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Author Topic:   Prof Denies Human Free Will
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 1 of 12 (238646)
08-30-2005 5:20 PM


Will Provine at Cornell
=========================================================
The picture caption reads "Resistence is futile. Prof William Provine, ecology and evolutionary biology, argues against intelligent desing and human free will yesterday before an audience of about sixty.
Will Provine was my Day Hall apointed "mentor" and advisor. He is responsible to for my education going down rather than up. I will explain as Will had said "I was a vocal opponent of I.D. even before [the movement] began," Provine said at the opening accroding the Sun Staff Writer.
In fact the whole thing is really really funny because all this IS is Will NOT saying how dyanmic science controls free will, which is what he told me he thought *MIGHT* happen IN THE FUTURE waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the 80s but confusing an audience memember say, Scott Jackson, who thought "[Provine] seemed to be talking about [volitional] free will".
I would like to get a tape of the proceeding but short that I will have to use things like "Choosing doesn't imply free will", he said "Choices are not made freely - there are all kinds of constraints on it."
But i can pretty much guarentee that WILL DOES NOT even THINK about what Betrand Russell said in 1918 that I just posted YESTERDAY
EvC Forum: Building life in a lab - Synthetic Biologists
for then HE COULD NOT SAY THERE ARE "all kinds" of constraint on "it". There are not. Of course we might be disagreeing a bit across a period here but it is clear FROM WILL HIMSELF (to me and probably many others) that there must be CONTROL (hence "choice") BY DYNAMICS FIRST. That has never happened since the 80s and it ALL back to "before the movement began".
His discussion about human and chimps is at least a public thing will Phil Johnson ~ mid 90s so still nothing new here either.
The other quotes look like he has not moved an iota since the 80s dressed up in 90s clothes.
I'll look into it a little further but the whole thing smells worse than Amsterdam if I might mix a few meta-what/fors.
=====================================================
The Cornell Daily Sun vol. 122 No. 7 Front Page
This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 09-05-2005 06:09 PM

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by joshua221, posted 08-30-2005 8:57 PM Brad McFall has replied
 Message 4 by Nuggin, posted 08-30-2005 10:44 PM Brad McFall has replied

joshua221 
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 12 (238686)
08-30-2005 8:57 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Brad McFall
08-30-2005 5:20 PM


crazy
quote:
The picture caption reads "Resistence is futile. Prof William Provine, ecology and evolutionary biology, argues against intelligent desing and human free will yesterday before an audience of about sixty.
This is crazy, I had begun to think about this while in my Biology class, when the teacher started to talk about how hormones, and nerves, spinal cord control a lot of our movement. He said he hated talking about it because he would like more to believe that he had all the control in the world over his actions. But he said sometimes when we react in certain situations, we don't use our brain, instead we use the spine, which takes no thinking, and is almost a reflexive action.
Could you explain his theory is regards to how much control we have over our actions?

porteus@gmail.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Brad McFall, posted 08-30-2005 5:20 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by crashfrog, posted 08-30-2005 10:10 PM joshua221 has not replied
 Message 7 by Brad McFall, posted 08-31-2005 7:10 AM joshua221 has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 3 of 12 (238704)
08-30-2005 10:10 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by joshua221
08-30-2005 8:57 PM


Re: crazy
But he said sometimes when we react in certain situations, we don't use our brain, instead we use the spine, which takes no thinking, and is almost a reflexive action.
What you've described is exactly the physiological process of reflexive action.
Look it's kind of like driving a car. You steer, but in certain situations - like you barrelling heardfirst into a lamppost - the car decides to fire the airbag charges. The good news for you is that you train how your reflexes work, which is what martial artists or video gamers do. Free will, again. You live in a body that exerts certain influences, influences dictated by evolutionary outcomes, but you still have ultimate, or at least proximate, control. Free will.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by joshua221, posted 08-30-2005 8:57 PM joshua221 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Brad McFall, posted 09-06-2005 7:49 PM crashfrog has not replied

Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2492 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 4 of 12 (238713)
08-30-2005 10:44 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Brad McFall
08-30-2005 5:20 PM


Frost Bite on the Brain
To be fair, the weather in Ithaca can cause all sort of crazies to come out.
It's cold. Bitter cold. Bitter, grey, rainy cold. Bitter, wind right off the lake, slushy streets, fog of frost cold.
Bitter, I can't find a damn place to park my car, the bus to College town is always late, they closed the only good pizza place, the bus station is practically underwater, this Wegman's is ridiculously huge, is there any body of water here that it's "falling", cold.
Okay, I'm a bit off topic, but I did 4 years in Ithaca, followed by 4 years in Phoenix just to thaw out.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Brad McFall, posted 08-30-2005 5:20 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by joshua221, posted 08-31-2005 12:09 AM Nuggin has replied
 Message 8 by Brad McFall, posted 08-31-2005 7:13 AM Nuggin has not replied

joshua221 
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 12 (238756)
08-31-2005 12:09 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Nuggin
08-30-2005 10:44 PM


Re: Frost Bite on the Brain
My cousin went to Ithaca College, and now teaches music at a high school.

porteus@gmail.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Nuggin, posted 08-30-2005 10:44 PM Nuggin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Nuggin, posted 08-31-2005 12:39 AM joshua221 has not replied
 Message 9 by Brad McFall, posted 09-05-2005 8:36 AM joshua221 has not replied

Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2492 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 6 of 12 (238767)
08-31-2005 12:39 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by joshua221
08-31-2005 12:09 AM


Re: Frost Bite on the Brain
What year?
BTW, we're waaay off topic

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by joshua221, posted 08-31-2005 12:09 AM joshua221 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Brad McFall, posted 09-05-2005 6:20 PM Nuggin has not replied

Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 7 of 12 (238874)
08-31-2005 7:10 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by joshua221
08-30-2005 8:57 PM


Re: crazy
Yea that is pretty easy to explain. &, Yes, it is pretty "crazy" to think humans have that much control nervously over other humans (or could have, as I should have, said).
I must start off by saying that Bertrand Russell had said that sometimes "words"'just appear' but are not there. I will not use this however in answer to you today unless later someone else really tries to pull the chain in this thread etc. lOL
There is this idea from Paul MacClean(sp?) who asserted back I think in the early 80s at around the same time as "Broca's Brain" came out in paperback that the ANIMAL brain is "triune", including a categorical split of the reptile and mammamal etc, essentially cutting in the medulla oblongotta out.
So, if someone says to you that "your spine made you do it" rather than a cortex etc they might be advocating a kind of evolutionary psychology which associates some kind of primal urges or primative instincts to our cold-blooded ansestry... or so they think. Personally I do not know of detailed neurophysiology of reptiles that enables one to particularize such a statement. I have stopped looking after I got rather turned off with perceptrons which are appearing again in artificial intelligence. That is not how the reptile brain looks disseted to me at least.
Now the writer using "relfexive" action might be a bit more sophistiacted in the difference of empirical and other kinds of psychology could have been using or thinking of Pavlov and tried that out as well but again the division of a brain three fold or how ever many fold is a generalization. If a neurologist or brain biologist shows me evidence that this seperation supports discussion such as you teacher might have presented it as then I will even "believe" it. I havent seen that kind of evidence.
Instead Will Provine, indeed, said something similar to what your teacher apparently said. Your teacher actually "fleshed in" in the rest of the argument by naming hormones etc. Will was not that willing to put his will on the line in the 80s as he only said that there would be "dynamic control" over the will (he did not seperate free from good will). It appears from the article that he AGAIN over 20 years later skipped these things just as fast. An audience memember could not follow his reasoning .
Now I did follow his reasoning in the 80s but I just discounted it awaiting evidence. I have not seen it. By only asserting "dynamic control" he was on save ground. There has been since a lot of scholarship after it was found that invariants might not be the key to the discussion to discuss "constraints" and all it appears to me that Will has done as present the elite view sans rasion de etre.
I have a spinal cord injury and indeed there are "body motions" that my soma makes these days it never made volitionally before and I never noticed them. I dont think they ever occurred in the past either. But the only real result of lower nervous system activity on my behavior is in slightly altering the length of some social interactions but as people really are generally good natured and many people are sympathetic to injuries AFTER they know it only causes some blushing and embrassement on my part. I can live with that.
I hope that helps. If you want a little more science"". I'll look some things up for you. God Bless. Brad.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by joshua221, posted 08-30-2005 8:57 PM joshua221 has not replied

Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 8 of 12 (238877)
08-31-2005 7:13 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Nuggin
08-30-2005 10:44 PM


Re: Frost Bite on the Brain
Nuggin, I didnt know!
Wall Mart now is even bigger.
We are talking Cornell not Ithaca. YOU know the difference and so does Mammuthus.
This is the coffee shop (Collegtown Bagels) however so ... ok...
In fact I found New Orleans to bring out more diverse points of view than can be associated in any way with Ithacans. I hope they all survive and do so willingly.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Nuggin, posted 08-30-2005 10:44 PM Nuggin has not replied

Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 9 of 12 (240526)
09-05-2005 8:36 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by joshua221
08-31-2005 12:09 AM


Re: Frost Bite on the Brain
Prophex,
I actually went out and BOUGHT some picture space on the web so now I will be able to get anything I need up visually. I havent scanned in the Provine piece but I will next.
In this lighter vein, I will also discuss two Cornell Daily Sun editorials on ID which I "bet" were inspired by Will. One came out just before he spoke and one just after. The Dennet piece in the Times however trumps any four of these clippings combined in likely effect.
The state of science that has the property to explain form-making and translation in space symbolically (as to the equations referred to or taught at Cornell) is not up to the job of encompassing "most" of the observable evidence. Some elite standard of what is MORE than most is being applied here. I'll dissect this and the two other papers"" later. Thanks for giving this thread some life!!
My English teacher also teaches at IC and the organist in my Church is a music teacher at IC. God Bless

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by joshua221, posted 08-31-2005 12:09 AM joshua221 has not replied

Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 10 of 12 (240661)
09-05-2005 6:20 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Nuggin
08-31-2005 12:39 AM


Re: Frost Bite on the Brain
What this author fails to notice is that good will can turn the discpline of evolutionary theory into an engine for solving the popuation problem WITHOUT resorting to theological disputes among the people. I'll be the first to admit that this is a difficult idea to bring into the structure of evolutionary theory but that such world views get amalgamated instead seems outside the pail or the pale pile of twisted phone networks.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Nuggin, posted 08-31-2005 12:39 AM Nuggin has not replied

Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 11 of 12 (240926)
09-06-2005 7:49 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by crashfrog
08-30-2005 10:10 PM


