Hi dmb,
> Steve said to Mark: > What he [James] is describing as determinism is what I think people today > would call fatalism. He endorses indeterminism over determinism in that essay > which equates with chance. Post quantum mechanics, people's idea of > determinism includes chance and fits what James is saying about indeterminism > (that if you could somehow rewind history and play it again it would come out > differently.) > > dmb says: > People's idea of determinism fits what James is saying about indeterminism? Steve: Yes, that is what I just said. dmb: Dude, that is pure nonsense, a blatant contradiction. Do you ever listen to yourself? Steve: Yes, I said that people who we would today call determinists are the sort who would say "that if you could somehow rewind history and play it again it would come out differently." They would say this would happen because of inescapable quantum level randomness. dmb: > And if that's not enough, James explains that he is only making a case for > "chance" and indeterminism rather than "freedom" precisely because his > determinist opponents have warped and distorted the meaning of ""freedom" in > what had become a "quagmire of evasion". Steve: I understand that, but the point is that (as I am sure you'll agree) the absence of random chance is not what people today mean by free will. The idea that the universe is not entirely determined because it has an inescapable element of randomness does nothing to support free will. "Indeterminism" of that sort is just a version of determinism as a particular sort of doctrine that opposes free will. Random events don't fit the concept of free will any more than lawful ones do. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
