From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Subject: Re: Free will
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 17:11:18 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.125508.10715@pellns.alleg.edu> frisinv@pell50.alleg.edu(Vincent Frisina) writes:
>From: frisinv@pell50.alleg.edu(Vincent Frisina)
>Subject: Re: Free will
>Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 12:55:08 GMT

>In article <1992Jul22.075422.27506@a.cs.okstate.edu>  
>onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR) writes:
>> From article <1992Jul20.051558.14985@news.eng.convex.com>, by  
>cash@convex.com (Peter Cash):
>> > In article <1992Jul19.014518.13885@pellns.alleg.edu>  
>frisinv@pell50.alleg.edu (Vincent Frisina) writes:
>> > 
>> >>  I also don't see the conflict between physics and free will. Physics  
>> >>does not deal with any living or self-ordering system which is the  
>only  
>> >>thing that can have a free will.
>> > 
>> > Yes, I share your puzzlement. I simply don't understand how people can
>> > discuss "free will" in this thread without ever telling anyone what it  
>is,
>> > and I have no idea whatever what physics has to do with this "free  
>will".
>> 
>>   I made a reply to Frisina's comment above, but I am not sure if it
>> made it out there.  In sum, the connection between physics and 
>> life-ordering systems is made quite strongly in several fields of
>> biology.  One will note that even the beginning biology text includes
>> a discussion of physics.

>   I still disagree that there is a conflict. The kind of demterminism you  
>need to destroy free will doesn't exist at all on the microscopic level or  
>in a macroscopic living system. Use whatever laws of physics or biology  
>you wish; you will havbe no idea what I will do next. You could apply  
>psychology, sociology, or any other socxial science but they arfe far from  
>deterministic. 
>    The physics in a biology text offers no determinism either. It  
>predicts nothing about the organism's action. Physics is still at peace  
>with free will.
>---
>Vince
'Physics is still at peace with free will'. Yeah right. Physics is only 
one source for the theory of total determinism; the issue is entirely a 
philosophical one about the conflict between materialists and idealists (
some idealists, since Blandshard is a determinist) or better, materialists 
and mentalist (read dualists in the cartesian sense). If you're a 
materialist you think there is nothing but atoms and the void, and at that 
level, few deny that it's all deterministic. Choice, free will, agency, 
these are mentalist terms that have their logical space in the discourse 
about human life, not physics. The two realms of discourse are, for 
mentalists (free willists) at least, wholly incomensurate and disparate. To 
think that physics-talk poses no logical conflict with talk about human 
fact is simply not to have thought carefully about the character of the two 
realms of discourse. 

Note: I will accept no replies to this statements. 
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