From: gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart)
Subject: Re: Geneticism and free will
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 17:12:26 GMT

In article <01GPNTAYC9CI984PZQ@ccfvx3.draper.com> seb@draper.com (Steve Bacher) writes:
>Rodney Adams writes:
>--- begin quote ---
>If you are interested in pursuing this topic, you might also want to look at
>the "Personal Intelligences" chapter in Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind: The 
>Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  While Garder says little about sexual 
>orientation, he does link such things as one's sense of self, wants, reactions
>to others, and interpersonal relations to the frontal lobes of the brain, so
>you might want to follow up on the researchers he cites as studying this region,
>concentrating particularly on what things could affect the development of the
>frontal lobes.
>
>--- end quote ---
>
>Now this is interesting.  Does this suggest that all human "choices" are
>predetermined by hormonal inputs?  If so, then does this mean that we are
>not responsible for our actions because all our inclinations are set at
>or before birth?  Is there, then, no free will because all our actions
>are functions of genetic + environmental phenomena?
>
>OK, this is an age-old thread, but Gardner's musings put a new twist on it.

Yes, this is an age-old thread, but nonetheless interesting, as it has
not been "solved".  The mind and those systems affecting the mind are
the end result of a causal chain of events that have already taken
place, obviously, so the mind has no "choice" to make.  The end result
is predetermined.  However, if, as David Hume did, you define the "mind"
as the summation of wants and desires all of which are also the results
of previous causal chains, then the actions of the mind are selected by
the mind, and therefore the results of the mind's choices.

If however, the actions resulting from the mind are not a product of
the wants and desires that are already predetermined by previous states
of the mind and by the inputs to the mind from the outside world, then
those "choices" are random events, and either the mind could be considered
"insane" or "impotent" in further causal chains, since the events
produced are not the result of what we could call "choices", and therefore
the mind is irrelevant.

I guess the only bugaboo in all this is that some proponents of chaos
theory say that in any system, there is an element of randomness that
cannot be predicted.  It could be argued that this element in the human
mind is the real "choice maker" or, if we want to sound religious, the
"soul".  This is only speculation on my part, however, and is meant
only to address this alternate issue of chaos theory.

>
>Idly I wonder how a Christian approaches this.  Does this mean that sin is
>not possible since there are no "choices"?  Or does this merely confirm
>"original sin", except that it is "original" on a case-by-case basis?
>A kind of predeterminism?  Just curious, Rodney - how do YOU interpret it?
>
>- seb

Christianity teaches that humans were given freedom of choice, and then
the whole snake-apple-sin-bye-bye-to-paradise thing enters.  How is
it explained?  It isn't.  It's something to have "faith" in.  This
is why people are held accountable for sin, or at least, assumed to
have responsibility for it.

It seems the simple answers are still simple and the impossible ones
are still impossible.

GMS