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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: free choice as rational evaluation and action
Message-ID: <904@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 21:19:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.904
Posted: Thu Jul 18 21:19:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 14:34:29 EDT
References: <1043@pyuxd.UUCP> <6155@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1191@pyuxd.UUCP> <817@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1227@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: flink@maryland.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 66

In article <1227@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>Those things that are a "part of one's identity".  How were they acquired?
>Does one get to choose the patterning with which one later evaluates and
>analyzes?  Of course not.  Thus, since the decisions and actions are dependent
>on these unfree internal elements plus the externals over which one has no
>control as they become part of the internalized knowledge construct structure.
>this whole process is not free.

Yes, the internal elements are caused by "external" events.  They're not
freely chosen -- at first.  But in your argument the "unfreeness" of an 
internal factor caused by external factors is assumed to "carry over" to 
whatever the internal factor causes.  I don't think that's legitimate, at
least not when the internal factor is something like the capacity for r-e-a.
Anything reviewed and accepted by r-e-a is (becomes) free, including the
r-e-a procedure itself.  Consider:  why should I regard any internal feature
as making me unfree, when that feature is something *desirable*, something
I *accept* and have every reason to accept?  How is one "constrained" by
something one *wants*?

>> "Unshackle"?  "Interference"?  In what way do the chemical processes that
>> constitute my thought processes "interfere" with me or "shackle" me?
>
>You make the extremely erroneous claim the freedom is equivalent to the
>ability to act rationally, which is very far from the truth. [...]
>to be truly free, one's choices of action must be one's own, and not those
>*determined* by a series of events that were experienced.

But if one can act rationally then one *is* choosing -- the choices are 
*both* one's own *and* are those *determined* as you indicate.

> [...] the fact that YOU have incorporated into your brain many
>experiences that have a direct effect on the way you think and evaluate quite
>clearly makes YOU un-free:  you are bound to act as your experiences and
>accumulated knowledge dictate that you will.

Neat word there, "bound", ambiguous between "constrained" and "predisposed
to".  I am predisposed to act as my experiences, etc. dictate -- that's true
-- but I'm not "constrained" to do so, because "constrained" means that 
there's something else I might want to do or have reasons to do.  And there
isn't.  One can't be "constrained" by something one wants and has every 
reason to want -- that's no constraint at all.

>> You have an agent and *self*-control, which IS freedom.  (I think that if
>> you look at a detailed dictionary definition of freedom you'll find
>> "self-control" listed as one of the synonyms.)
>
>You seem to be under the erroneous impression that being free means being able
>to choose the best rational course of action.  Being free, in fact, means
>being able to choose without constraint (choosing the rational only would be
>a constraint).  Self-control and REA are not synonyms for freedom.

Freedom = autonomy = self-control.  REA is a synonym for "free will", as that
term has been used in some philosophical discussions, as well as by some
non-philosophers (such as Robert Trivers in the Omni interview I quoted).

>I quote, though, from Webster's:  "1. [...] a) the absence of necessity,
>coercion, or constraint [LIKE ONLY BEING ABLE TO CHOOSE
>TO DO WHAT YOUR INNER CHEMICALS DETERMINE THAT YOU WILL DO] in choice
>or action, b) liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of
>another [I WOULD ASSUME ANOTHER THING AS WELL AS ANOTHER PERSON HERE]".

The causal determinism of choice might count as "necessity" -- you might
have a case there -- but as long as the mechanisms by which we make
choices are both desirable and desired, then, it seems to me, no
limitation of our freedom is implied.
					--Paul V Torek