From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: DETERMINISM 1: `Refutation' the first
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 16:53:56 GMT

In article <spurrett.30.721248046@superbowl.und.ac.za> spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za (David Spurrett) writes:

>  That point made, for now, in what way was my argument transcendetal?  The 
>initial datum from which I attempted to reason was the experience of 
>choosing, and the distinction we (as far as I can tell universally) 
>acknowledge between `do-ers' and `do-ees', particularly as manifest in 
>legal systems and procedures.  The analysis which followed attempted to show 
>that belief in this distinction involves disbelief in determinism with 
>respect to do-ers.  If the analysis is correct (and it has not been 
>criticised in this thread yet) then the only avenue for attack is the 
>interpretation of the datum.

I have criticized it, by implication at least.  First of all, it is
entirely non-obvious to me that we experience our choices as uncaused,
except when they are arbitrary, and I think that the ability to make
arbitrary choices, while very important, is not our noblest attribute.
I think that the distinction between do-ers and other things is that
doers have internal models of the world and goals which they act to
achieve based on these models; such doers are not _prima facie_
impossible under determinism.  Another important factor is that we do
not understand our own workings or those of other doers; the only way
we have to affect their behaviour is physical restraint and/or trying
to adjust their behaviour by punishment/reward (trying to affect their
internal behaviour by appealing to their perceived goals).  I think
that this unpredicatability of our own behaviour and that of our peers
from our standpoint may actually be _necessary_, but for reasons which
do not conflict with determinism.

[...]

>
>  With the DoDoDi it is different.  When I am feeling offensively 
>mechanistic I can just about manage to think of almost everybody (including 
>family members) as being do-ees.  Almost everyone, that is, except for 
>myself.  With myself it is, as far as I can tell, a _theoretical_ 
>impossibilty in the same way as doubting `I exist' was for Descartes.  I 
>cannot entertain the negation of the DoDoDi without also having to think of 
>the attendant impossibility of the conscious agency which enables me to 
>think of the possibility at all.
>
>  The question, therefore, is:  `Is there some argument capable of 
>dispensing with the DoDoDi without also rendering the conscious agency which 
>I feel myself to have impossible?'  [Or which gives me some _convincing_ 
>redescription of it which enables me to understand myself in another way.]

You simply don't understand the full capabilities of machines!  I can
think of myself as determined, certainly (which is not the same thing
as saying that something outside me determines my behaviour!).
Certainly I am an agent; my internal state causes all kinds of things
to happen in the world.

The do-er/do-ee distinction is _relative_; you do not think of
yourself or your peers as do-ees (mechanisms) because you do not
understand how they work (in the sense that you cannot mechanically
predict their behaviour).  I think this lack of understanding on your
part may be necessary (it may be impossible for you to obtain such
knowledge, in some sense), but for reasons which do not depend on a
failure of determinism.  But a being with more knowledge might regard
you as a mechanism, and in the absolute sense you may actually be a
mechanism.


I disclaim any belief in literal determinism; QM is not a
deterministic theory, and seems to be true, but my sense of "free
will" does not depend on an independence from physical law in any
case.


>
>o------------------------------------------o------------------------------o
>| David Spurrett, department of Philosophy |  `I have seen the truth, and |
>| University of Natal, Durban              |   it makes no sense.'        |
>| email: spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za      |              - OFFICIAL!     |
>o------------------------------------------o------------------------------o


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech