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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: B.F. Skinner (and dead Greeks)
Message-ID: <4043@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Jul-84 02:42:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4043
Posted: Sun Jul  8 02:42:26 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Jul-84 02:42:26 EDT
References: flairvax.600, <2857@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 44

The best argument that I have heard as a proof of the existence of
free will is the existence of the human brain. (or mind for you guys
on the other side of the fence). Human beigs have much better hardware
than other animals. The generally accepted explanation (Larry Bickford,
if you are reading this I know that it isn't your explanation...) for
the existence of this hardware is that it works real well at something
called ``concept formation'' (another thing like ``justice'' which
I can't show you). And ``concepts'' are what one uses to make decisions -- good
decisions for the most part. So this is an evolutionary advantage.

Now, suppose everything were determined. Since I don't really ``make
decisions'' the quality of my hardware isn't all that significant.
After all -- the cochroaches have been around a long time. Would anything
as complicated as the human brain ever develop if there wasn't an 
advantage in the making of free decisions? After all, if I just
deliberated for an hour over whether or not to eat that berry that might
be poisonous, and actually my body chemistry determined that I was
going to deliberate for an hour and then decide to eat the berry
I seem to be at a disadvantage with respect to those that wouldn't
do the thinking and would just eat it -- if only because while engrossed
in thought something might come along and eat me!

The counter claim is that what I call ``deliberating'' is just a very
inefficient program that inevitably yields good results (over the
long term -- individual uses of this program may not work well). It is
just behaviour that I call ``deliberating'' and is just INEFFICIENT, not
FREE. The problem with this is that there is a tremendously complicated
feedback system (when I do something rotten I feel guilty) which is also
more inefficinet than is necessary. Forget feeling guilty -- what about
if we all like Mr. Spock didn't have any emotions at all but just didn't
repeat things that these days we would feel ``guilty'' about. Why even
is guilt a successful emotion? Why don't I feel ``fear'' or ``pain''
after a bad decision -- or nothing at all given that I am not responsible
for it?

The argument is far from watertight, of course. We only have one 
free willed thinker candidate right now - (unless the dolphins pan out) -
and we really could use some more data! Personally, I think that both
``free will'' and ``mind'' are a result of the complexity of the
brain -- higher level phenomenon than the squishy hardware, but only
possible on complicated hardware of some sort. 

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura