Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr
From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Non sequitur about free will
Message-ID: <1039@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Jun-85 11:39:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1039
Posted: Sat Jun  1 11:39:34 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Jun-85 00:43:27 EDT
Organization: The Chartered Accountants Who Want to Be Lion Tamers Association
Lines: 27


I just witnessed (by accident) the tail end of a discussion between
Ray Smullyan and Mortimer Adler on Buckley's "Firing Line" program.
Adler concluded by talking about free will, and claiming that belief in free
will is impeded in so-called determinists because they fail to understand
the possibility of non-materialist non-causational "causes" for decisions.

It would seem that he is thus implying that free will requires a non-material,
non-"cause-and-effect"-al basis for our decisions.  One that I can only
surmise would be described as "external" to "our" (so-called) material
universe.  (Whatever "external to all things" means?----do we define the
material universe to be arbitrarily limited by our limits of observation, or
do we define it to mean EVERYTHING, thus debunking the whole notion of
"non-material", making the word "material" a redundancy?  What exactly
is this boundary between physical and non-physical, material and immaterial,
if not arbitrary anthropocentric ones, and if this is true what is the basis
for making them distinct?)

Are you listening, Mr. Torek?  It would seem that those who discuss free
will are talking in these terms precisely, contrary to your claims.  (Where
have YOU been, anyway?)

(Of course, Michael Ellis is out to smash causality in much the same way tht
religious rightists seek to smash "humanism"...   Oh well.)
-- 
Life is complex.  It has real and imaginary parts.
					Rich Rosen  ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr