From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: And over to you Sean. (a mixed bag of subjects)
Date: 12 Jan 93 14:12:21 -0400
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada


In which Steve tries to interest me in some limited free will...

In article <root.726782620@spssig>, adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
> 
>>>Could I interest
>>>you in limited free-will?  Some form of moral agency, which, although
>>>limited, allows me some choice and discretion that is not totally
>>>predicated on past experience?
>>Could you explain this a little more?
> Hmm.  Well, more or less that there are certain things that I think I
> decide to do and actually work through and come to a decision.  Not a lot,
> but a few.  One analyizes the situation and acts according to a predicted
> outcome...it is the analysis faze that seems to me to be an exercise in
> free choice...

Some discussions with Paul Harvey and Dan O'Connell have led me to 
revise my all-or-nothing position on this issue. What I am arguing
against specifically is the notion that consciousness is the source
of action. Christianity wants to equate consciousness with "soul," and
regard it as a metaphysical entity capable of generating decisions out
of nothing. However, this just ain't so. Both consciousness _and_ action
are activities of some deeper phenomenon. This is the central point. 
In the way that a program is the activity of a computer, consciousness
is an activity of the brain. Action is another activity of the brain. 
This is why we can do things without really thinking about them consciously.
In fact, I would argue that a conscious decision is just a decsion which
is mirrored in the conscious mind. 

That is, the process of decision (conflicting urges being weighed and the
strongest one prevailing) is not a conscious process, even when the process
is simultaneously being mirrored by thoughts in the conscious mind. 
This is true experientially, and I expect biologically, too. 

In other words, our thoughts during a decision process are somwhat analogous
to the screen output of a computer program. The actual work is being done
at some invisible level (which we can sort of feel, in our case), and
the visible output on the screen is nothing but a translation of this work
into a visible set of terms. 

So the free-will/determinism argument is then (it seems to me) a false
dichotomy. It assumes some kind of entity (soul, or personality) which
is either free or constrained. 

In fact, I think the Buddhist position is probably the most accurate. 
There _is_ no such entity. Or rather, there is, but it is illusory.
When we refer to our conscious minds as "really us," our "souls,"
etc., it's like a computer program calling itself a "soul." We can see
that a computer program is not some kind of metaphysical unit, but is
the activity of a complex mechanism. 

So I am saying -- there is no free will (even limited free will) because
there is no "soul" or "self" to be free or determined. Is a computer
program (which "makes decisions" apparently) free or determined?

>>It will keep you humble...help make you a better
>>Christian, maybe?  You'll be free of the most pernicious feature of
>>ideology -- the ruthlessness that comes from thinking you really know
>>what's right and wrong. Humility is nothing but the tentativeness 
>>and gentleness that comes from knowing your own limitations. 
> I have absolutely no clue, in the larger scheme of things, what is absolute
> right and wrong...and no way to find out.  I can say things about good and
> bad, but in the end, they are simply my perceptions, or a retreat into
> trancendence...

Morality becomes a very different business from this perspective, doesn't it?
You now know that not only are you ignorant as to "absolute" morality, but
that everyone else is, too, and none of us have any way of ever 
changing the situation. Hopefully you're beginning to get some sense of how
insane human beings are, running around all the time acting like we knew 
what we are doing, like we knew what was right and what was wrong. Killing
each other, hurting each other, making our own and each other's lives 
harder by judging each other based on totally unverifiable principles.
Germans gassing 6mil Jews in accordance with an idea of "right." Their
crime was not that they had a cruel ideology, but that they lacked the
humilty to recognize the limitations of their claims to possess absolute
knowledge. A mugger beating people up to pursue an ideology of hedonism,
a capitalist laying off 20,000 people in accordance with an ideology
of "free enterprise," a husband beating up his wife because he thinks
he has a "right" to be angry. It's EVERYWHERE. It is the fundamental
human crime. Pride. Hubris. We've always known it, but we just keep doing
it.

n.b. The most coherent and fascinating discussion of
morality from this perspective I've ever run across is in Albert Camus'
book-length essay, _The Rebel_. If you're interested, I'll try to 
summarize it for you...

>>You may have some struggles with intellectual integrity, 
>>as you're doing now, but obviously you feel that is a price worth
>>paying for the benefits these beliefs confer.
> :-)  Yep.  Hit that right on the head.

A friend of mine would call that a form of suicide, i.e. your own existence
seems to threaten your beliefs, so you're going to pretend you don't
exist. Kind of funny when you put it this way...:)

>>You like being an ideologue, I don't. Of all possible forms of
>>ideologue, a self-critical, sincere, good-natured Christian is 
>>probably the most benign. Who am I to criticize?
> I'm no threat, so I'm harmless?  Gee, thanx!  What a guy.

I'd rather have you around than Pat Robertson, Josef Stalin, or the Ayatollah
Khomeini....

> But I see your
> point, too.  I only wish that all 'ideologues' had the same qualities, most
> especially the set of morons we elect to govern our country.  Don't know
> if you have the same problem in the great white north...;-)

Yep. At the moment the political spectrum here looks like this:

Conservative Party: Want to sell Canada to the U.S., to make Big Business
rich, in accordance with "free market" ideology.
Liberal Party: Centrist party, paralyzed by internal contradiction between
capitalist and socialist leanings.
NDP: vaguely socialist, would run the country into the ground through
socialistic half-measures.
Reform Party: the fundies get mobilized, want to return Canada to "Christian"
values, i.e. racism, homophobia, anti-French sentiment, etc.
Bloc Quebecois: fanatical Quebec nationalists, would run country into ground
for right to oppress linguistic minorities in a free and sovereign Quebec.

Yuck.
 
>>What does J.C. mean when he says be like a little child? Does he mean
>>accept whatever you're told blindly? Children _don't_ do that. 
>>You oughta know that Steve... ("No! I don't wanna!")
> :-)  Yes...that's true.  Nothing worse than a 1 year old who's only clear
> word is 'NO'. ;-)  I had one of those.  Now it's worse: he explains in
> minute detail why not!

Heh heh! Any one who thinks about it gets suspicious about that "be like
a child" business...:)

>>Children are curious, they want to learn and understand, at least until
>>the school system gets hold of them.  In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus
>>specifies what kind of child he means: a 7-day old child! Think about
>>_that!_
> One who is unconstrained by society...not programmed...

Right...one whose mind is _empty_ of all received ideas. Fascinating, eh?
Jesus doesn't mean he wants us to be little parrots, doing trustingly
whatever we're told (as if children do that anyway),  he wants us to 
find that empty-mindedness that we had as children, before we got filled
up with other people's ideas about life. 

>>>We can never, ever figure God out...
>>
>>Well, you still think you have the Inside Info. Which is, in this case, that
>>the _heart_ of the Inside Info is incomprehensible. Just another way
>>of thinking you know the score. You don't really know if God is
>>incomprehensible or not, comrade. This, too, is vanity...:)
> Ok, Ok...I yield!  [Begin Sgt Schultz voice] I know nussing, I see nussing...

Heh heh...:)  Remember Socrates: the only advantage he claimed over his
fellow Athenians was that he was aware of his ignorance...:)

>>>>Uhhh...your original quotation then reduces to: No man comes to me but by me!
>>>>Pretty deep...:)    
>>>
>>> Yep...interesting comment from that perspective...hmm, I'll have to think
>>> about that one some more.
>>
>>You crack me up sometimes, you silly goose! :)
> 
> Hey, it's good for a laugh, isn't it?  But really, I hadn't reduced it down
> to this.  Sometimes I just don't think.  Repeating the creeds mindlessly is
> a bad idea...

And now you see why it's a bad idea, eh?  It's a form of unconsciousness!

>>> To quote a song I remember from when I was little, "for the Bible tells me 
>>> so...", and all kidding aside, that's why.  Remember, I accept the Bible as
>>> the inspired word of God, so my thoughts on Jesus are simply reflections of
>>> the Gospels and Paul, as seen through my experiences...
>>
>>Remember -- the Trinitarian doctrine you espouse is not spelled out
>>in the Bible. Strong cases have been made for various other 
>>positions...why do you accept the Council of Nicaea's (et.al) decisions
>>about which interpretation of the Bible is inspired and which isn't?
>>
>>In other words, why do you accept the Bible as the inspired word of God?
> I've been told this is the case, and my own personal experience tells me
> that it appears to be so.  I percieve it to be.

We've talked about that one before, I think. If one starts by accepting the
ideology, than the Bible can be made to look like it confirms that ideology.
Do you see the circularity of this, though?  You were fed a Biblical doctrine
as a kid, which you regarded as true. You read the Bible in the light
of that doctrine, and it appeared to confirm it. Now, you are saying that
you believe Jesus is God because the Bible says so, when in fact you
believed this _before_ you read the Bible. 

This reduces to a "why is the Bible true?" "Cause it says so right
here in the Bible"  kind of position. 

(amusing note: I've had people actually argue that position _overtly_ with me!)
 
Forgive me if this isn't overwhelmingly convincing...:) However,
you've stated why you believe what you do about Jesus. Next post, I'll
do the same.

>>And why the Trinitarian position?
> 18 years of Roman Catholic brainwashing...ask the Nicenean fathers...

Man is born free, yet everywhere he is chains...:)

>>Here's my argument against free will in a nutshell -- the dice are
>>always loaded.
> So randomness is not truly possible?  Ie, there is never a fair chance...

Hmm...well, what I was getting at is that your decisions appear to be
free (like a roll of the dice), but in fact, the decisions are always
a product of hidden forces beyond your control, like fear, love, 
survival instinct, taste, etc. (i.e. the dice are loaded). 

I think I got closer to the heart of the free will business at the start of 
this post, though.

>>Actually, what I meant was that whatever attitude a person has, for example,
>>towards the question of free will, they can have no other, the universe
>>being what it is. 
> 
> That fits what you've been saying....I'm predestined to view free-will as
> the correct answer. 

Watch it...elimination of free-will does not mean predestination. 
Ultimately, I'm trying to eliminate the whole free-will/determinism-
predestination dichotomy, by showing that it's based on a mistaken notion
of what a human being is.

> - Steve

Sean Hartigan                      Created by God to torment Steve Adams!
hartigan@ac.dal.ca                       "What is truth?" - P. Pilate