🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <nyikos.720912251@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>In <1corvaINNfi3@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@soda.berkeley.edu (Cosma Shalizi) writes:
>>The obvious rejoinder, taken by many, is that Derek's (and our) feeling of
>>free will is, in fact, an illusion, and that his last minute changes of
>>mind were as pre-determined as his first post to the net, or anything else
>>for that matter. If this makes us ethically bankrupt, so be it. 
>
>It also flies in the face of common sense.

Is this anything more than saying "I can't imagine how what you're
saying could be true, therefore it's not true"?  I wish I had a nickel
for every true statement that was at some point in history widely held
to "fly in the face of common sense".

>What you and I have been 
>typing *makes sense*, and yet it is all supposed to be explained by the
>coursing of electrical impulses through neural synapses, and the 
>permeation of sodium and potassium ions through neural membranes.  If 
>that is all that is ultimately at work, why does the finished product
>make so much sense to us on the conscious level, and why do we feel we
>are in control over it?

You apparently feel that you're "in control".  Can you tell us what it
means to be "in control" and why you feel that you're "in control"?
Can you also tell us what is meant by something "making sense"?  Is it
any different from from the property "being something which, when I see
it, causes me to say `That makes sense'"?  You may think these
questions disingenuous, but I assure you they're not.  It seems to me
that there are a number of phenomena here that you're not examining
very closely, and dismissing by saying "It's common sense!"
-- 
Ian Sutherland
ian@eecs.nwu.edu

Sans Peur