have the benefit of your supreme knowledge. > Any judgment you make will be the result of a > chemical process based on that state, and thus so will any action you take. > If you're trying to say that because we use the word "mistake", we are > implying "a bad choice that we made", and thus we must have free will, > then I hope I've shown that that's erroneous. If that's not what you're > saying, I don't understand what you mean. Come on, Rich. You just don't know. Neither does Laura. It's fine to argue that "this may be the case," but unless you have proof of some kind, you can't say "Any judgment you make WILL be the result of a chemical process...." From what I can tell, there is certainly room for uncertainty in the brain (it's not as simple as a computer! :-)) and if there *were* something in this universe akin to a soul, that nobody understands, then it could well control that uncertainty. marie desjardins marie@harvard
geoff@boulder.UUCP (Geoffrey M. Clemm) (04/14/85)
In article <h-sc1.266> desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins) writes: >> The knowledge base, the current chemical state of the brain, >> results in a "resulting" decisions... [ROSEN] > >Prove it. Do you really know how the brain works? I read Rich's statement as having no intention of "proving" something one way or the other. He was responding to a question about how a specific kind of event could be analyzed without the existence of "free will". His response was a very clear (and as far as I could tell, consistent) analysis that did not involve "free will". >Please publish this information, so the rest of us can have the benefit >of your supreme knowledge. I am sure that Rich will respond to this particular comment in his own inimitable way ...
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (04/15/85)
No, Tony Wuersch and I have the same definition of freedom. What I was trying to do is present indirect evidence (that we learn) for the existence of free will. If being in jail, Tony, is not evidence for petty tyrants, then what is? The distinction I want to make is between freedom - something which is more or less continuous and very dependent in an immediate way on external agents (am I locked up, are you pointing a gun at my head, am I shipwrecked and starving) and free will -- am a free to make decisions at all? To have free will -- the ability -- does not imply that at no time in the future will my freedom be diminished or increased. Its converse is not ``less free will'' but fatalism. Around here we have been discussing the particular variety of fatalism which is often called ``materialistic determinism''. Do my present brain states cause my future brain states? Were they in turn caused by my past brain states? And, were you to duplicate both external conditions and my internal brain states at time t1, would my brain states at time t2 be necessarily identical as at t2-t1 units of time after the original ``snapshot''? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (04/18/85)
> In article <h-sc1.266> desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins) writes: > > >> The knowledge base, the current chemical state of the brain, > >> results in a "resulting" decisions... [ROSEN] > > > >Prove it. Do you really know how the brain works? > > I read Rich's statement as having no intention of "proving" something one > way or the other. He was responding to a question about how a specific kind > of event could be analyzed without the existence of "free will". His > response was a very clear (and as far as I could tell, consistent) analysis > that did not involve "free will". [GEOFFREY CLEMM] And, moreover, the conclusion was reached WITHOUT forcing in additional assumptions about the universe, the nature of which, as I've already mentioned, revolves around the way someone would LIKE the world to be, also known as... This is why I feel the above view is more rational, more consistent, and certainly less presumptive. > >Please publish this information, so the rest of us can have the benefit > >of your supreme knowledge. > > I am sure that Rich will respond to this particular comment in his own > inimitable way ... This is as inimitable as it gets. Sorry if it doesn't meet some expectations... -- "When you believe in things that you don't understand, you'll suffer. Superstition ain't the way." - Stevie Wonder ("Superstition") Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (04/19/85)
>>The knowledge base, the current chemical state of the brain, >>results in a "resulting" decision. The desire to (or not to) increase >>one's knowledge base (by asking questions) would also be determined by a >>current chemical state. The willingness to believe and incorporate the >>acquired knowledge is determined similarly, as are any preonceptions and >>patterns which you might associate the new knowledge with. Where is the >>"free will", the choice, in this? [ROSEN] > Prove it. Do you really know how the brain works? Please publish this > information, so the rest of us can have the benefit of your supreme > knowledge. [DESJARDINS] The point is that my model makes use of fewer preconceptions and assumptions than any you might be proposing. To believe otherwise is to insert your own chosen assumptions (borne of wishful thinking as to how you might LIKE the world to be) into a model UNNECESSARILY. >>Any judgment you make will be the result of a >>chemical process based on that state, and thus so will any action you take. >>If you're trying to say that because we use the word "mistake", we are >>implying "a bad choice that we made", and thus we must have free will, >>then I hope I've shown that that's erroneous. If that's not what you're >>saying, I don't understand what you mean. > Come on, Rich. You just don't know. Neither does Laura. It's fine to > argue that "this may be the case," but unless you have proof of some kind, > you can't say "Any judgment you make WILL be the result of a chemical > process...." From what I can tell, there is certainly room for uncertainty > in the brain (it's not as simple as a computer! :-)) and if there *were* > something in this universe akin to a soul, that nobody understands, then > it could well control that uncertainty. The point is that my model makes use of fewer preconceptions and assumptions than any you might be proposing. To believe otherwise is to insert your own chosen assumptions (borne of wishful thinking as to how you might LIKE the world to be) into a model UNNECESSARILY. (Sometimes you have to say the same time more than once before it's acknowledged.) -- "When you believe in things that you don't understand, you'll suffer. Superstition ain't the way." - Stevie Wonder ("Superstition") Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
egs@epsilon.UUCP (Ed Sheppard) (04/19/85)
> I'm glad Ed brings up desire. I agree there is a distinction between will > and desire, but I wouldn't bring capacity into it. Desire is what one > wants to achieve via will (the world and one's instruments of control > coming together), while will is what one can achieve at a given moment. > > Desire is the goal to which will applies itself. I think I'm going to go with Paul and Laura on this issue. Will is the rational evaluation of alternatives. Desires are the choice criteria or goal if you prefer. But one must have capacity to effect one's will or will becomes an (even indirectly) unobservable phenomenon and it wouldn't be very useful to talk about it. And I dare say, will would not have developed at all without capacity, so I guess I feel compelled (:-) to bring it into the discussion. BTW, I don't think the concept of "free" will is nearly as useful as a concept of "freer" will. One's will becomes freer as the number of alternatives one can consider increases (i.e. the more one learns) and perhaps the more subtle one's choice criteria become. Ed Sheppard Bellcore