From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Reply to Steve Adams (LONG!)
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:30:39 GMT
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <adams.715463094@spssig>, adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
> 
>>In article <sam.715438559@spssig>, adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>>>In article <adams.715353838@spssig>, adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>>
>>So, yesy, radical sudden change is possible, but again, it is 
>>according to what seems best to us, and that is outside our control.
> 
> Let me turn the tables.  Is there anything I do which is not determined by
> my environemnt and conditioning?  If not, then you've come to that thing
> which you have said you have rejected : determinism.  For if my reaction
> can always be predicted based upon the premised that I must act in the
> 'best' way, and you can determine this 'best' through some formulaic
> construction then alas, there is never a choice, simply determinism.

I know this is tricky, but here's hint number one. Don't think of what I'm
saying about free will etc. as a doctrine. Think of it as a set of
observations. I'm asking you to look at yourself and see if these 
observations are true re: Steve Adams. Don't evaluate it as a rational
doctrine, because if you do, you'll say, oh you're just a determinist.
I'm not advocating a scientific determinism, as I said, a determinism
based on the idea that natural law determines our actions. 

I don't know WHY we act the way we do. That is impossible to know. However,
we CAN toss away our doctrines for a little while and look at ouselves and
see what we see.

In other words - if I sit in my study and rationally figure out why we
have no free choice and then declare this to be a universal truth, I am
a determinist. 

If I sit in my study and watch how I make choices and then say "By Gee and
Jay, this notion of free will is a myth! That's not how it works at all!"
Than I am not an "-ist" of any kind, I am just somebody watching the
workings of their own mind and challenging others to do the same. Maybe
your mind is different...I don't know...
 
> I think you have gone a bit to far in your application of environment and
> conditioning.  If you admit that radical change is possible, isn't it the
> case that radical decisions are possilbe?  Things that lie outside our
> conditioned set of responses?

Is it possible to choose something of which you have no conception?
In other words, in making a choice, you can only choose among the
possibilities of which you are aware. It was impossible for me to choose
to become a Zoroastrian at age 8, because I didn't even know that 
Zoroastrianism existed.

So --- we can only choose among the things which appear to us inwardly,
and the decision occurs as a movement towards whichever of these things
appears best to us.   

Can we choose outside of our conditioned responses, in the sense of 
rebelling against our social training, or our habits, etc? Of course,
obviously people do it all the time. How is this possible? Because
of what I have called our "nature. " I'm being vague here, because I'm
not sure how to define it. I like tennis, he likes baseball. Why? Who 
knows?? I like Wagner, he likes Mozart. Why? Who knows?  But 
Mozart appears BETTER to him than Wagner and there's nothing he can do 
about it.  Conditioning can have a place here, but it doesn't always,
which is why I have to talk about a person's "nature" instead of
conditioning alone. 

Other example of "nature:"   sexual attraction, hunger (it definitely
feels better to eat when hungry than not to!) etc. etc...these are more
general human "nature" traits.

> 
> I sense a bit of Plato/Socrates here.  If I know the good I will do the
> good.  But not necesarily, for one man's good is another man's evil.  It's
> that definition thing.

This is another issue, I think. These guys felt that if you cleared your
head sufficiently of nonsense, good would be the same for everyone.
A very complex issue!  But I think I dealt with the definition thing
last time.  What counts as far as "choice" goes is what APPEARS BEST TO
ME.  The same for you, the same for Jeff Dahmer, Hitler, Gandhi, etc.

For some people, it seems better to ignore conventional morality and
do what they want. For some, it seems better to pursue their own
interests and try to feel like they're moral at the same time, and on,
and on and on...

