[MD] Food for Thought

[Ham Priday]

Case --

> I suppose the distinction between predictability and
> inevitability would be that inevitability means something
> is fated; that some course must be followed.
> And I would say no. To say that outcomes are determined
> means that causal factors are at work but cause is more of
> a web than a chain of events and it can not be determined
> in advance how those factors will ultimately work
> themselves out.  If you mean that man is immune from
> determinism I simply can't imagine what in your experience
> would lead you to that view.

It would appear that you see life as a series of "accidents" whose causes
are inexplicable because of random "forces" that cannot be predicted.  The
chaotic reality you have intellectualized for yourself is a mental block to
any concept of value, not to mention the uniqueness of human consciousness.
Thus, you are unable to see the forest for the trees.

The problem with this reality perspective is that it has made you an
incorrigible  mechanist.  Your philosophy is bound to physical laws and the
dynamics of space/time phenomena.  I doubt that you believe that objective
reality is a construct of experience, which means (not unsurprisingly) that
you're an existentialist -- something of a pariah in Qualityland :-)

I typed "mechanistic philosophy" on my Google search bar, just to see how it
might apply in this case [no pun intended].  Lo and behold, the third item
that came up was a well-researched analysis of the subject by Matt Kundert
listed in the MOQ Forum Index!  Here's an excerpt that is must reading for
you.  (I've put the leading statements in caps.)

"Rose, Kamin, and Lewontin wrongly accused reductionism as leading to
determinism when it is really MECHANISTIC EXPLANATIONS that LEAD TO
DETERMINISM.  Dawkins is sneaking in free will by leaving it open to whether
conscious forethought and true altruism are memes or not.  If the two
features are memes, then any free will we may think we have in "rebelling
against the tyranny of the selfish replicators"[xi] is illusory and merely
part of the large mechanical clock that is the universe.  If they are not
memes, then Dawkins needs to explain how and locate where this free will to
rebel against the selfish replicators occurs.

"This is where Dawkins would run into the old philosophical paradox of free
will vs. determinism.  If Dawkins leaves conscious forethought and true
altruism out of the meme picture and somehow allows humans to exert "free
will," how does he account for simple reductionistic science?  IF ALL GENES
AND MEMES HAVE TO FOLLOW THE LAWS OF NATURE, WHY DON'T HUMANS?  If all atoms
have to obey the Laws of Nature, then it should follow that chemical
compounds have to follow them and DNA, cells, and organs, too.  And when we
get to the end we have a perfectly functioning body that SHOULD FOLLOW THE
LAWS OF NATURE, YET HAS THE GALL NOT TO by somehow exerting free will.  In
the same respect, it should follow that if the body has this ability to
exert free will, then the organs do too, along with the cells, DNA,
chemicals, and atoms.  Yet no scientist (in particular Dawkins) would
respectably say that they have free will."

Incidentally, Matt agrees with Hume that we have no logical or rational
basis for belief in causation (your thesis), but he also admits, "So there
is either something wrong with reductionism or with one of the other
values."  He concludes with a startling proposition:

"What I am proposing is that maybe it is time to open up the door for
teleological explanations.  Its not like it has never been done before.  The
only reason science became mechanistic is because it was useful to do so.
Some would say that teleological explanations are anthropomorphic and that
is why they don't yield "good" explanations in regards to scientific
phenomena.  Well, in response, I would flip the problem on its head.  It
could be said that mechanistic explanations are physiomorphic[xliii] and
that is why they don't yield "good" explanations in regards to human
phenomena.  In essence, it may be helpful to think teleologically or
mechanistically depending on the situation, just as it is helpful to think
of light as a wave or a particle, depending on the situation."  -- 
http://www.moq.org/forum/Kundert/MechanisticPhilosophyandtheYellowBrickRoadofScience.html

Opening the door to teleology is not exactly what I would have expected our
lately esteemed philosophilologist to suggest.  But it may provide some
badly needed food for (your) thought.

Cheers,
Ham