From: "psypher" <overload@fastmail.ca> Subject: Re: virus: Re: Technology (was manifest science) To: virus@lucifer.com Date sent: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 21:22:39 -0400 (EDT) Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> Joe Dees input:
>
> > I must come back to the point that there is no will in evolution,
> > thus it cannot intend, plan or carry a plan out. Evolution thus is
> > not, in the natural world, evolving technology (the Hermit's
> circuits
> > are a different matter). We do all of these (intend, plan, carry
> > out plans) in design and manufacture. While evolution has provided
> > us, quite unintentionally, with our finite, incarnate, and
> > perspectival embodied condition, technology allows us to construct
> > out of our external environment material means by which we may
> > augment our limited natural ground capacities for perception, action
> > and cognition.
>
> ...okay. I believe I understand what you're saying. now [assumes
> inquisitive demeanour] are our experiences of [will, intention] etc.
> expressions of free action or are they constrained by the
> environment, our experience and heredity?
>
They are not absolutely free, but neither are they precisely
determined either. Sure, we take account of those factors, but
they are inclinations, not mandates, and we do not have to heed
them.
>
> ...I guess what I'm trying to get at could be phrased:
> "Is will an act by which we devise/select a solution to a problem or
> merely the experience of the decision happening?"
>
I may try to do something long before I succeed at it, and may
actively search for and select things to try to do. So, the former.
>
> ...if your answer to this question refers back to the transcendence
> of the Godelian limit on complexity then I'd appreciate some
> elaboration as I'm not sure what you mean by this.
>
It did not, but is rests on it. Decisions require a decider; thus we
cannot be said to possess freedom of choice before we become
conscious of our consciousness and can posit it as "I", but are
capable of such choices after self-awareness emerges.
>
> ...thanks.
>
No Prob.
>
> -psypher
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