Re: crazy
quote:
The strengths of the ether theory lies in its sober noncommittal attitude; it studies matter by its effects without attempting to penetrate into its interior. Speculation is tempted to fill the ”lacuna’ left by the particle. Pure field theory of matter does it in one way; another is suggested by general relativity theory, for the latter makes it possible to entertain the hypothesis that the grooves of the elementary particles are bottomless, without forcing one to conceive of the particles as actual singularities in the space-time manifold. (I speak here of the channels in the four-dimensional world as if they were grooves in a two-dimensional surface). Indeed general relativity does not prescribe the topology of the world, and it may therefore happen that the wolrd has unattainable ”fringes’ not only toward the infinite but also inwardly. In line with Leibniz’s ideas, the material particle, although imbedded in a spatial environment from which its field effects take their start, would itself then be a monad existing beyond space and time. Hence one may not say, ”Here is a charge,’ but only, ”This closed surface within the field surrounds the charge.’ The inner fringes would be the geometrico-physical basis for the splitting of the world into space and time which takes place within our consciousness, tied as it is to a material body.
Schelling , partially under the influence of Leibniz, has expressed ideas which vaguely anticipate this development. “Thus there ought to be discernable in experience something, “ he says on p 21. of his “Erster Entwurf der Naturphilosophie” (1799; Samtliche Werke, III, p 21, Cotta, 1858) “ which without being in space, would be principle of all spatiality,” This “natural monad” is not itself matter but action, “for which there is no measure but it own product.” Based on the thesis that “ the striving of all original tendencies is toward the filling of space,” he then arrives at the construction of a shapeless fluid - which we today would replace by the field.
p176Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science. Herman Weyl
It can not be completely true if Prophex was trying to associate his teacher’s teaching with Will’s views to assert that it simply WAS Pavlovianism even if that was what the teacher quoted in class. The question, it seems to me, and Pro please don’t hesistate to proclaim anyotherwise if that is the case, is if teachers are teaching misinformation BECAUSE the elite profs are NOT doing their homework, covering up the homework of their students, or simply being authoritative without substance. One teach from authority without the authority being true. (this brings up the issue of what is the relation of science and the government etc).
There is no way that Provine could be referring to simple behaviorism. He intends to subsume “choice” under control via constraints. But look. In Will’s Evolution and Ethics Class in 1986 we all had to give oral presentations. I attempted to essentially detail what Weyl had already described above surfically. I named this thing , not a monad, but a “fundamental particle”. I was going a little further than Weyl ( and this can be brought out if I explain other chains of thought of Weyls in terms of my own) by SUBTRACTING the surrounding volume as being TOO MUCH. I started by trying to say that it doesn’t matter where in the nucleus the proton is, so long as it is in the nucleus provided the nucleus is in an atom and atom in a cell a cell in an organism an organism in a deme. At this point where Weyl went to the word ”fringe’ I questioned if the subtraction would include the linnead hierarchy or not and I located the issue of evolution and ethics HERE, not in the choice of not saying what surround the charge for what is a charge. Will and the other faculty member were impressed by ALL that I had to say but you see this distrupts Will’s POSITION that free will does not exist as he can only maintain that dynamically in a science that can assert what the charge is not merely what surrounds any charge. I think the elite science failed to move on, failed its students and/or is thus failing to have high school teachers teach sensitivity to border questions.
It will take me some scholarhship to work this up to the issue of symbol manipulation but my dear amphibious poster I will try, for I truly do believe, you, when you said in that other thread that you did not understand what I Had said. I have to give some more thought to posting in a more serious vein, as I don’t think that the ambiguity in the edge, no matter how minimzed remands the form of response that AEA seems to want from me, also elsewhere. The math problem is metric vs geometry but the biological problem is not clear to me short of direct translation of Gould’s rather less than potential position on future utility.
Yes love at first sight is troublesome to self-righteous but teaching hormones where fields were clearly thought is wrong. Let’s not confuse the evolution of space with the Microsoft functionality of “filling” right or down!! Heirarchical Thermodynamics can refill any database emptied of contents.
Will doesnt believe in free will. I see no evidence that science has been able to dynamically contain this will, goodly free. Science and Will should be more defensive but instead they dont even feell the tension. This leaves the student with either a bad grade or a bad taste even though what is proffered is not bitter. Weyl attempted to place Russel's Kantian personality "in the framwork of Laplacian physics". Provine asserts that Wright is a Laplacian. Therefore the same framework applies syllogistically. WRONG!! The questioning student is proof enough. Politicians can hear the differnce. When will the teachers? The elites know too much for their own good.
This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 09-06-2005 07:59 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by crashfrog, posted 08-30-2005 10:10 PM crashfrog has not replied

AdminBen
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 12 (247693)
09-30-2005 2:26 PM


Thread copied to the Prof Denies Human Free Will thread in the In The News forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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