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From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Rosen on reason, etc.
Message-ID: <756@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Feb-85 22:29:23 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.756
Posted: Tue Feb 12 22:29:23 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 07:45:32 EST
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 139
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:1458 net.religion:5602

[Will the real Humpty Dumpty please sit down]

From:    Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
> Again, you assume that because you use the rational path (e.g., rather than
> the biochemically instinctive path), employing what you call rational
> evaluation, you are engaging in acts of "free will".  But you are no freer
> to "choose" a rational path than you are to "choose" a biochemically
> "instinctive" path:  whatever path of "reasoning" (or non-reasoning) that is
> taken is based on your chemical makeup. 

You *are* freer to choose a rational path (given that you do choose one) than
those who take an instinctive path are to "choose" that path, because you can
represent the options and evaluate them.  Simply put:  rational actions are
chosen; instinctive ones aren't (unless part of a larger context in which
rationality operates:  I rationally choose to "let myself go" sometimes).

> You make a distinction between them (and there IS a difference in the
> methods AND [sometimes] the results), but they are functionally equivalent.

What you say in the parentheses, amounts to an admission that they are NOT
functionally equivalent!

> they are BOTH chemical methods that produce (hopefully) optimum survival
> results.  You choose to make a black-and-white distinction.  It is more
> of a continuous spectrum.  Some organisms have minimal (even biochemical)
> means of making decisions.  Some have more.  Supposedly, we have the most
> advanced decision making mechanism.  But that's not the same as free will
> just because you say it is.

No, it's the same as free will just because the term means "having a certain
type of advanced decision making mechanism".  I do think that human reason
has qualitiative advantages over most other animals', but if not, the 
difference of free will between us and them is just one of degree.

>> Apparently you and Sargent are suffering from attachment to a paradigm (in
>> the ordinary sense, not T.S. Kuhn's) of free will as some mysterious "ghost
>> in the machine" with the ability to make decisions ex nihilo.  

> But the very notion of free will implies freedom to choose a decision path
> regardless of one's surroundings, one's chemical make-up, etc.  
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^			    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
BULL MANURE!!  The "very notion" implies no such thing.  Your paradigm of
free will does, and you are confusing your paradigm with the "very notion".

Compare your statement above with: "But the very notion of free will 
implies an ability to choose regardless of any ghost-in-the-machine".
What makes your statement any more plausible than this?  Is it because
the whole idea of the "ghost in the machine" is that the ghost is
supposed to be *you*?  Ah, but -- you and I agree -- there is no ghost,
and -- I contend -- the chemicals ARE *you*; to say "there's the chemicals
of Rosen's brain" and to say "there's Rosen" are two ways of describing
the same thing.  Free will definitely does NOT mean an ability to choose
regardless of the way one is, for then, who would be doing the choosing?
Therefore, IF the chemicals are all there is to *you*, then your chemical
make-up is NOT one of the things to include in your "regardless of" list.

> Which, of necessity REQUIRES the "ghost in the machine", the external 
> agent.  It is not a part of the definition, it is a consequence of it.  

Challenge:  find an ordinary language user (not a philosopher, theologian,
or such) whose use of the term 'free will' *logically implies* this
"consequence".

> I guess my "mistake" here is that I don't equivalence rational evaluative
> capabilities with free will.  Your argument has still given me no reason
> to do so.  Are you simply using a word or term the way you like ...

Here's my argument again:
>> Agency (having free will) consists in being able to choose among
>> alternatives -- which raises the question how one chooses, and the
>> answer is by evaluating alternatives.  This in turn involves the use
>> of reason, of having a conception of a norm and being disposed to
>> adopt a consistent, best justified set of norms.
Where's the hole in the argument?

Is the problem that my definition does not capture all the connotations of
the term?  Probably not, but no helpful definition of a vague concept could.
My definition *does* capture what's important about it -- the varieties of
free will worth wanting.  [Aside: _The varieties of free will worth wanting_
is the subtitle of Daniel Dennett's book _Elbow Room_ .]  As Dennett points 
out, the concept of free will is "essentially" one we care about, i.e. it
is something that is (supposed to be) worth wanting.

> Rationality is a human-made description of a process.  One can just as easily
> say that rivers and rocks also behave rationally, though their mechanism for
> "decision-making" is less elaborate than our own.  

No you can't.  "Rational" has a narrower meaning than that.  It may be a vague
word, but you can't stretch it that far -- talk about Humpty-Dumpty-ism.

> It seems ironic, Paul, that you, who castigated me for looking "too deep
> to the root cause", now claim that it's invalid to say that things are the
> same "at a very general level of description".

You're misreading me on purpose, right?  I did NOT castigate you for looking
"too deep to the root cause", but rather for looking ONLY at the "root
cause" when both high-level (macroscopic) and microscopic descriptions are
accurate.  I did NOT claim it's invalid to say things are the same at a very
general level of description; I implied that it's wrong to *stop* there.
If you want to reject a distinction -- as you wanted to reject my distinction
of rationality between the processes in human brains and processes in rivers,
etc. -- you must examine *all* levels of description.  A distinction is
valid if it is valid on *at least one.*

> You cannot justify logic with logic.

Yes you can.  (By showing, e.g., that it is truth-preserving.)

> ... You can only prove to them that they are wrong if 1) they accept
> the foundations of logic, and 2) they accept the possibility that their
> conclusions might be wrong, or erroneous, or based on faulty premises.  

Prove it "TO THEM"!  If by that you mean "so that they accept it", then
the fact that we can't prove anything to someone who doesn't use logic,
doesn't show that we can't prove it.  I can't prove anything "to" the
severely brain-damaged either, but that's THEIR problem, not a problem
with using logic to justify anything.

> You cannot seem to look at a possibility of a system of belief outside 
> of reason and logic.  

If someone could reject reason completely, there would remain nothing
answering the label "system of belief".  There might remain at best a
bare, structureless consciousness.

> You are imputing quite a lot into Carroll's intentions
> there: [he was] not trying to show that use of reason was not circular.  

Read again what I said (edited, but meaning unchanged):
>> Carroll ... shows *not* that reason justifying reason is circular, but
>> that reason is not a premise but rather the way of getting from premises
>> to conclusions. 
My claim that he has not shown circularity is not equivalent to saying that
he has shown absence of circularity.  Absence of circularity can, however,
be concluded from what he did show, by further (valid) argument.

	-- Occam's Razor: I traded it in for a Norelco.  No more "gotcha"!
				Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047
Don't hit that 'r' key!  Send any mail to this address, not the sender's.