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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Causality and the Is (NOT God)
Message-ID: <165@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Aug-83 14:45:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.165
Posted: Wed Aug 24 14:45:51 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Aug-83 04:08:23 EDT
References: <963@ittvax.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Piscataway
Lines: 51

[In this article I am referring to points made by ittvax!vex in article
ittvax.963.  Since it would be very difficult to excerpt from this
source article (as I am making points about things said all over the original
article), I ask that you either bear with me or re-read the original article.
I hope that the way I have made my points will make referencing the original
article unnecessary.]

First, let's clarify some terms.  Often when people talk about intelligent
beings choosing to do things outside of the realm of physical causality, they
are jumped on by people who say "What proof do you have that there is a soul?"
They respond:  "Who said anything about a soul?"  I will use the term "external
agent" to describe that which causes intelligent beings to make decision and
do things without natural physical cause.  This term is probably an exact
equivalent functional definition of "soul", without the religious/afterlife
connotations.

More terms:  determinism and free will.  Free will advocates declare that the
actions that intelligent beings take are not /predictable/ by using physical
laws, that there are true choices to be made (by an "external agent"?  if not,
by what?).  Determinists claim that ALL actions and decisions are the result
of physical and chemical processes and thus all of history has already been
written (in effect).  Freewillers, having read articles on quantum mechanics
in People magazine and Jerry Falwell newsletters (slight humorous exaggeration)
say that the unpredictability at the subatomic, "fundamental" particle level
/proves/ that, since the universe is not "pre-determined", there is free will.
There IS a middle ground that is probably more believable.  The course of the
events in the universe cannot be predicted, but this does not mean that the
"choices" that we make are ordered by 'free will' (they are just as much rooted
in physical/chemcal laws as a ball falling from the top of a building).

Now, to ittvax!wex:

You separate "desires" from "causality". Why?  Why aren't desires based on what
chemicals exist in what proportion at whatever places in our brains/bodies at
a given time?  Remember that desire without cause implies an external agent,
and you have refuted the notion of a soul.

The notion of instinctive needs or primal instincts can be thought of as a
native operating system in the "ROM" of an organism.  This is a perfectly
reasonable explanation of what goes on at the instinct level in humans and
other animals.  No one claims to understand the fundamental inner workings of
biochemistry.  But it is reasonable to believe that it DOES WORK to perform
the functions that you attribute to "beings with enough intelligence to 
esape the chain of causality".  Just because we don't understand the
fundamental processes behind something doesn't mean that its roots lie in
something mystical (sorry, Laura).  True, we cannot predict either earthquakes
or human behavior.  That is not to say that we cannot eventually do so, once
we fully understand the inner workings.  Of course, the nature of particle
physics theory may preclude our predicting /everything/ in the universe...

Thank you for your time.  Comments are welcome.		Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr