[Wittrs] Operation Duckrabbit (ongoing...)
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 19:53:22 -0700
[
continuing a thread you can find archived here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WittrsAMR/message/4227
]
[Wittrs] Re: Operation DuckRabbit (ongoing)
Kirby, yakking:
Yeah, we're not free to perform miracles that break the unbreakable laws of
physics, such as we've appeared to discover them. But how different is this in
principle from breaking an easy-to-break rule, such as "no jay walking"?
SWM (in some parallel discourse):
I meant by the comment I made above not that we are constrained in what we try
to do in the world by physical laws (which we are, of course) but that the issue
of determinism (contra-"free-will") hinges on a notion that what we are (what we
think, what we will, what we choose to do) is itself constrained by physical
laws, i.e., the way all the atomic parts of the universe interact.
On this view, if we could give a full account of all of THAT -- which we cannot
and have no reason to think we ever will be able to do -- we would discover that
everything we do, think, etc., is the outcome of some physical interactions
which have nothing to do with what we take into our consciousness from what we
observe or what we decide to think since even THOSE are thought to be outcomes
of the same physical interactions.
On such a view free-will" (free of external constraint) is denied. This is not
incompatible with our believing or feeling that we are free to do anything we
want. It's just that that belief or feeling is asserted to be false qua
delusion.
===
Kirby muses:
I don't see that your "which have nothing to do with what we take into our
consciousness" is warranted, rather "nothing to do with" is too dismissive,
even if your a die-hard epiphenomenalist [ if you're just joining us, check
Wikipedia ].
An idealist who thinks it's all a virtual videogame mind-of-God kind of
experience, with mental laws (of said deity) as rigid as what we call
physical laws -- indeed she'd aver they're the same -- is not thereby
bound to disavow determinism as a matter of logic.
If it's all perfect in God's imagination, then who are we to question whether
there could have been a better outcome, this determinist is overheard
to argue, in some Star Wars like multi-cultural setting (just saw Rango).
"There's no proof it could have been other than it is" is something I've
heard loudly asserted by a philosopher with a microphone in New Jersey.
Do I know from that statement whether he's an idealist or not? I say
there's no obvious connection.
===
Kirby wrote:
I'm thinking these are philosophically immature positions (radical skepticism,
solipsism, idealism, determinism, materialism, reductionism) and that allowing a
concept as important as "free will" to get bogged down in these childish
sandboxes is a disservice to real philosophy, which cannot afford to be
bedeviled by such grammatical confusions -- it's an embarrassment for western
philosophy and pulls down the value of a PhD degree for all of us (because
"Doctor of Philosophy" becomes more like "Doctor of Clowning Around").
SWM then interleaved:
I don't think it's right to speak of these approaches as "immature positions"
(though they may be). In fact they are functions of our linguistic confusion and
recognizing that is the way in which we solve such problems, on the
Wittgensteinian view, rather than arguing their contraries.
===
Yes, not trying to argue their contraries so much as show that "free will"
does not hinge in any critical way on so many of these other positions.
Wanna be a radical solipsist *with* free will? No without? Flip. Flip.
What's the difference? And so on down the line.
However, there's a *non-vacuous* notion of "free will" which has to
do with imprisonment, and a spectrum of actions available to one,
which justice philosophers such as Rawls spend a lot of time on.
If I'm not "at liberty" to address the polity or "am constrained by
the rules" from uttering some thoughts about some naked emperor,
then we immediately gaining traction in some ethical ballpark, starting
to build an ethical science, or science of ethics.
"Constraining", in the sense of "making verboten", is something
philosophers (the serious ones) want to talk about. Yes, that
includes yakking about Gitmo, and the rights some give themselves
to tromp around the world using flame throwers against medicinal
native crops, ethnogens, tended by Amazonians and/or Afghanis
and/or the people of Sonoma, for 10K years or who knows how
long.
In other words, lets philosophize about the stuff anthropologists
care about, and stop giving the limelight so exclusively to the
childish among us who still suffer from linguistic problems long
ago diagnosed (and for some, cured). Lets stop expecting
other cultures to take our more nerdish brands so seriously,
as if we were loyalist-apologist-shills for some Royal Crown of
some description (sounds kinda stupid on the face of it, like
some kind of cola drink).
===
Kirby wrote:
The above is not a Logical Positivist position, which sought to consign music
and art to the realm of nonsense, saving only logic and factual propositions for
the realm of sense. This was not, in fact, Wittgenstein's position as most of us
know, i.e. he was never a Logical Positivist, even though many in that
camp used the Tractatus as a kind of manifesto, at least when it first came out.
SWM response:
Yes, indeed. I think that's a mistake many non-Wittgensteinians make, i.e., they
fail to interpret his early philosophy in accord with his own statements, both
contemporary and later and, especially, some may become attached to the earlier
work because of its pretty mysticism and thereby fail to see the clarity and
earthiness of his later thinking which puts the earlier work into perspective.
===
Yeah, like read some Schopenhauer for crying out loud (he did).
This guy is Continental, don't you get it?
===
Kirby wrote:
I'm not clear that ghosts, continued consciousness after death etc. would have
any bearing whatsoever on the free will discussion. The ghosts would be as
determined as everything else. Those that believe in their own freedom would
have no choice but to do so (that whale I mentioned is a ghost, but that just
means we welcome him in spirit).
SWM responded
Yes, one might suppose ghosts could be determined by the physical universe if
embodied minds are. But then the point is that if there were disembodied minds
it would be evidence of a failure of the physics we currently have to provide a
complete explanation of the universe and so that would be a reason to think that
minds are not physically determined after all and, hence, a basis for a claim of
absolute free-will (that minds are undetermined by the physics of the bodies to
which they appear to be "attached").
=====
Kirby continues:
I agree with your point that phenomena unexplained by a current / vogue
physics would point to holes in said system as a complete explanation of
everything. I would further contend that many in the practice of said
physics do not hold out any hope of it's being a complete explanation of
everything and If that's how its being advertised, it's not with the permission
of everyone doing physics in some capacity.
Also, there's no one specific meaning for "ghosts". You jumped to
"disembodied minds" as an obvious synonym but in some lexicons there
is a "ghost body" with its own properties. We needn't dive into the
ethnography here as I'm sure it'd fill several shelves.
This isn't just academic in that we do have professed atheists in the
literature who are not doubting all forms of ethereal being. They
were in much the same position of today's believers in extraterrestrials
as higher intelligence life forms, with no God in the picture (Carl Sagan
for example). You can have a mechanistic and fatalistic approach
even if your universe is only 40% explained by its current physics,
with much of the rest claimed by psychology and metaphysics.
Regardless of the inadvertent consequences to physics as "the
big authority in the room", my point stands that the free will argument
might be held amongst ghosts, with as much earnest and with no more
irony than it might be conducted among the living (assuming ghosts
represent the dead -- by no means a consensus).
Kirby
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