[Wittrs] Re: [C] Re: Free Will and Wittgenstein
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:19:39 -0700
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 4:48 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
610. I saw this man years ago: now I have seen him again,
I recognize him, I remember his name. And why does there
have to be a cause of this remembering in my nervous system?
Why must something or other, whatever it may be, be stored
up there in any form? Why must a trace have been left behind?
Why should there not be a psychological regularity to which
no physiological regularity corresponds? If this upsets our
concepts of causality then it is high time they were upset.
> Ah excellent, so that's where that quote is! I've been looking for
> that for some time, based on faded memories.
>
Compare:
Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and
neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely
caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a
finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they
would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption
only. ... It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will
have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not
reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and
there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a
problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a
determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. --
D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory",
1949
Kirby
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