Re: Amoeba croaks -

From: <hal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 21:59:36 -0800

Steve Price, MD, <SLP.domain.name.hidden>, writes:
> The decisons you make are already "pre-programmed." All things "happen"
> with "predetemined" measures and it is quite naive to think that you can
> change those measures. As Jacqus Mallah has said repeatedly, your
> decisons simply are the laws of physics in action.
>
> Everythng that is, was, or will be is contained in the universal wave
> function. No one can change that. Even the notion of things
> "happening" in time, in a sense, is a illusion. The Wheeler-DeWitt
> equation is timeless. What is, is. Period.

Right, this is simply the old argument about whether free will is
compatible with determinism.

I am happy with the "compatabilist" position which simply identifies
"choice" and "decision" with the underlying physical processes. In this
view, determinism and free will are entirely compatible. This position
is developed more fully in Daniel Dennett's book, "Elbow Room".

When I speak of "choosing" to maximize the measure of good outcomes,
you can, if you like, think of my activities as the working out of an
incredibly complicated deterministic mechanism. But the latter view
doesn't have any relevance to me as I make my decisions.

Hal
Received on Wed Jan 13 1999 - 22:07:42 PST