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Post 60

Thursday, November 13, 2008 - 3:28pmSanction this postReply
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Just some random thoughts on the issue.

Whether we're talking about how coaches of football teams decide the strategies to be played, or who to put in as alternates. Or whether we're considering how a scientist devises an experiment. There's issues with no-freewill as there are degrees of ambiguity to be resolved such as what shaped the exact decisions to make X play for the coaches or what conditions lead the scientist to use one methodology of experimentation over another? Granted there are obvious means for each to be evaluated, but that evaluation must always consider the mental contents in all cases, and it's those contents which are not magically imprinted by forces outside of the given person. There are no atoms of 'goodness'/'betterness'/'badness'/'worseness' for the brain to absorb from each experience. Some where along the line each person has to choose to think (or think otherwise) since thought in itself does not come automatically. I cannot learn high order mathematics by rote rehearsal. I cannot learn to create symphonies by observation. I cannot think by simply reacting without discernment.

So, determinism is on shaky ground due to the lack of any clear demarcation in such cases. Even if we were able to map out the entire brain, assigning values to each section and subsection, to produce a mathematical model, there would be not only degrees of uncertainty, but also degrees of ambiguity (which is more damning than the former as with such ambiguity there's no way to make differentiations as to what caused what and why).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's the problem of any argument against freewill: it disregards the actual fact of functional independence of the persons evaluated.



(Edited by Bridget Armozel on 11/13, 3:30pm)


Post 61

Saturday, November 15, 2008 - 1:18pmSanction this postReply
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Brede,

Even if we were able to map out the entire brain, assigning values to each section and subsection, to produce a mathematical model, there would be not only degrees of uncertainty, but also degrees of ambiguity (which is more damning than the former as with such ambiguity there's no way to make differentiations as to what caused what and why).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's the problem of any argument against freewill: it disregards the actual fact of functional independence of the persons evaluated.
I think this extends to the AI debate, too (and possibly even to the animal intelligence debate).

Ed


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