[Wittrs] On Discussions about Free WIll
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:45:40 -0700 (PDT)
... forwarding this.
SW
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Charlie Leach (whatmusic) <charlie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Mon, April 11, 2011 2:52:03 PM
Subject: Re: On Discussions about Free WIll
Sean,
The idea that we don't have free will is probably the most powerful and
pernicious philosophical theory known, and has caused untold damage in
society today. It continues to do so.
It may seem like just a mathematical puzzle to cerebral philosophers immune
to their own memes, but out in the world the damage is immense. I recommend
this 1996 article by Tom Wolfe:
http://orthodoxytoday.org/articles/Wolfe-Sorry-But-Your-Soul-Just-Died.php
Here's a quote referring to the idea of determinism cloaked in neuroscience:
"The elders, such as Wilson himself and Daniel C. Dennett, the author of
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, and Richard
Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker, insist that
there is nothing to fear from the truth, from the ultimate extension of
Darwin's dangerous idea. They present elegant arguments as to why
neuroscience should in no way diminish the richness of life, the magic of
art, or the righteousness of political causes, including, if one need
edit, political correctness at Harvard or Tufts, where Dennett is
Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, or Oxford, where Dawkins is
something called Professor of Public Understanding of Science. (Dennett
and Dawkins, every bit as much as Wilson, are earnestly, feverishly,
politically correct.) Despite their best efforts, however, neuroscience
is
not rippling out into the public on waves of scholarly reassurance. But
rippling out it is, rapidly. The conclusion people out beyond the
laboratory walls are drawing is: The fix is in! We're all hardwired!
That,
and: Don't blame me! I'm wired wrong!"
>
If you take time out in the slums of inner city life, you can see that idea
that we cannot be blamed for anything taking hold like wildfire. Beat up my
wife? steal a car? knife someone? can't get a job? Don't blame me I'm just
wired that way. The learned judges all point to the learned philosophers
with their determinism and pronounce the vexatious criminal correct. The
word soon gets out.
Pretty soon 'being hardwired' into poverty and hopelessness becomes a badge
of honour. Kids intimidate and bully with slogans such as "intelligent is
stupid" (T Dalyrimple: "Life at the Bottom") and settle into a prison as
strong as any yet invented by the mind of man: where you believe there is
no
hope for you and therefore never try. This attitude is probably the biggest
contributor to the accelerating growth in the underclass in Britain today.
You might say: "it's not my fault the average man can't tell the difference
between determinism and fatalism, I'm all right Jack, I understand the
difference and will enjoy my freedom and leave the dumb masses to their
predestined end. I'm right about my idea and that's all the matters, the
world be damned."
But what if you're not right? what if there is free will, what if man is
free and philosophy just got caught in a stagnant eddy of incoherent
thought
(you've seen it happen). What then of all the people listening at the doors
of the ivory towers for 'the truth' handed out with scholarly authority:
hordes of judges, liberals, do-gooders, and the guilt ridden politically
correct, eager disciples of this message that we can't blame anyone, trying
to help out by spreading the word, but succeeding in nothing more than
turning the underclass into a ghetto imprisoned by an idea.
Of course you have to defend what is right and what you believe in with
intellectual honesty, but this debate on free will is not a mere
intellectual game, played frivolously by intellectuals in an ivory tower
without consequences. The world is listening, and the winners of the free
will debate will determine the wholesale shift of modern culture towards
responsibility or nihilism. It's a very real problem and the stakes could
hardly be higher.
Charlie
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