From: adams@spss.com (Steve Adams)
Subject:  Foundations... (Was Re: Reply to Steve Adams (LONG!))
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:58:18 GMT


I'm going to shorten this up a bit...we're at an impass on the basic topic,
I think, at least at this point.  (Mostly due to my refusal to use a couple
of tons of dynamite on a particular foundation, but that's besides the point).

hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:

>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:
>>>>

>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 guess this entire thing revolves around a point of view.  Perhaps I am
kidding myself that I really do have a free will.  And that said free will
is simply a convenient fiction I use to insist that I have real control
over my life.  Perhaps not.  

We're talking across frames of reference here, and I think that's the crux
of the debate.  Unless we can define a common frame of reference, and
discuss the issues from that common frame, we won't ever agree on this
issue. (Not to say that we would agree even with a common frame of
reference).

Observationally, your ideas might just be correct, but I think that is just
perception.  In other words, there are intangible proceses that you can't
see that drive what you observe.  Sort of like Ptolomaic ideas about the
planets. I'm NOT trying to say that your explanation doesn't fit the
observed evidence, jut that I conclude differently.

>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.   

This concept goes to my point about actual, logical possibilities.  It
wasn't that you didn't have a choice, but that there was not actual,
logical possiblity that you would do the thing you are speaking of.  That
means that no choice was possible.

>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.
Actually, I'd say more instinctual than anything...

>>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.
Exactly.  The cave analogy used in the Republic hits this right on the
head.  We are completely guided by our views (frames of reference above)
and unless and until we break free from them, we can't judege reality.
[Damn!  Did I just say that?  Oops. ;-)]

>>>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*

OK. I laughed here too.  But I get extra credit for a prediction to myself
that you would respond in almost those EXACT words!  Deterministic!!! ;-)

>> 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?

Sorry, I forgot you're new around here.  Nah, they don't really exist.
There are the normal collection of consiracy theorists on the net who claim
that the (chose one or more from the following list) NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, 
Stasi, Vatican, Moral Majority, SAPO, ZOPO, etc. etc. monitor these lists...
It was a joke, son! ;-)

>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....
I understand your point...refer to the frames of reference stuff above.

>>>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?

>> 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.

Well, to answer the two questions, you may certainly ask.  As to the first,
I'm not a Roman Catholic at this point.  I don't know where I stand, in
reality.  I'm attending a Lutheran (ELCA) Church for the moment, but will
most likely be leaving that church in the near future (various complex
reasons, some theological, some not).  Where to next?  Back to church
shopping again...that's how I ended up a Lutheran. ;-)

As for the reason I'm not ready to dynamite the foundation?  Think about it
for a minute.  Analyze the natural human reaction to this concept!  If one
has constructed a belief system that one lives on life by on a certain set
of principles, and then rejects that set of principles, everything more or
less has to go.  And you are left more or less adrift.

Having never been a very religious person, and not really looking at any
of this stuff in detail until early thisy year, it was very easy to continue
the basic default assumptions that I had built my life around and construct
a new structure on that foundation.  That's right...most of my theology has
been constructed since I really began looking at this stuff since February.
Granted, it's built upon lots of stuff I picked up over the years, but it
is very new.

Talking about stuff like this is difficult.  But there is no chance that
I'll be satsified until I work it out.  I've more or less refrained from
making a claim to 'faith' in this entire thread, but that is, alas, where I
fall in the end.  And I don't want to rely on that claim to 'solve' (read
ignore) obvious contradictions and illogic.

So, just how easy would it be for you to dump this kind of basic
foundation?  See what I mean?

>>>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? 

Yeah, as I had said, there is other stuff than just clear logic and
intellectualism.  The family issue is important here, for discarding this
particular foundation would likely lead to results that I don't even want
to contemplate, based on a set of comman basic beliefs.  Some things aren't
worth discarding, even when they don't make complete sense.

Kind of round about and vague...does that get the point across clearly
enough?

>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!

No kidding.

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

>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.  

But if it never occurs, was it really possible? ;-)  Look at yourself and
your own example of beating a child! ;-)

>>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. 
I constantly remind people of this...he was an SOB.

>> 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...:)

Neither am I, man, neither am I.

 -Steve
--
 The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
                        -------------------
     adams@spss.com                           Phone: (312) 329-3522
     Steve Adams                              Fax:   (312) 329-3558
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism