Re: Why Should Evolution be Taught as Science in Schools?

On Apr 6, 12:35 am, "Steven J." <steve...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 5, 9:59 pm, "sss1000" <ssha...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Apr 3, 1:49 am, "Steven J." <steve...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 2, 8:19 pm, "sss1000" <ssha...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

-- [snip]

Are desires, beliefs, and intentions solely a product of ones physical
makeup and/or physical forces acting on the individual? time.)

I think probably so. I also think that, from the standpoint of
whether we have free will, or rather, what sorts of free will we can
have, it doesn't matter. See below.

Steven: I'm reading responses from newer to older, so I apologize if
earlier e-mail responses from me may have asked questions that you
answered in this message.

Appreciate the direct answer.

You're welcome. By the way, the last part of your post did not show
up on GoogleGroups; you may wish to repost it if you made any
responses to my comments on evolutionarytheoryand morality, since I
did not see and could not answer any such responses.





-- [snip]

My point is this. On the one hand, it is possible that our choices
are caused by our desires, beliefs, and intentions, and that, in turn,
our desires, beliefs, and intentions are caused by the interaction of
earlier states of mind and our environment (and those earlier states
of mind are caused, in turn, by still earlier states of mind
interacting with still earlier environmental factors). Again, it
doesn't matter whether some aspects of our mind are nonphysical, or
whether our minds are purely physical phenomena. What matters, is
that something *causes* our states of mind. If this happens, then our
will is not "free" in the sense of being "uncaused" or "completely
nondeterministic." However, our will can be "free" in the sense that
we really want to make these choices; they are not being forced on us
against our will (e.g. some sort of "mind control"), nor are we being
mntally nor physically manipulated like marionettes.

These are pretty good points. You used the phrase "it doesn't matter
whether some aspects of our mind are physical or non-physical..."
Agree that in everyday events it doesn't matter. However, isn't it of
extreme importance from a religious/scientific view. If part of the
mind is non-physical, then man must have a non-physical, or spiritual
part of him. This is sometimes called the soul.

Many things have been said over the centuries about the soul, and
about how many different components of the person there are (e.g. body
and soul, or body, spirit, and soul, or what?). Various sorts of
"souls" have been invoked to explain almost any uncomprehended faculty
of the body. You were discussing free will, earlier; now you seem to
have changed the subject.

Don't think I've changed the subject. It's hard to understand if man
can have free will if he is only material and is therefore subject to
the laws of the material world. Isn't any thought or action then only
due to neurons firing in a certain way, or something to that extent?

Many who believe man has a soul still question free will. This is an
argument for another day. The point I want to make is that IF man is
only material, how could it be possible for him to have free will?

Your comments on human psychology areallvery reasonable. Are you
open to the idea that evolution may apply to animals, but that humans
are distinct entities. Wouldn't this explain a lot of the differences
between man and animals and also explain free will?

On the one hand, the fossil record indicates that we are continuous
with nonhuman animals; there is no clear dividing line in the hominid
fossil trail between humans and nonhumans. On the other hand, I've
argued above that a nonphysical component of human beings could not
explain free will; if free will is not constrained by cause and
effect, then *nothing* can explain free will (that is, nothing can
explain why and how "free will" has the properties it has rather than
other possible properties), and if it is so constrained, then a
nonphysical component is not needed to explain it.


My above response probably covered this issue. Agree that if humans
have non-physical components, they do not necessarily have free will.
But IF they are only physical, how could they possibly have free
will? How could they ever be morally responsible for any of their
actions?




Or, on the other hand, it is possible that our choices are *not*
caused by our DB&Is, and/or our DB&Is are themselves uncaused. This
might seem to give rise to a will that is more "free," but consider:
it implies either that we can choose to do things that don't accord
with what we think is right and what we want (what else would it mean
to say that our desires, beliefs, and intentions don't
deterministically cause our decisions?), or else that we can want
things and act to get them, even though those wants don't follow
logically from our previous character and previous desires. As I
suggested before, that's a lot like suggesting that our decisions
aren't so much ours, as just things that happen while we're around for
the ride. This doesn't seem like a kind of free will worth wanting;
how is it "free" to know that we might end up deciding to do things
that we don't want to do and that don't serve our purposes or wishes.

In other words, we *want* a certain degree (and a fairly high degree,
at that) of determinism in our decision-making. We don't want to be
as predictable and limited in our repertory of possible responses as,
say, a thermostat or a sphex wasp, but that is more a matter of
wanting complexity than wanting indeterminacy. There is another
poster, Dale Kelly, who defines "free will" in terms of recursiveness
(that is, we not only decide to act on our DB&Is, but we decide what
DB&Is to have). Surely our intellectual complexity gives us some
degree of recursivity, if not the infinite amount that Kelly insists
on. Again, note that this analysis of the problem does not depend on
the assumption that our minds are purely physical; it arises if you
believe in a nonphysical mind that is constrained by the rules of
logic and the principles of cause and effect.

Reasonable statements again, but where do the Desires, Beliefs, and
Intentions come from? Just neurons firing in the brain? If so, there
is no free will. If not, then humans have a spiritual nature. This
of course is something that is beyond science to measure and evaluate.

Your statements here do not seem to me to follow. I have tried, above
and elsewhere, to explain why they do not seem to follow; I am not
sure I could do better.

Steven, Again, I think you explained that non-physical does not mean
free will. But you have not explained how all-physical could mean
free will. The point is if man is purely material, he has no free
will--including his beliefs in creationism and evolution. If he has
free will, he must have a non-physical component. If he has a non-
physical component, he doesn't necessarily have free will (your point)





-- [snip]

Not clear what you're trying to say hear either. Do humans act purely
based on their physical makeup and physical laws? If so, then they
clearly don't have free will and are also not morally responsible for
their actions. If not, then there must be something non-physical that
controls their actions.

Having something non-physical that controls our actions doesn't mean
that our decisions are not determined; if nonphysical causes exist,
presumably cause and effect work for them as well as for anything else
(and you have the additional problem of how a nonphysical will
interacts with a physical brain: normally, something that can affect a
material object is physical, by definition).

Agree that non-physical control does not necessarily mean free will.
The key point in terms of evolutions is not as much "free will" as
"non-physical". Something that is non-physical cannot be measured by
science. It can be inferred by human actions. Do you believe that
some of man's actions are influenced by non-physical means?

Normally, the assumption in science is that anything that can
consistently produce physical effects is a physical cause. I don't
mean that science assumes that nonphysical causes are conceivable but
happen not to exist; I mean that the assumption is that if a cause
exists and can be studied, it is sufficiently physical for the
purposes of science. Human activities are physical. Human brain
activity is physical, and can be studied by physical means, and
correlated both to obvious physical activities and verbal reports of
mental activity. Now, is there something *beyond* brain activity
going on here? Thus far, scientific means have not detected it or
discovered any obvious, non god-of-the-gaps reasons to posit it. It
is conceivable that such nonphysical causes and forces exist, but
there is no evidence.

-- [snip]

As noted, the rest of your post seems to be mutilated or missing on
GoogleGroups; if you wrote anything you'd like me to address, please
repost just those last parts.

-- Steven J.- Hide quoted text -

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