Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!ptc
From: ptc@cybvax0.UUCP (Peter Crames)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: To Peter Crames
Message-ID: <377@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 11:41:42 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.377
Posted: Mon Feb 25 11:41:42 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Feb-85 11:53:36 EST
References: <215@cmu-cs-gandalf.ARPA>
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 61

> > I don't believe that a machine can be programmed to function
> > independently.  Every machine is dependent on its programmer.
> 
> I hope you did not mean that literally!  A video game, for example
> is quite independent of its programmer.  (You didn't really expect
> a programmer sitting in the machine manipulating it, did you?!)

Are you suggesting that a video game has free will?  If not, 
then it must be ultimately dependent on a programmer, who 
"dwells within" the video game via his program.

> > The brain does not look like any machine that man builds, and it
> > certainly is not simple.  But the brain is still a machine.  It is
> > made up of the same chemical elements as everything else in the
> > universe, and it is subject to the same laws of cause and effect.
> 
> Perhaps you would like to define the ... scratch that ...
> I DEMAND that you define the laws of cause and effect which you
> appeal to here.  I don't see how any laws of cause and effect that
> I know support your argument.  (I hope that you are not refering
> to pseudo-laws like, loving beings are caused by loving beings.
> There is no such law.)

By the "laws of cause and effect", I am referring to the 
physical-chemical laws that act upon matter, such as gravity, 
etc.  I also suspect that there are deeper psychological laws, 
like the one that you mentioned.

> > My substitutions go to the root of mystical thought, and are difficult
> > to explain in everyday language.  What I am saying is that you are
> > not the source of your thoughts and actions.  The silent inner "voice"
> 
>   ... what inner voice?!  if a voice is silent, how can you hear it?!  I
>       have yet to hear a voice (much less a silent one) when I think ...
> 

When reading or thinking about something, you "hear" an inner 
"voice" inside your brain.  I am not referring to an audible 
voice, which you would hear when someone is talking to you.

> > that you "hear" when thinking is not caused by you -- it is caused by God,
> > as a result of the First Cause or Big Bang.  Since God is the source of 
> > your thoughts, what you normally call "I" is actually God.  The Biblical 
> > statement "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalms 46:10) sums up what 
> > I am trying to say.
> 
> Once again, I must insist that you do not make such grand assertions for
> which you do not provide a single bit of proof.  You assume God; you
> assume that there is some entity, "you", that is not the source of its
> behavior; you assume that God is the only such source; you assume the
> existence of a First Cause; you assume God is the First Cause; etc...
>
> Keebler

My basic assumption is that my body (including brain) is a 
machine that needs an external force exerted upon it in order 
for it to move.  I can not prove this assumption.  Alternatively, 
you make the assumption that you can cause your own body to move, 
and your conclusions are a result of that assumption.
 
Peter Crames	...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!ptc