Heidegger

On Jul 18, 2006, at 7:37 PM, Bernx at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/18/2006 8:59:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> rtsmitty at gmail.com writes:
> Philip Baker,
>
> I fail to see how free-will would make deterrents ineffective. Free
> will in any common conception does not free the person from all
> conceivable realities, only those of deterministic origins. As far as
> anything would make sense to a human, actions must be grounded in
> some conception of reality, and then the function of deterrents at
> the level of intelligibility would continue to be as effective as
> they ever could be. Because even if people have free will, the world
> is not completely random (or even random enough, as would be
> necessary to assume the ineffectiveness of deterrents), which
> therefore presupposes another medium through which examination of an
> idea such as deterrent is possible, and more effective.
> Can you name a “reality” that IS NOT deterministic and free of
> random discourse?
> Bernard

Many “realities” that are not based upon the assumptions of physics
are free from random discourse. Because insofar as the said “reality”
is a human institution, the basic assumptions are not required to be
related in any way to the domain of determinism (physics) while still
remaining a reasonable institution. Principles of justice exist in
such a reality, as there is no way to identify any such concept in
nature or physics, and yet it is still very reasonable and quite
useful to humans.

Why should it at all be conceivable that something could be useful if
its underlying assumptions are unfounded? In what arena can humans
continue to function if not under similar presuppositions of many
current institutions/ideas?

Even if we take the world as deterministic and use that to define all
our culture/institutional ideas, it would be quite useless for us. To
be useful, determinism would have to tell us more about what to do
(and thus the future) than simply absolve us of guilt. Because,
insofar as we assume determinism, we can only approximate it in
predicting outcomes as an algorithm will never replace what actually
happens, giving only a crude picture limited to set parameters.
Therefore, if something like a functional probability remains, we
might possibly need to continue to rely on institutions more similar
to what we have now that are not necessarily “properly” grounded.

On a side note, I am curious to know thoughts on the grounds of science.

Posted on Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
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