>>That is what we call "making a free choice," yes. Now, what I want to do
>>is look a little closer at this process. If I'm trying to decide between
>>my personal morality (for example) and societal morality, what actually
>>happens is this: the two possibilities churn around in my brain, 
>>projected results of both decisions are examined, and after a while,
>>ONE of these possibilities starts to look BETTER than the other, in some
>>undefinable way.  We ALWAYS go with what seems best to us - we have no
>>choice, you might say.
> 
> So, what you are saying here, is that after evaluating all of the
> ramifications of a choice, we make a choice that is not 100% best (ie, a
> different choice would have been personally better for us) we have still
> made the 'best' choice?  How about this: pick between Bush and Clinton and
> tell me there is a best choice. ;-)  Shot to death or stabbed? ;-)

Actually what I said is that we go with what APPEARS best at the time. 
It may appear better to sacrifice one aspect of our interest (perhaps our
desire to live) in favour of another ( our desire to have our children live.)
See what I mean? Don't think of "best" in terms of some kind of absolute
measure. Look at how you make decisions and see how it goes. "Best" just
means "higher quality." For the person involveld.

>>I chose <smirk> it because it seemed likely to me that I would be right is 
>>assuming that you would be incapable of abusing a child so viciously. Note-
>>I said INCAPABLE, and I meant it.  
> 
> Of course, I could do it simply to "prove a point", too.  

Which of course would mean that it appeared better to you to prove your
point about free will than to not beat the child. You would have no
choice but to demonstrate how free you are! *laugh*

> NOTE TO THE NET.POLICE: this is a hypotheitcal discussion, and given my own
> set of morals I would never, ever do such a thing.

Is there such thing as the net.police?
 
>>I believe you. I would just word the matter differently. In some circumstances,
>>it seems better to some people to change their personal morality than to stay
>>with the old one.  This is not something they have any control over. It's
>>still "nature" and environmental conditioning at work. 
> 
> So, you are insisting that nothing I do is of my own true freedom, but is
> 100% condidtioned by environment and past events.  Voila.  Determinism.
> Hmm.  I know some Calvinists who would love you!

1. I am not "insisting" anything...rather I'm just saying some things in 
case you want to use them to understand your self better. If you just
look at what I'm saying as a doctrine, you can easily dismiss it and
say, well, you believe that, and I'll believe Y. It's never been solved.
I'm saying: look at your self and see. I'm not trying to explain the
ultimate source of our actions - I just use the word "nature" to cover
my own total ignorance of why things do what they do.  BUT, if you
watch how you make decisions, you will see that they occur spontaneously,
outside of the conscious realm. If they didn't, you'd have to decide
to make a decision, and decide to make THAT one before you could make the
first one, ad infinitum...   Spontaneity means - it just happens.
Decisions "just happen."  We go one way, or the other. Strictly speaking,
this is all we can say. "Free will" is ultimately not so much false as it
is meaningless....

2. I never said everything was 100% conditioned by past events! I said
our conditioning, and our "nature" were the factors at work in the 
spontaneous event of the decision. So a Calvinist would not like me, 
because I would say that it is impossible to know WHY things are the
way they are. I would say we can only ever observe, we can never conclude.
The Calvinist, of course, would write off as being predestined for the
fiery pit at that point....

>>I admit that I am puzzled by your unhesitating embrace of the Bible.
> 
> It stems from the basic building blocks I began with, being raised Roman 
> Catholic, and is one of the things I have not discarded.  Nor am I prepared
> to do that.  Yet.

Would it be impolite to ask why?

>>> Well, I have to admit that I do have a problem with this.  It is exactly
>>> this that I struggle with.  But I am not prepared to discard the Bible. 
> 
>>Fair enough. That might be the next thing you want to explain. 
> 
> It is very, very difficult to discard a foundation on which so much is
> built.  Granted, I've changed the structure of the building radically, and
> remodelled it.  But I'm not prepared to completely raze the building and
> dig up the foundation.

Could you explain why this would be so difficult? If you don't want to talk
about it that's ok.
 
>>Either that, or re-evaluate your faith in St. Paul. "St. Paulianity..."
>
> 'Paulist' is the usual epithet...I honestly came very close to rejecting
> the whole of Pauline writing, but I did not.

