Re: OT: Memes Vs. Free Will

From: Clifford Heath (no_at_spam.please.net)
Date: 09/26/04 

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:08:38 +1000

Guy Macon wrote:
>>The independently generated behaviour *is* the free will.
>>Just because it's random doesn't mean we can't *ascribe*
>>meaning and value to it.
> I am wodering on what basis you have concluded that it is random.
> It seems to lack certain basic characteritics of randomness, such
> as being completely unpredictable.

Well, I figure that the quantum noise is pretty white, though
that's a supposition. The behaviour we create is the result of
heavy filtering through on the extreme inertia of the processes
that produce it - our habits. Obviously the results are going
to be pretty predictable, though with occasional surprises.

I used to hang onto the quantum loophole as a place where miracles
could occur, and though that's still possible, I see no need for
them now. If we hope for eternity, we need to seek a non-material
factor in the psyche - spirit - which can outlast material decay.
But observing that the issue of free will isn't solved by that
supposition (as I argued before), there is still no eternal basis
for valuing choices and outcomes. So our only sure values must be
based on the observation of nature. We assign values according to
our purposes; good things lead toward our purposes and bad things
away. In the absence of higher purposes, we must take existence
itself as a purpose. But what does it existence require? All the
incredible complexity and richness we observe is produced by
entropic processes, and we ourselves are the highest observable
image of that complexity; we can think about it. Nature wasn't
always so rich and interesting, it's becoming more so. It's as
if the universe was intrinsically creative. Complexity theory
shows there's no need to suppose a creative Person, so there's
no sure source of an ultimate purpose there. As far as we can
know a single purpose, it is to preserve and extend the novelty
which seems intrinsic to the most fundamental fact of all; things
really *do* exist, and we exist to take an interest in it.

The purpose of the creativist is to create: to think, say and do
new things, things that have not happened before. It is to teach
and enable others to do the same things, so they can create new
things for themselves. Lastly it is to nurture diversity wherever
it occurs and in whatever form. Novelty as a process is robust,
but newborn things are fragile.

Clifford Heath.
Hooray, I managed to relent from correcting Kev's definition of "I".

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