From: vadim@bolvan.ph.utexas.edu (Vadim S. Kaplunovsky)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Economic Discrimination was Outgrowing Libertarianism...
Date: 7 Oct 92 00:42:24 GMT
Followup-To: sci.econ
Distribution: usa

In article <1992Sep28.160807.23761@kadsma.kodak.com>,
pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek) flames out:
> In article <Bv6KvK.6B@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K.  
Yoder) writes:
> > .....
> >That sounds like so much marxist/Skinnerian abti-free will claptrap.  I have  
the
> >beliefs I do because I can think and I have looked at the facts and I have
> >drawn certain conclusions.  I am not a helpless victim of historical
> >conditioning.
> 
> The arrogance of this statement is so extreme that further discussion
> is pointless. Have a nice day.

I think it's the Don's mindless flame that is too arrogant.  I can see
two possible ways of interpreting what he is trying to say, but both made
any future discussions with Don rather pointless.

The first possibility is that Don asserts that Brian is too stupid or too
ignorant to think for himself and thus is a helpless victim of conditioning.
Having followed this discussion for a while, I see no basis for this
assertion.  Unless Don can back it up with some real evidence of Brian's
allaged stupidity, I'm forced to conclude that Don is simply being rude.
Since this rudeness comes instead of a real answer to what Brian said
(rather than a part of the answer),  talking to Don seem to be a pointless
exercise in masochism.

The other interpretation is that Don believes that NOBODY can think for
oneself, look at the facts and draw conclusions and thus WE ALL are helpless
victims of historical conditioning.  This interpretation needs further
clarification: Does Don include himself among the helpless victims or not?
If yes, i.e., Don believes himself being uncapable or reasoning, then
why should anybody else listen to him?  If no, then Don is arrogant to such
an incredible degree that listening to him is positively unhealthy.

**************************************************************

Now, to the actual point of discussion.  I'm not a philosopher (and this
is not talk.philosophy either), so I wouldn't even pretend to know whether
there is such a thing as the free will in the abstract theoretical sense.
Operationally, if you cannot predict the behavior of some complicated
system, be it a human, an animal or a computer, you can just as well ascribe
it the freedom of will.  Human behavior is rarely predictable by other
humans (that is, not accurately predictable, there is a plenty of wrong
predictions in the social sciences literature), so the best we can do is
is to accept each other's free will, at least on the operational and
phenomenological levels.   Of course, only a fool can deny that human behavior
can be influenced or sometimes even conditioned by other humans, but to
assume that such influence/conditioning operationally *determines* the behavior
is even more foolish.

**************************************************************************
Vadim S. Kaplunovsky               | vadim@bolvan.ph.utexas.edu (internet)
Assistant Professor of Physics,    | VADIM AT UTAPHY (bitnet)
University of Texas at Austin.     | UTSPAN::UTAPHY::VADIM (SPAN/HEPnet Decnet)
Newsgroups: sci.econ