[MD] Indeterminism

[MarshaV]

On Sep 26, 2011, at 5:37 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> Steve, dmb, and All --
> 
> On Mon. 9/26/11 at 8:27 AM, "Steven Peterson" <peterson.steve at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi dmb,
>> 
>> A pragmaticized version of free will is simply to say that we make
>> choices, and a pragmaticized version of determinism is just "it
>> depends." Then compatiblism is just the position that "choices
>> depend." If you jump all over that claim with your usual claim that
>> that means that we aren't really in control, you are trying to pull me
>> back into an SOM appearance-reality conundrum about what
>> in this picture is REALLY real--whether causality makes choice
>> a mere illusion. That's a game we pragmatists aren't playing.
>> 
>> dmb:
>> The resistences felt in experience are the real thing and causality -
>> not to mention substance- is a metaphysical posit that is supposed
>> to explain that empirical fact. And it's not that causal explanations
>> make our choices illusory. That idea works if you're talking about
>> billiard balls or rocket science. The problem is using causality to
>> deny human freedom, which is exactly what the causal determinist
>> does.  And it's no accident that both our favorite pragmatists -
>> James, Dewey and Pirsig - all reject this idea because, pragmatically
>> speaking, that is one of the worst ideas in the history of ideas.
> 
> Indeterminism is just a sophisticated term for "whatever happens, happens," which, when you think about it, is really Fatalism.  Compatilibilism, on the other hand, is the idea that without a cause-and-effect universe your freedom to choose would be meaningless.
> 
> I'm running a 2003 interview by Reason magazine's science editor with Daniel Dennett on my Values Page this week.  The interview was a promotion for the atheist philosopher's book 'Freedom Evolves' which was published that year. In it, Dennett defends his concept of Compatilibilism with these statements, culled from the interview . . .
> 
> "To have freedom, you need the capacity to make reliable judgments about what's going to happen next, so you can base your action on it.  Imagine that you've got to cross a field and there's lightning about.  If it's deterministic, then there's some hope of knowing when the lightning's going to strike.  You can get information in advance, and then you can time your run.  That's much better than having to rely on a completely random process. If it's random, you're at the mercy of it.
> 
> "A more telling example is when people worry about genetic determinism, which they completely don't understand.  If the effect of our genes on our likely history of disease were chaotic, let alone random, that would mean that there'd be nothing we could do about it.  Nothing.  It would be like Russian roulette.  You would just sit and wait.  But if there are reliable patterns-if there's a degree of determinism-then we can take steps to protect ourselves.
> 
> [In answer to the interviewer's question: "Would a deterministic world mean that, say, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was going to happen ever since the Big Bang?]
> 
> "Going to happen" is a very misleading phrase.  Say somebody throws a baseball at your head and you see it.  That baseball was "going to" hit you until you saw it and ducked, and then it didn't hit you, even though it was "going to."  In that sense of "going to," Kennedy's assassination was by no means going to happen.  There were no trajectories which guaranteed that it was going to happen independently of what people might have done about it. If he had overslept or if somebody else had done this or that, then it wouldn't have happened the way it did.  People confuse determinism with fatalism.  They're two completely different notions.
> 
> "Fatalism is the idea that something's going to happen no matter what you do.  Determinism is the idea that what you do depends.  What happens depends on what you do, what you do depends on what you know, what you know depends on what you're caused to know, and so forth - but still, what you do matters.  There's a big difference between that and fatalism.  Fatalism is determinism with you left out."
> 
> Now, a question for you MoQers who reject the subjective Self:
> Is Fatalism DQ's deterministic "movement to betterness" with you left out?
> 
> I suggest you consider your answer carefully.  Thanks, folks.
> 
> In support of Individual Freedom,
> Ham 
 
 
Greetings Ham,  

What do you mean by "subjective Self?"  Are you suggesting a subjective stream of consciousness as presented in the Steve Hagen quote, or an independent, autonomous Self that is a locus of control?  AND Dynamic Quality isn't anything.  Fatalism, on the other hand, is an intellectual static pattern of value.  Or were you asking something different?  


Marsha  
 
  
 

  
 
 


 
 
 
 
 

 
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