| | I wrote, "Well, I'm not a pediatrician or pediatric psychologist, so I don't know the specific physiological or psychological factors that predispose a baby to suckle at his mother's breast, but I'm pretty sure it isn't 'the choice to think'."
Michael Moeller replied, "That's ok, Bill, because you don't need to be a pediatrician or pediatric psychologist to recognize that a reflex like suckling or a knee-jerk is not cognition."
Well, I wouldn't say that suckling is simply a reflexive action, like a knee-jerk. In any case, you didn't say that the values you were referring to had to be cognitively arrived at. Had you done so, I would not have used that as an example.
You continued, "There are no 'psychological factors' that give man automatic knowledge, which is precisely what you are demanding here in order to justify your position."
Who said anything about "automatic knowledge"?? My point was that children are naturally curious and that their knowledge is arrived at by a process of investigation and discovery along with the education they receive at home and in school.
You continue, "That is the dead-end of determinists--they have no grounds to justify their position and thus try to make an appeal to automatic knowledge or "instinct" or "reflex" or some such variant (in this case we have the "suckling" of infants and the "natural curiosity" of children)."
I was simply giving examples of the kind of factors that contribute to one's development from an early age. I also mentioned the child's own decision to focus his mind and to direct his thinking.
You wrote, "The reason the position dissolves this way is that if one had to think (any particular), then one is not "free" to test and justify his theories, including the theory of determinism. All are the inevitable outcome of factors outside one's control where one "can only report that they are helpless to believe otherwise" (NB in "The Contradiction of Determinism")."
First of all, why can't you be determined to test and justify your theories, including the theory of determinism? It makes no more sense to say that you cannot test your theories for being determined to test them than it does to say that you cannot walk down the street for being determined to walk down the street. Secondly, as I've taken such pains to point out, the fact that one is determined to choose a particular action does not mean that one is not in control of it. See my example of the driver who "controls" his car by keeping it on a narrow mountain road, despite having no desire to drive it off the road and over the cliff. He can be said to "control" his car, even though he could not have driven it any differently under the circumstances.
You continue, "NB further indicates the absurdity of such a position when he writes: "Their [the advocates of determinism] beliefs are no more subject to their control than a lunatic's. They and the lunatic are both equally the pawn of deterministic forces. Both are incapable of judging their judgments." ("The Contradiction of Determinism").
This doesn't follow. I clearly have no choice but to accept the ideas that I regard as true and valid (however correct or mistaken they may be in reality), but that doesn't mean that I have no control over which ideas I accept and which I reject. I do indeed have control over them, but my control is based on my perception of what is rational and true. In this respect, I am determined to accept those ideas that make sense to me and to reject those that do not. For example, since capitalism makes sense to me and socialism does not, I cannot choose to reject capitalism in favor of socialism. I have no choice but to believe in capitalism so long as it appears to me to be the more rational of the two systems. Moreover, if I've formed a judgment based on what I believe to be true, what reason would I have to "judge" that judgment, unless I had some basis for doubting its validity or some new evidence causing me to question its truth? But if I had a basis for doubting its validity or questioning its truth, I would be no less inclined to re-evaluate it under a model of determinism than I would be under a model of free will. So I fail to see how determinism is incompatible with judging one's judgments.
You wrote, "For your sake, Bill, I hope you are in a better position to control the functioning of your consciousness than the man who believes the moon is made out of green cheese. (Oh no, here come the word games regarding "control".)"
When we say that a "lunatic" has no control over the functioning of his consciousness, we don't simply mean that he lacks free will; we mean that he lacks the ability to think rationally. As far as your remark about "the word games regarding 'control'," I view that as a veiled argument from intimidation, especially since you've made no effort to address the content of my position on that point.
I wrote: "As a child grows, he eventually becomes aware of the choice to think, to focus his mind, and to direct his thought processes, and he exercises that choice in accordance with the value that he places on it."
You replied, "AR explicitly addresses this point in the new book "Ayn Rand Answers" (pg 134): ...once you've acquired the rudiments of reason, you focus your mind consciously and volitionally. But how do you learn to focus it originally? In the same way an infant learns to focus his eyes. He is not born with eyes in focus; focusing his eyes is an acquired attribute, though, it's done automatically. (I'm not sure whether it's entirely automatic; but from what we can observe, no volition on the infant's part is necessary.) Why does he learn to focus them? Because he's trying to see--to perceive. Similarly, an infant or young child learns to focus his mind in the form of wanting to know something--to understand clearly. That is the beginning from which a fully conscious, rational focus comes. But that focus, at any given moment, is self-initiated and sustained by a process of choice."
I largely agree with this statement, as I don't think it is incompatible with determinism, which allows for self-initiated action as well as for choice. The only place I would question Rand's statement is at the very end, where she says, "that focus, at any give moment, is self-initiated and sustained by a process of choice." If this means that you must choose to sustain it at any given moment, then I'm not so sure I would agree, although there are certainly times when you do have to make that choice.
You continued, "We don't need to to retreat into speculations about the consciousness of infants and children--Jeff was completely correct when he said that free-will is self-evident through introspection."
Here I would disagree. I don't think it's self-evident through introspection. It is true that we have the experience of making choices--of choosing one alternative rather than another--but that process should not be confused with free will, which is the ability to choose differently under the same conditions. After all, what would it mean to experience free will--to experience the ability to choose differently under the same conditions? It would mean that we've observed ourselves choosing differently under the same conditions. That would be an experience of free will, but it is clearly one that we will never have, since we will never again find ourselves in precisely the same conditions. At the very least, we will have changed psychologically. The sense in which we could have chosen differently under the same conditions may also arise, because we can imagine ourselves doing so. But to imagine such a choice is not to experience it. Imagination and experience are two very different things.
You write, "I'm certain, Bill, that my choice to focus and the subsequent choice to write this post were not the result of suckling at my mother's breast when I was an infant. Sorry."
Of course, they weren't the proximate result of your doing so, which is what your comment suggests that the determinist is saying. But he says no such thing. He does, of course, say that these activities are the remote result of your doing do so, but there's nothing paradoxical about that, because according to determinism, the action that you take today is the result of every antecedent factor leading up to it.
You add, "What disturbs me most about your position is that it amounts to a frontal assault on one's values, which are not the product of one's full, volitional consciousness but instead flow from a chain of "antecedent factors" that begin with robotic "reflexes". Pure rubbish."
Look, Michael, one's early responses, although they are links in the causal chain leading up to one's present choices, have no direct bearing on those choices in the way that you are suggesting. According to determinism, one forms one's values based on one's understanding of what choices and actions are rational or appropriate. There is no "frontal assault" on one's values here.
- Bill
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