ROGER FINALLY UNDERSTANDS STRUAN
STRUAN:
Roger. I think you will find that the author (Gary Watson) of the article you
have read was saying
how intractable the problem of proving a philosophically clear 'free will'
which entails moral
responsibility and what he calls autonomy. It is intractable because the free
will it attempts to
prove is a chimera.
ROG:
I am very impressed with your ability to find my reference with such sketchy
sourcing. BRAVO! But the 'chimera' interpretation is all of your own. Mr
Watson goes on to say...."But in view of the manifold complexity of this
topic, pessimism would be somewhat hasty. All that can be said is that it is
too soon to say."
STRUAN:
I sketched out my view of free will in my initial posting on the subject and
showed how, contrary to your claim, autonomy is perfectly possible under the
definition that, "free
will lies in the fact that we cannot predict what we are going to do.
ROGER:
I have been unable to grasp your argument to prove free will until now. All
along, I thought you were trying to really prove it. Instead, you have been
dismissing it as an illusion caused by unpredictability. Now I see. And to
think some have accepted your argument.
STRUAN:
An analogy: A computer is set up to solve an equation. An electronics
engineer would consider this
to be a physical system set up according to determinate laws, therefore its
behaviour is determined
purely by physical causes. The user, on the other hand, would consider that
what matters is that the
computer's behaviour is completely determined by the problem it is solving.
There is no conflict
here as the equation is not something outside the computer but embodied
within it in such a way that
the computer's behaviour is determined both by the physical forces and by the
equation. The solving
of the equation is the significance of the physical activity and so the two
answers to the question,
'What determines behaviour?' are not rivals but complementary. (A and not A!)
ROGER:
Your argument supports causation well, but certainly has nothing to do with
free will. But that is what you intended isn't it?
STRUAN:
Transport this analogy to humans and the significance is clear. A
deterministic explanation showing
how physical forces determine behaviour would rule out 'free will' only if
choices and thought were
external to the physical system. If our thinking and decision making
processes are embodied in the
workings of the brain then there is no contradiction in claiming that our
behaviour is determined by
our thinking and choosing, even if our brain mechanism is wholly physically
determinate.
ROGER:
Now I see why the term in question is in parentheses.
STRUAN:
I still have a perfectly satisfactory answer which is accepted by most
scientists and non-theologian
philosophers working in the field and I see no need for your moq solution -
of which, incidentally,
I still can't make head nor tail.
ROGER:
Well at least I am in good company, as nothing in the MOQ seems of any value
to you. I would worry if my one little argument stood out as especially
brilliant.
STRUAN:
You seem to have a self which is identifying with other selves in
some schizophrenic frenzy of action. What is this self which chooses between
identifying with the
biological self and the inorganic self? And how can this self affect the
value patterns to make one
victorious? Or does it just go with the flow? This seems unfeasibly confused
and terribly convoluted
to me and I can't see its relation to free will at all.
ROGER:
Well at least I must applaud your honest attempt to succinctly summarize my
argument. That pretty much is what I was trying to do, you know, use the
basic unfeasibly-confused-and-terribly-convoluted-schizophrenic-self free
will attack initially popularized by .....Hobbes wasn't it?
STRUAN:
I'm afraid that I can't even begin to think in those terms any more. They
seem so obscure and
confused. Just in the first line of your explanation you wrote, "In SOM, the
self is some fixed,
objective entity." Again. If that is SOM then most empiricists do not
subscribe to it. Take Hume for
example, 'the self is nothing more than a bundle of perceptions which change
from one instant to the
next.' It seems to me that every time somebody throws SOM into the
conversation, they do it solely
to obfuscate precisely who and what they are talking about. Am I to take it
that Hume is not part of
this SOM conspiracy, or will he be dragged back in for the next conversation?
It is like God.
Impossible to disprove because it shifts around with every argument to suit
the arguer. Disprove one
use of the term (as I just have if the main strand of empiricism is to remain
SOM) and remarkably a
new use will emerge phoenix like from the ashes just in time to re-establish
itself as the 'worthy
adversary.' Can you blame me for concluding that it doesn't exist?
ROGER:
I would, but as you don't believe in free will would it matter? I am not
suggesting the pattern of self doesn't change, just that it is a constant
pattern. I know you see the difference here.
Hasta la vista,
Rog
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