rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) (04/11/85)
> The false association of > free will with "ghost in the machine" stems from our religious tradition > and is supported by overzealous "debunkers" like Rosen. (If Rosen > can tie down the concept of agency with the metaphysical baggage of > "ghosts in machines", he can kill two birds with one stone -- never > mind the fact that the tie is illegitimate.) [PAUL TOREK] Let's pretend there's a word, "fressbotzin", which means "a bird of blue plumage that is born wearing shoes". If you find a bird that you would like to classify under this (perhaps mythological) name, it MUST adhere to the defined characteristics. IF it does not, you are WRONG in labelling it a "fressbotzin", no matter how much you want to do so. The association you describe above is "tied down" to the implications of the very definitions of the word. Long ago, I stated that I agreed with you about your notions of rational evaluative analysis, but that I felt you were erroneously using the label "free will" to describe them. I also asked whether your distinction between organisms having what you call free will and those that don't have it was the notion of utilizing stored knowledge constructs in the course of the determination of its subsequent actions. You haven't yet responded to either point. Here, I am very close to agreement with you on much of what you say (actual terminology notwithstanding), yet you insist on ignoring that in favor of making remarks akin to Laura's childish "Beware the dictionary wielder!" If you never saw the articles in which I made those points, then ask for a copy and I'll send one. But let's get off this childish "I showed Rosen up" nonsense. > It often helps to have a label for the things that annoy us. I > remember the satisfaction I felt, when a friend of mine used a label > for an experience that probably all we singles have gone through -- > being on the receiving end of a -- get this -- "friendship speech". > Fallacies (in the vulgar sense) are particularly appropriate things > to give labels to. If we can recognize an argument as a particular > type of fallacy, we can see the flaw in it clearly and easily. Those > who are likely to read this article will be quite familiar with one > fallacy's label: "wishful thinking". It is a favorite label of a certain > Professor Wagstaff. I suggest that there is a mirror image fallacy > which also deserves a label. I hereby dub it "fearful thinking". > "Fearful thinking" is a misnomer, but it allows for a certain rhetorical > flair. If all it does is offer you a "certain rhetorical flair", then why bother using it, unless ... > Wishful thinking is believing something because one wishes that > it were true, but fearful thinking is not believing something because > one fears its truth. [Def.:] It is (as exemplified beautifully by Rich > Rosen) AN OVERREACTION TO WISHFUL THINKING, a knee-jerk opposition to > all claims accepted by wishful thinkers, as if the fact that something > is believed on fallacious (wishful) grounds proved that it were false. A common argument of those who don't have evidence to support their claims is "You're just afraid that what I'm saying is true, and you don't want to admit it. What if there is XXXXX? I know I have no proof of it, but the only reason you won't accept the possibility of my arguments as being true is because you're afraid of them!" This may work from a psychological standpoint to placate the claimers into thinking that the reasons that their arguments are being questioned has NOTHING to do with problems with those arguments, but rather with "fears" of the questioners. Given the lack of supportive evidence for many of these claims, it doesn't look like there's any reason for "fearful thinking". (A real reason for fear, in certain cases, revolves around those who would fear that wishful thinking beliefs might evolve as a controlling force in society against individual humans' rights.) What the claimers describe as "fearful thinking" is an "OVERREACTION" only from the perspective of the claimers. It would seem that belief in "fearful thinking" is itself another example of wishful thinking. > A good example is Rich's position on free will. He sees that many of > those who believe in it do so for wishful reasons, and concludes that > it doesn't exist. When shown that free will can be explicated in terms > quite different from those of the wishful thinkers -- that it can be > grounded on something (rational evaluative capabilities controlling > behavior) which requires (unlike "souls") no long leap of faith -- > he refuses to allow it. I "refuse to allow it" (yes, Paul, I'm physically restraining you from "showing" that :-?) the same way I would "refuse to allow" (i.e., complain about) your calling a particular bird a "fressbotzin" when it doesn't adhere to the definition. What is a definition but a pointer from a word utterance to a meaning? Use the word for a different meaning, and language goes bye-bye. > Instead he accepts the Dogma of the wishful > thinkers which ties free will to a "ghost in the machine", in order > to prevent free will from being rescued. After all, if the wishful > thinkers believe in free will, it MUST be illusory! The actual flow of reasoning is that the definition of free will (that humans can make decisions independent of their current physical state and surrounding environment) directly implies that the decision making process MUST be externalized from the physical world of cause and effect. You have yet to explain what the problem is with what I've just said. I give a definition as stated not only in the dictionary but in common usage (in terms of "do humans have free will?"), and I state the implications of it. All you've said in response is "No, you're wrong. THIS is free will." > Another example is Rich's rabid (eliminative) reductionism. When I showed that you use reductionism when it suits you, you say "oh, that's OK". What you don't seem to like is MY using reductionism when it shows something wrong with your precepts. > He considers any concept, not yet integrated into the hardest of hard > sciences, guilty until proven innocent. He's a fan of B.F. Skinner, > who avoids mental terms like the plague -- they're "unscientific" > (never mind that they're part of the best explanations we have in the > field of psychology). Behaviorism as a research program may be dead > or dying, but Occam worshippers will applaud its disposal of mental > entities come what may. Best explanations. Like some other "best explanations" of the world we've seen throughout the ages. Like that of the sun travelling across the sky every day and descending each evening. I suppose saying "No, that's not so, actually we are revolving around the sun and rotating about our planet's axis making our position relative to the sun ..." would make me guilty of reductionism! Obviously that better explanation is that of the sun rising and setting, because that's what we observe to happen, even though it's not what actually happens. Or is it better? From your own logic, it would seem that you would agree that it is. After all, why use explanations that describe what actually happens when you can talk in metaphors based on how some cursory observation describes an event? Neurons? Chemicals? They get in the way of notions like "religious experience". Or "free will". Or the sun "rising"... >>Didn't the water make a rational decision to go flow in the direction of the >>rest of the river? [...] What's that you say? They're NOT deciding? [...] >>In what way[s!] are the rock's processes of decision different from ours? > Many. But you're missing the point here, which is about the term "rational", > not (or not primarily) "decision". In order for some process to be rational, > it has to involve the manipulation of cognitive representations of reality > (beliefs, concepts, etc.). Rocks and rivers, lacking beliefs or anything > of the sort, lack rationality. What are beliefs but catalogues of stored information on which decisions are based? I went through this before, with no response from you. But in any case, "beliefs" is just a name we give to the information constructs in "thinking" brains (as opposed to information constructs in basic not necessarily living things---and they ARE constructs, like that of the object's weight and shape and so on, that determine its action). Are you implying that the difference is that "thinking" animals have "programmable" constructs in addition to fixed physiochemical constructs? What determines the way these constructs are "programmed"? The same things as for the fixed ones: their current chemical state and their surrounding environment. However, because of the nature of the input, larger and broader ranges of influences/experiences can effect the constructs more directly and more visibly. (e.g., put a chocolate cake next to (reasonably near) an amoeba and observe the effect; next, put a chocolate cake next to me and observe the effect---use very fast film! :-) >>>. Logical laws are rules of inference however, not >>>statements, and neither true nor false. >>Why? Because you say so? Because you take them as givens! You say that >>they are neither true nor false simply because you cannot prove that >>either way. > I say they're neither true nor false because they're not the kind of thing > that can be true or false. Rules of inference, like any rules, can not be > true or false (they can be "valid" or "invalid", though). Then prove that they are valid. And remember, saying "they preserve truth" is not enough when the terms themselves define truth. -- Meet the new wave, same as the old wave... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
wenn@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (John Wenn) (04/19/85)
There is definitely some use in the dictionary, but the English language does not always provide us with words that express things exactly as we want them to be expressed. Re the small question, people cook lobsters by boiling them alive in water. Many more people eat lobster that freshly boiled-in-oil monkey brains. Does this make lobster a more "moral" thing to eat? Free will implies rationality. Rationality implies the ability to make decisions. The ability to make decisions implies the ability to base your actions on the considerations of others. The consideration of the creature comforts of others, the decision would be to not eat the monkey. As far as humans are concerned, one is supposed to base one's actions on the considerations of others. Otherwise, society will clobber you. This is why it couldn't be a child instead of a monkey. Robin wenn@cmu-cs-k