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From: jim@ism780b.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: B.F. Skinner (and dead Greeks) - (nf)
Message-ID: <22@ism780b.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Jul-84 00:24:11 EDT
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Posted: Wed Jul 25 00:24:11 1984
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#R:ecsvax:-285700:ism780b:27500013:000:2794
ism780b!jim    Jul 17 23:27:00 1984

> Given this model, thinking is pretty inefficient. However, if I am not
> determined then thinking is a pretty useful thing!

This is extremely philosophically naive.  If it is determined, than it is
determined, and issues like efficiency are irrelevant.  The deterministic
model says that it was determined that objects with big brains which involved
extremely complex chemical processes which resulted in extremely complex
and varied responses to complex and massive external influences would come
into existence inexorably as the workings out of the constraining
relationships among particles (or probability waves or whatever) governed
by physical laws.  From the evolutionary view, big brains were selected
for species survival and all this contemplating the naval and ability to
build atom bombs just came along as a side-effect, much like writing
a programming language to solve a bunch of mathematical problems just happened
to provide a tool to solve a lot of other problems as well.  For a fuller
understanding of this non-pan-selectionist (that is, not all traits are a
direct result of natural selection) view, read Stephen Jay Gould.  (Darwin
himself was not a pan-selectionist, he was not a "social Darwinist",
he did not believe in nor coin the phrase "survival of the fittest";
it is amazing how widely these Fascist (Conrad Lorentz, anyone?) beliefs are
held.  People apparently believe them because they *want* to.)

> The question is -- am I totally determined into having the thoughts that
> I am having now by my genes and my environment...or is there a ``me''
> there which could think about something different if I chose to?

But what is the nature of this choosing?  If there is only one future, there
is only one future, and so all your behavior and thoughts are
"pre-determined".  My favorite model is the multiple-worlds view, which holds
that for each quantum-decision point there is a reality split, and while many
choices are possible from a given brain-state, "this" you is the one defined
by its particular past.  But this model isn't really any less deterministic
than the single-path view.  And none of this affects whether or not you
have free will.  The degree to which you have free will is the degree to
which your future actions cannot be predicted, not the degree to which
some mechanism to which you have no access will produce them.

The real problem is that the notions of "free will" and "determinism" are so
deeply rooted in semantics, that is language, that is a construct of the human
mind, that is something governed by the laws of the universe be they
deterministic or no, that it is impossible to separate them out and study them
free-standing.  They must be understood in light of the way we think about
about them.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)