Greetings,
Final thoughts on SOM and free will before I concede defeat.
I'm pleased to see that Denis agrees that SOM is probably wrongly described as a metaphysics. That
is, after all, the position I have always adhered to and argued for.
JC, you are still setting up a false problem. One doesn't choose to believe things, one is required
to believe them by the evidence or by one's emotional disposition. I can't choose to believe that my
computer is green, because the evidence suggests otherwise and my believing would be a sham. I can't
choose to love my wife, I just do. Therefore to set up a contradiction by claiming that we can
choose non-choice misses the point.
The man in the locked room was an analogy to show how it is possible to make choices and to believe
that those choices are free despite the fact that they may not be. It was intended to do no more
than that and it succeeded in doing precisely that. The stuff about conscious minds putting him in
the room has no bearing upon the point being made.
The will is able to prevail over all circumstance? I would love to be able to will my best friend
back to life, he died in a motorcycle accident. How I wish your assertion were true.
Your conclusion that, "MEthinks that you are confusing freedom of will, with freedom of movement.
BIG DIFFERENCE. Intellect cannot be constrained with doors or nails," again misses the point of the
'doors' analogy and also seems to introduce a sharp divide between mind and matter which I do not
accept. What is this big difference between willing oneself to move and willing oneself to work out
a mathematical problem, or to think well of somebody, for example?
Roger, Thanks for the BRAVO. It is my job to know these things - and to understand them; which I do.
I did not dismiss free will as an illusion at all. My example showed how free will is a genuine (and
empirical) phenomena which we all possess. My free will is one in which we all have the capability
to make decisions which are directly caused by a combination of our choices and desires together
with the environment around us. I think I showed fairly clearly that, as our choices and desires are
part of the overall system (no mind matter split here) they can affect the system in an infinite
number of ways. So, we have intelligent beings marching through time and to an extent determining
their own choices and being responsible for them. (To an extent because obviously, for example, one
I could not choose to jump over the moon, or to hate my wife). If that is not a definition of free
will then please do give me a better one. Your final claim that I don't believe in free will is
bizarre.
Jon, how do I explain music? I don't. I quoted Frank Zappa on this forum at least 30 months ago,
although a couple of others have misquoted it since. He said, 'Talking about music is like fishing
about architecture,' and I stick by that now. If you want to know how I explain music then come and
listen, I'm playing in Liverpool on Friday night. Good music? Of course it is 'simply an
evaluation.' What else could it be?
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@clara.co.uk>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:37 BST