Dave Birren sent me a private message about my ideas on choice versus
illusion in response to his posting on this subject. I responded to that.
He asked me to share this mini dialogue with the group so here it is:
Dave said:
>I'm beginning to understand the depth of meaning in those comments of yours. I
>think that I and a few others didn't understand quite what you were saying. I
>still sense a little bit of determinism, but I'm starting to see that you're
>speaking from an awareness of complexity, rather than a simplistic basis. I'll
>comment more directly later.
I can't help but respond here. The most important thing to remember about
determinism and free will is that they are conclusions about human nature
that depend on certain assumptions you make about that nature. If I think
one or the other, I can argue for that very rationally. That is, in fact,
what we do--we rationalize our positions and our beliefs, whatever they
are. We can't avoid that. If my ideas smack of determinism, that is
because I have expressed them in ways that are consistent with your
understanding of what determinism is.
I was most assuredly not trying to be simplistic, although I was trying to
express my understanding of reality as well and as simply as I could at
the time. It is a great mystery that I cannot predict what I or you will
do next but afterwards we can always see the order in our behavior. Is
that deterministic? Is that free will? Does it matter? What matters,
ultimately, I believe, is not our conclusions but the processes by which
we come to our conclusions. Those processes are what we share. If we
recognize that about each other, if that becomes part of our
understanding, then we can focus on these processes rather than any
temporary conclusions we may come to at any point in time. Conclusions,
after all, are only arbitrary stops in the process of life and learning,
anyway. Does this clarify anything? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
John
-- jwoods@execpc.com (John Woods)