From: Phil Goetz (philgoetz@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Feb 03 2005 - 10:29:01 MST
--- Jef Allbright <jef@jefallbright.net> wrote:
> More specifically to your comment on free will: In
> fact, increasing
> knowledge of causes enhances, rather than
> diminishes, free will.
> Consider the freedoms we enjoy today in virtually
> every area of our
> lives. We can choose from a much wider range of
> options, and take
> action on these choices, to an extent never
> experienced by our
> ancestors.
You are talking about the range of actions possible
to an agent. I am talking about the extent to which
we regard those actions as taken freely vs. as
determined. In fact, increasing knowledge of causes
causes more and more actions to be seen as determined,
and it is easy to extrapolate from this trend, and
from our materialism, that all actions are
determined.
> The apparent contradictions in the intertwined
> concepts of self,
> consciousness, free will, and morality, are all
> related to reasoning
> within insufficient context.
I don't know what you mean, but I know
you cannot dismiss this difficulty so easily.
Apparently you think you have trivially solved
a problem that has vexed the world's best minds
for at least 2000 years.
- Phil
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