Considering the stuff we've talked about, could you explain why? 
 
>>Right now, it looks to me that you're tied in knots by a theology that
>>has 2,000 years of tradition behind it, but is nevertheless the work
>>of one man, for the most part. 
> 
> The 'orthodox' answer to that is, of course, that Paul was divinely
> inspired.

I've always wondered why they are so committed to that position. 
The obvious (but not necessarily right) answer is that if Paul wasn't
inspired, then 2,000 years of Pauline Christianity is a big...mistake? <gulp>
Hard to swallow, that one!

>>I don't like Iranaeus because he was so virulently Catholic/apostolic.
> 
> Everyone has thei problems!  That doesn't mean we should completely disregard 
> what he had to say.  After all, he rejected free will and the fall! You ought
> to love him for that!

Hmmm....he was a literalist, though. I am suspicious of literalists of any
persuasion. Reasons are complex...
 
> [my comments on taking Paul with the rest of the Bible deleted]
>>This, I don't understand. If basic assumptions lead to chaos and contradiction,
>>then it seems possible that one or more of those assumptions need examining.
>>Comment?
>
> See above about tearing up the foundation....there are more complex issues
> to this too, than just my own personal beliefs.  Mostly based on issues
> within my family, etc.  That too, makes it difficult to do.

Right. We don't live in a vacuum, and after all, there are other considerations
in life besides the intellectual.

>>>  Not specifically you.  In other words, if we can conceive an idea that has
>>> real possibilites, someone will do it.  Bungee Jumping and Skydiving seem
>>> to prove the point...;-)
> 
>>This is experimentally true, I agree. But when we throw an omnipotent God
>>into the equation, it messes it up. He can create people who can 
>>conceive possiblities, but who have no desire to actualize them. If he
>>can create one, he can create 5, 10, 100 billion.
> 
> But I think this goes back to my comments about evil actually existing.

Yes...you insist that if evil is possible, it must be actual, or it wasn't
really possible. This strikes me as a bit weird. Personally, it
seems pretty obvious to me that something can be possible without ever
actually occuring.  

>>> Cruel?  To destroy a clay figurine that I constructed?
> 
>>Not in the case of the figurine, but I assume you intend this analogy to
>>apply to beings with lives of their own, with what you might call "souls."
>>If you do, then I have to agree with my above comments. I can't believe you
>>are saying this out of personal feeling. I'm sure you are just
>>rationally following out the implications of somebody else's doctrine.
> 
> You have a point about following the doctrine to its logical conclusion.
> And yes, I did mean it the way you took it...and I have a tough time
> supporting my own *$&#&$( conclusion.  Wonderful.

It was thinking about things like this that led me to the startling
conclusion (possibly misguided, of course) that Paul was not only an 
ordinary man, but an extreme rationalist of a horrifying kind. That's just
me though. Everyone else in the world seems to think that just because
Paul spouts "love! love!" non-stop he was a sensitive person. We forget
what a ruthless bugger he was before he got religion. 

Most importantly, we forget that thinking about, talking about, preaching
about, reasoning about love is not the same as actually having some kind
of feeling for things and people...ack...I'm getting sentimental...

>>> We may not think so...just ask Job.
> 
>>Right. I think we've covered this above. You've said that you really have no
>>idea about this matter, and that you lean towards a rejection of this doctrine 
>>anyway. Still - when you think about it, it's bloody nasty, isn't it? 
> 
> Yep.  It sure looks that way from my perspective.  Which is of course why I
> immediately retreat to using God's perspective, though I have no real clue
> as to what that is.
> 
> Intellectual honesty sucks.

It always does at first, that's for sure. But - humans have always felt that
the closer they got to truth, the closer they would get to happiness.
I am not convinced that this is entirely misguided...:)

Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:15192 alt.atheism:16159