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!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion Subject: Re: Is what Torek calls "free will" really "free"? Message-ID: <1272@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 11:45:22 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1272 Posted: Sun Jul 21 11:45:22 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jul-85 08:39:43 EDT References: <6156@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1041@pyuxd.UUCP> <3@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1208@pyuxd.UUCP> <1043@ames.UUCP> <1230@pyuxd.UUCP> <1048@ames.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 118 Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2081 net.religion:7261 > This meta-discussion is inspired by the current debate over free will > between Rosen and Torek, et. al., and indirectly by a previous debate between > Rosen and others (Laura Creighton and Tim Maroney come to mind) about whether > "religion" necessarily implied belief in a supreme being. In both cases, what > began as a philosophical debate ended up getting bogged down in semantics. > First, a concession to Rich: for what it's worth, I'd have to agree > with you about the traditional formulation of the question of "free will". > Historically, belief in free will has implied a belief in a mysterious > something, "will", which was both non-random and acausal. For reasons which > Rich has covered thoroughly (and repeatedly :-), belief in this kind of free > will has become unpopular. It is not dead, but it runs afoul of the generally > materialist and empirical temper of our times. Many of us at least suspect, as > Rich insists, that this whole formulation of the question of free will is > paradoxical, and content-free. [BARRY] Exactly. Thank you for making clear what I've been trying to say (repeatedly) for months. > What I fail to see, is why we are constrained to continue the debate > using this traditional formulation. Must we completely reinvent the vocabulary > of the debate to discuss it meaningfully? To answer this, I'll excerpt from the first part of your own article, Kenn: > "'When *I* use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather > scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more > nor less.' > 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you *can* make words > mean so many different things.' > 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master > - that's all.'" > > "Definitions, contrary to popular opinion, tell us nothing about > things. They only describe people's linguistic habits; that is, they > tell us what noises people make under what conditions. Definitions > should be understood as *statements about language*." Hayakawa Yes, indeed. Definitions tell us the way in which people use sounds and semiartistic scrawls to describe something. The definitions in the dictionary are (supposed to be) the indications of what particular sounds/scrawls mean when humans use them. The reason we can communicate is that we have (to a degree) a consensus about what the sounds/scrawls mean. If a word has a particular definition (as "free will" does), then to go outside of that definition (as Humpty Dumpty does by taking on his own) is to violate the consensus, to make communication and discussion meaningless. It's like what Steve Martin noted when he went to France: "Fromage means cheese, chapeau means hat, it's like those French have a different word for EVERYTHING!" Likewise, to do the opposite, to take existing words in a given language and simply alter their meanings, is to make communication impossible (unless you know the new language that results!). Now, new meanings for words do crop up. But if there's one thing scientific endeavot has taught us, it is to be precise about definitions and not to frivolously throw words and meanings. It's one thing to take the word "bull" and have it mean other things (like a "bull" market, or a description of the content of a Rich Rosen article), but if you were to use the word "bull" to refer to another part of the animal kingdom, you'd be introducing inconsistency and miscommunication and a good deal of misinformation. To call a dog a "bulldog" is to say it is a dog that looks like a bull (or something like that) but it distinguishes it from it being mistaken for a "bull". You wouldn't call it a "bull", but you might call an edict by the Pope a "Papal Bull". (The very fact that words do mean different things in different realms is a strategy of humor: imagine Guido Sarducci in the Vatican showing us the Papal Bull.) But to use the same word to mean two different things in the same realm is to invite confusion and misinformation. > What Torek and others are saying (I > think) is that we can discard the non-material implications of free will, and > still leave the term with a meaning that corresponds pretty closely with > common-sense notions of what "free" means. That's what the argument has dissolved into, and at root level one finds that the word free does not apply there, and that that lack of freeness percolates through to all levels. > I'm sure we would all agree that there's a real difference between > being on an airplane that's hijacked to Havana, and choosing to take a Cuban > holiday. I think what we're all after is getting a better handle on that word, > "choose". If someone's ideas about that don't fit neatly into the traditional > pigeonholes, I don't see the point of requiring them to invent a whole new > vocabulary to explain their thoughts. I do, for the reasons above. > All that's required is that they make > clear the novel job they're giving to an old word. Torek et. al. have done so, > as even you, Rich, concede. You seem clear enough on what they're saying; why > this schoolmasterish insistence that they say it *your* way? Why the schoolBOYish insistence on calling it MY way? (Not singling you out here.) As I say above, it's not so simple as to say "I'm using this word differently than it has been used in this context before." To do that is the same as to say what Mr. Dumpty said above, no? > When you insist > that the old sense of "free will" is devoid of meaning, why aren't you willing > to let that poor abused phrase find a better roost, aboard a sensible idea? "When I say 'free will', it means whatever I choose it to mean, and not what the consensus of definition has always considered it to mean..." > As Humpty Dumpty said, the question is who is to be the master. I'd > like to see some more meaningful debate on what this "novel" definition of > free will really says, and less use of dictionaries for brickbats. The words I've been using are "rational evaluative analysis" to describe what Paul has called free will, and I'm beginning to see holes in the use of those words, too. (Perhaps a phrase meaning "decision making based on stored knowledge constructs acquired through life experience" is more appropriate, because "rational" and "evaluative" may not really be applicable. If you are to communicate with other people, saying that YOU are the master over words may be fun, but nobody will understand what you're saying. It is all of us together as speakers of a language that must be the master over words, not each of us individually, otherwise frigbottin druvis smengle engernaub. And feet nose face will free over time shoelaces. -- Providing the mininum daily adult requirement of sacrilege... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr