I am in the Eastern Time Zone> I know Kaylar
is also.<br><br>I am not sure it is exactly correct
to call myself a determinist, I call myself a
"non-free-willist". This is an awkward label, but it is more
accurate.

Hello,<br><br> I live in the Mountain Time Zone
USA. Where<br>are you ? What time is convenient for
you ?<br>My schedule is pretty open.<br><br> Anybody
else interested ?<br><br> There are so few
determinists in this world,<br>I thought it would be nice to
meet a few. <br><br> Best regards, Jon

Everything in my genes and all the events heretofore in my life lead me to also
think that a little give-and-take conversation might be interesting.<br><br>But
when?

Hello,<br><br> Dean, I think the word you're
looking for<br>is rehabilatation, which can probably
only<br>work if the right conditions exist. Let's
not<br>forget that not all inmates are un-educated.<br>There
are no doubt plenty of college graduates<br>convicted
of drug offenses. <br><br> Is anybody in this club
interested in having<br>some chats in the club's chatroom
?<br>Posts are nice and are valuable, but a
little<br>give-and-take conversation might be interesting.<br>What do you
think ?<br><br> Best regards, Jon

Hello Jon, Steve -- Thank you for your kind
comments. The comment of how FW got into Western Phil. was
based on something I read once in a library. I forgot
the book I got it from, and I may have embellished it
a bit, but I think it's basically true. I know the
Greeks (Leucippus, Democritus) had some idea of FW, but
it wasn't such a big deal until the Christians got a
hold of it in the first millenium AD (To the best of
my knowledge). About punishment -- Yes, humans are
complex creatures and they react in complex ways to their
complex environment, and you can't absolutely predict
what they are going to do. But if you know a person
personally and you have to punish them, you have a better
chance of doing it without causing unwanted side effects
than a stranger, or alternatively, you have a better
chance of really pissing them off. If you take prison
inmates and give them a chance to earn their GED and get
time off for good behavior, you will probably generate
less blind rage than if you just brutalize and
dehumanize them for a while. That's sort of what I mean by
punishment in context, there might be a better word, but I
haven't thought of it yet.<br>Anyway, I was hoping to get
some feedback on my thesis that universal compassion
follows from the kind of neo-Skinnerian determinism we're
talking about. I have more details on my web site,
<a href=http://www.geocities.com/siderion
target=new>http://www.geocities.com/siderion</a> if you want to
look.<br><br>Sincerely,<br><br>Dean

Dean,<br><br>I am glad you have found this club.
We sure need more active members. Days without
posts... how dull.<br> <br>I find your theory concerning
FW and how it became attatched to Western
Philosophy. Is this one of your own conclusions, or have you
adopted it from someone else? (Just curious.)

Hello,<br><br> Dean, I want to clarify one point.
We cannot<br>predict the effect of punishment on
anybody.<br>The state of the Universe is not
computable.<br>Nobody knows all the variables involved to do<br>the
calculation. And, judging by the rate of<br>recidivism, the
effect of punishment is a highly variable probability.
<br><br> Best regards, Jonathan

Anyway, I want to discuss the state being
responsible instead of people. In the previous post I
explained briefly how responsibility requires determinism,
and gave references.<br>The issue is social control.
Every society has it and needs it to survive, but FW
can't explain it and even says it doesn't exist, hence
the current crappy state of affairs. Skinner, as I
recall, in BF&D talked about how social institutions need
to switch to positive reinforcement instead of the
usual punishment and negative reinforcement. Not a bad
idea, but it doesn't go far enough. It wouldn't solve
the problem. The thing is we get social control from
EVERY PERSON WE INTERACT WITH. So, the idea is to teach
EVERYBODY positive reinf. etc. etc. Instead of top-down
reform, make it bottom up. Skinner said -r and +-p cause
counterattack or avoidance. So, the idea is to social control
people without causing c. or a. Staddon, who I mentioned
in the previous post, said punishment is still very
effective, so we shouldn't throw it out. I say you have to
control the context of the punishment very carefully to
avoid the unwanted side effects. To me, teaching
individuals to treat others to behave in a socially
beneficial manner without causing the unwanted side effects
is pretty close to teaching them COMPASSION. It's a
lot like Christianity, in that everybody has to look
out for everybody else (in Walden II Skinner made a
comparison w/ Christ).<br>The other thing is faith. Now,
faith is normally taken to mean belief in some
supernatural entity. But the reason for believing that is so
you will be blessed by the se, or that so everything
in your life will be okay. So, that means you have
to accept with grace the things the se shoves at
you. In the det. POV we are not in control of even our
own lives, much less the cosmos, so we have to accept
with grace what the universe throws at us. We have to
be not too attached to our expectations/demands of
the world, since we can't control everything. So, I
say faith in this light comes from
determinism.<br><br>And Skinner didn't try to deny disprove the mind's
existence, like Watson. B. F. just didn't have any tools to
explain it.<br><br>Sincerely,<br><br>Dean

I am so happy to find people who take determinism
seriously! In my own little world I've been on my own for
the past eight years or so in that regard. I'm new,
but I will jump right in.<br><br>For that guy who was
trying to disprove free will, I know of 5 experiments
that show humans responding to their social and
physical environment rather than some inner autonomous
agent. If you post again I'll list and describe them.
Also, FW became attached most strongly to the Western
philosophical tradition because Christian theologians needed an
explanation for why humans can be held responsible for their
actions if God is all powerful.<br><br>Regarding the
neurophysiological disproof of free will, there is no part of the
brain that has outputs but no inputs. Read "Philosophy
in the Flesh" by Lakoff and Johnson. Only part of
that book deals specifically with determinism, but it
has a lot of arguments in related areas. Like
epistemology: we don't know things as they are, we just have
models that give us certain results in certain
situations, like FW or Det. as models of human
behavior.<br><br>About responsibility -- John Staddon of Duke University
wrote an Atlantic Monthly (Feb. '95) article called "On
Responsibility and Punishment." Mostly what he said is det. is
NECESSARY for responsibility. You can only reasonably
punish people if you can predict that the punishment
will decrease some unwanted behavior! Deterrence
requires determinism. People are responsible if they can
learn from the consequences of their
actions.<br><br>That's some basic stuff. I will continue in the next
post. I hope some of you are still out
there.<br><br>Sincerely,<br><br>Dean

Excellent point.

I find it interesting that you feel
responsibility lies with the State. If you cannot hold
individual's responsible, then how can you hold the State
responsible. The State is made up of individuals. If I am not
responsible for my own behavior, then how can I be held
responsible for the behavior of others?

Steve,<br><br>I'm very interested in your work,
since I'm writing a related book. <br><br>As for
"fault", you put your finger on one major aspect of the FW
debate. Many who recognize the difficulty in supporting
FW are nonetheless fearful that if they do not do so
they will promote "irresponsibility". Of course, the
fallacy here is that the only way one can truly act
irresponsibly is if they indeed HAD FW--not if they didn't.
<br><br>As you know, behavior is the end product of a myriad
of determined factors acting in concert--including
past experience, genetics, instantaneous internal
milieu, setting, etc., etc. Therefore, one need not worry
about someone "willing" themselves to be irresponsible
or not; how they behave is based exclussively on
determined factors.<br><br>In my view of a world that has
recognized FW as the illusion it is, society would still use
all former and new techniques for necessary behavior
control, but the proportions and the quality of their
application would be different. The result should be more
efficient and certainly would be more compassionate. In
addition, there would be no spurious, self-defeating,
heaping-on of "guilt" and "punishment" for there own sakes
or for "revenge". <br><br>True responsibility should
exist and lay with the state, not with the individual.
This is a key statement in my manifesto. If a system
(such as society) or a technique, or some machine does
not work, you fix it; it does little good to simply
"blame" it, or to punish some component of it.
<br><br>How many of us swear at the hammer that we strike our
thumb with? We anthropomorphize inanimate objects
because of the same, built-in neurological mechanisms
that create the FW illusion. But, there are no
mistakes in life, as someone once said, there are merely
lessons. <br><br>So long as we "blame" the individual for
his/her behavior, we continue to miss the real causes of
unacceptable outcomes and therefore defeat ourselves in
effecting the kinds of changes we had all hoped for. Is
this not the very situation we have seen
historically--and which insideously persists today? The illusion of
FW leads to no real solutions; instead, it leads us
to follow perilous
mirages<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Les Garwood, D.O.

Greetings All,<br><br>First, I'm gratified that
this board is starting to get a little action; of
course, I'm biased on this issue, but I can't think of a
more important topic for society to consider--for
reasons I tried to at least allude to in my manifesto.
<br><br>Next, some previous posts contain the fallacy that the
onus of "proof" for the *lack* of existance of a
postulated thing is up to others. It is not; it is up to the
one(s) making the claim for the reality of something's
existance to demonstrate it. I'd also point out that there
are an infinite number of things one can postulate to
exist that cannot be "proven" NOT to exist (pardon the
double negative). <br><br>Further, there is no mechanism
ever observed or successfully argued to support the
metaphysical concept of FW. There is, however, a crushing
burden of evidence that the universe, and therefore
everything in it, is a determined thing.<br><br>As for the
illusion of FW, the fact that it is universally perceived
(or nearly so) does not, by some default, make it
valid, any more than the perception that the sun circles
the earth, or that the latter is also flat!
<br><br>Also, one is not compelled to follow an illusion merely
because it is there; we can learn to work around it. If
this were not true then many more individuals would
have perished by now from following mirages of oases
in the dessert.<br><br>Certainly the illusion of FW
is compelling, and difficult to ignore; that's not
what I'm arguing. I'm simply saying that surrendering
to it helps to perpetuate much unnecessary human
suffering and prevents us from progressing as a society and
a species (failing this lesson, we can expect to
perish at the shore of some illusory oasis too).
<br><br>But *learning* itself, I must acknowledge, is not a
"choice", but an automatic process. As such, it is somewhat
of a misnomer. Yet, because of the built-in bias of
our language and culture, it is awkward, if not
impossible, to converse in a way that does not imply the
reality of FW. This is not my onus
either.<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Les Garwood, D.O.

Any definitive answers to the free
will/determinism question will have to come
from<br>Neuro-psychology. I know of the work of 2<br>people you might want
to check out:<br><br>1) Joseph Ledoux <br>2)
Benjamin Libet<br><br>It takes a long time to amass enough
evidence<br>to support a theory thru the scientific
method.<br>Behaviorists like Skinner sought to disprove<br>the existence
of mind itself let alone free will,<br>but could
never build a compelling case and so<br>are ignored.
<br><br>Jonathan

The problem with disproving “Free Will” is that
“Free Will”, at the core, is an issue of perception.
Humans have a perception of having a will that is free,
(whatever that means), but the reality is that this
perception is only an illusion. But it is such a perfect
illusion that it imperceptible and almost unshakable.
<br><br>There have been many experiments that have been
constructed that seek to demonstrate that behavior is a
dependent phenomenon as opposed to independent, but there
are none, that I know of, that conclusively show that
the feeling of “Free Will” is merely an illusion. I
am hard pressed to design one that would… an
interesting problem for sure. I mean it is easy enough to
construct an experiment that can show that there can be
created a dependent behavior in a subject, but an
experiment that shows that all behaviors of a subject are
dependent… that’s the tough nut that remains to be
cracked.<br><br>This of course brings up an interesting question, one
that I will wait to see asked though before I answer
it.

Skinner wrote about free will and human behavior
in his book "Science and Human Behavior" but he
didn't mention any experiments..<br><br>I guess if you
could perfectly predict someone's behavior that would
disprove free will, but with the thousands of variables
involved and the difficulty of manipulating them in a
controlled manner, especially the internal ones ( compared
to physics or chemistry, for example), I would think
it's gonna be a while before psychology can
experimentally disprove free will..<br><br>But maybe somebody
smarter than me has found a way. I tend towards not
believing in free will just from anecdotal evidence, the
same people behaving similarly in similar situations,
etc and my own belief in "everything having a
reason", to put it technically<br><br>There's a huge
discussion about free will in the neswgroup alt.atheism but
it's deteriorated into an argument about semantics
(philosophers, you know..)<br><br>Why don't you post your paper
when you're done?<br><br>Cheers

Hi, yeah. Does anyone know of any pychological
studies done on free will. Im writing a psychology paper
drisproving free will, and i cant find any studies done. i
know some have been done, so even if you could just
point me in the right direction......

I was just wondering....

I am glad to have found this club. Let me tell
you that I am working on a book, the title of which
is "Paradox of Will". I would be glad to share my
work with the rest of you.<br><br>I have also started
a related club; this club is called "Nobody's At
Fault". The focus of this club is that we all should quit
beating each other up with guilt because FW is an
illusion and really there is no terminal blame which can
be assigned to any of us.<br><br>Steve

Hello,<br><br> My name is Jonathan, and I just
joined the club. Frankly, I'm surprised to find 3
others<br>in the club, as determinism is hardly a
popular<br>concept.<br><br> What would the world be like if the
majority<br>accepted determinism ? I don't know. I suspect<br>it would
not be utopian. Determinism comes in<br>many flavors,
from religious to scientific, from<br>dogmatic to
enlightened. So, which flavor are we considering here ? One of
my concerns is that<br>civil liberties and
democratic government might be discarded. Some people seem
to have such a <br>pessimistic view of determinism
that human beings appear to be mere programmable
automatons who should be subjected to the "proper"
conditioning. <br><br> In a more positive light, I guess I
would hope for a major overhaul of the justice system,
to one where "offenders" are not viewed as enemies
of the state/society who must be punished and
incarcerated but rehabilitated with the most humane and
effective methods available. That probably sounds pretty
utopian. Sorry !<br><br> Why is the notion of free will so
prevalent ? Is it social conditioning, something we learn ?
Or, is it as Spinoza wrote:<br><br>"Men believe
themselves free, inasmuch as they are conscious of their
volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their
ignorance, of the causes which have disposed them to wish
and desire."<br><br> Best regards, Jonathan

Les,<br><br>Thanks much for the reply, I have
enjoyed reading your theories and think it would be a
shame if the club were shut down. There is another club
called "behaviorism" which I am also looking into. What
further reading do you suppose I could do in this area?I
am not a professional in any field related to
psychology or philosophy so I should probably start with the
easier stuff.<br><br>Incidentally, I was on vacation
when I read your response at the local internet cafe,
and I remember having a discussion with a friend that
night and finding myself trying to make my point by
using the word "choose", which he quickly pointed out
to me.<br><br>Remembering my physiological
psychology class and illustrations of the growth of neuronal
connections in the brain, I definitely believe learning takes
place, I am curious about differences between learning
that affects motor skills and learning that may affect
emotional reactions.<br><br>Cheers

Dear Porto,<br><br>First, let me apologize for
not having replied sooner. A few weeks ago I noticed
your post listed, but when I tried to access it a
message popped up and said that my board was discontinued
because of inactivity. Recently, I tried again and was
able to view it. Thanks for your thoughtful comments
and questions.<br><br>Regarding your first question:
I completely agree, many (most?) psychologists,
psychiatrists like myself, and mental health workers in general
"believe" in FW. I put *believe* in scare quotes because
their obvious bias makes it hard to tell what they
truly "believe". Not to mention that the concept of
belief, itself, may be dependent upon a FW paradigm.
<br><br>I also fully agree that spontaneous, or de novo
origination of intent is a fallatious model and essentially
rooted in a metaphysical (and therefore an unempirical)
world. If something is causeless, how can it exist at
all? Further, if it arises from "random" effects
(another untenable concept), it would still not satisfy
the requirements for the existance of FW; where is
the vaunted, responsible agent?<br><br>The notion of
"inherent qualities" is begging the question; it relies on
FW in order for itself to exist. Such seeming
qualities are merely the cumulative effects of a myriad of
antecedent conditions and causes, stored in memory an
genetic code within any individual. What emerges from
this complexity is another illusion--of "inherent
qualities". Besides, there is nothing "free" implied in
"inherent", in my view.<br><br>(I may be out of space soon;
I'll e-mail you if I am. Personality changes, as
everything does, through learning/experience--not choice.
But personality changes excrutiatingly slowly, and
some traits are so resistant that, for practical
perposes, are immutable. Someone once said that life,
itself, is the greatest therapist; I maintain that it is
the only one. The rest of us are quick to take
credit/payment for the role, however. As for me, I am merely an
agent of countless forces which shape my apparent
role.<br><br>The whole debate about FW, in fact, may be the effect
of the self-organizing priciple/law of the universe.
It may be the same force that causes simple,
inorganic compounds to merge into organic ones, then life,
and ultimately "intelligent" life. We are hardwired,
by capricious evolutionary forces to explain
everything--including our illusions/delusions (like FW) in certain
ways. Collectively, then, this becomes our "consensual
mythology", as I like to call it.<br><br>More later, if you
are interested.<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Les Garwood,
D.O.

I remember reading Skinner while studying
psychology in college and the notion of not having free will
was kind of depressing to me, as I believe it was to
a lot of students at Harvard.<br><br>But now this
is not necessarily the case, I just read "Science
and Human Behavior" and Skinner's arguments for
determinism were quite compelling to me. It doesn't make any
sense to me that human behavior wouldn't follow the
same scientific laws of cause and effect as inanimate
objects. One psychologist I read argued against
determinism saying it was based on an innacurate notion of
causality, that it depended on a notion of Event A causing
Event B, as opposed to a notion that a thing's inherent
qualities cause it to behave in whatever manner, and that
one of human beings' inherent qualities was the
ability to self-generate action. This seems to me like "
creating something from nothing". Of course, as a
psychologist, he has a vested interest in free
will.<br><br>What do you think of this argument? <br><br>The
question of determinism interests me more from a
pyschological perspective than a sociological perspective. I've
always wondered whether people can change their
personalities, nobody I know has ever changed their personality
except under the influence of a drug, nor for that
matter have they ever changed their behavioral patterns
except after a traumatic event. But it seems a lot of
modern psychologists seem to think that you can change
your personality.<br><br>What do you think?

(Cont. from Part IIIA)More importantly, with a
new, learning-based model, I can function in
my<br>role as a psychiatrist better as well; I don't have to
hold my patients<br>personally "responsible" for their
illness/situation (responsibility in this<br>context, incidentally,
has always been a trite euphemism
for<br>blameworthiness). If a patient believes in FW, he/she must also
believe<br>that he/she is actually "bad", and not just his/her
behavior. Therefore,<br>he/she must remain unable to fully
trust any therapist who tries to pursuade<br>him/her
that they are really not to blame. As a result, a
patient risks<br>remaining locked into his/her sense of
hopelessness and futility. If they do<br>manage to break out
of this mind-rut, it isn't because of the therapy,
it's<br>in spite of it.<br><br>Today, it's common practice
for therapists to use psychobabble phrases
like<br>"you must take responsibility for yourself"-as though
the patient could have<br>all along, but for some
unrecoverable, non-cause, "chose" not to instead.<br>This kind
of tactic may get the therapist (and society) off
the hook for<br>being unable to come up with truly
effective treatment, but it<br>simultaneously creates yet
another burden for the patient. In contrast,<br>without
the delusion of FW hobbling me, or my patients, I can
be<br>unreservedly and un-hypocritically on my patients' side and
against the<br>forces that caused their problems.<br><br>
Similarly, they won't have to believe that they are
inexplicably "stupid"<br>or "evil" when they continue to
"choose" the same maladaptive behaviors<br>over-and-over;
instead, they can see their problems for what they truly
are:<br>the result of unlearning and mis-learning in the face
of more unalterable<br>circumstances, like genetics
and past events. Their task becomes,<br>rightfully,
re-focused on new learning, not atonement, self-flagellation
and<br>other dis-empowering, self-defeating responses. By the
way, any value that<br>negative reinforcement had on
these patients was spent when they suffered<br>the bad
outcomes for their mis-deeds in the first place. The idea
that<br>punishment heaped on top of that will, somehow, help change
a person for<br>the better has not been reliably
demonstrated; in fact, the astronomical<br>recidivism rates for
all maladaptive and so-called criminal behavior
is<br>tragic evidence to the contrary.<br><br>Interestingly,
we can explain human behavior as well or better
without the<br>superfluous concept of FW, just as we can
explain combustion as requiring<br>only fuel, heat and an
oxidizer. Thanks to the principle of Occam's Razor,<br>we
no longer need to invoke metaphysical properties
like phlogeston, or fire<br>spirits.<br>(Cont. In Part
IV)

(Cont. From Part II; re-posted in IIIA,
IIIB)<br>Prisons and executions haven't helped to change behavior
in desired<br>directions for millennia__and they
aren't likely to help in the future; they<br>have been
an expedient, short-term patch for a long-term
problem. Now it's<br>time to pay the price, and we are
deeply in debt. This is especially so<br>given that the
U.S., as a modern, major industrialized nation, already
has<br>more people behind bars__both in actual numbers and
per capita__than any<br>other country in the world.
Criminal punishment advocates can only turn<br>away and
shrug when asked how it can be justified for society to
take away<br>the father of "innocent" children, the
husband of an "innocent" wife, and<br>the son/brother of
an "innocent" family. This, of course, doesn't
even<br>address the fact that the cost of incarcerating a single
inmate for a year<br>exceeds what it costs to send
someone to a private medical school for the<br>same
length of time.<br><br>More and more, it seems, we
neglect developing better child rearing<br>practices,
theories and pathology prevention measures partly because
we<br>still largely regard abberant behavior as, somehow, "a
choice". And the<br>most common assumption as to why
someone makes such self_defeating choices<br>is that they
are "evil" (never mind that there can be no
rational,<br>non_circular argument to explain why someone would "choose" to
be "evil" in<br>the first place, we typically accept
the notion entirely, and without<br>question). But
the idea that "evil is as evil does simply doesn't
yeild<br>useful information or workable theories for correction,
much less prevention<br>of unacceptable
behavior.<br><br>Incidently, when the point is reached at which people believe
in illusions,<br>despite evidence to the contrary,
they have crossed over a line and
now<br>harbor<br>something potentially more dangerous: delusions. So as I
see it, there is<br>little remaining selective
advantage in continuing to coddle such a<br>misguiding
delusion as FW, any more than it would increase the
genetic<br>survivability of those who would follow a mirage into the
searing desert<br>heat.<br>Therefore, I suggest that to
tackle core social problems like these we<br>*must*
first throw out the FW delusion and take a fresh,
open-minded look<br>at what's left. To begin, what if we were
to simply regard human beings as<br>the complex
learning and behaving machines we are__exclussively
subject to<br>all the *known* forces of the universe just
like everything else is? We<br>cannot afford the
luxury of continuing to grandiosly believe that we
are<br>some unique creation in the universe that holds
peculiar, and totally unique<br>properties that cannot be
empircally verified, and of which the underlying,<br>special
quality itself cannot even be falsified.<br><br>I'm
certainly not alone in being able to accept the above
argument against<br>the desirability of FW. What's more,
doing so hasn't "shattered my will to<br>live", or
reduced my "motivation" in the least; nor has it rendered
me<br>immobile with "existential despair", caused me to embrace
nihilism,<br>fatalism, or led me closer to any other such fallaciously
predicted ends.<br>Quite to the contrary, I find the notion
of living in a world "free of FW"<br>rather
ironically liberating. I say "ironically", because some
believe that<br>determinism somehow precedes a
fatalistic, (i.e. hopeless and inert) end;<br>yet, if
analyzed, such an outcome would only actually be possible
if FW were<br>true, not if it were false.
Furthermore, I can't imagine anything more<br>conducive to
despair, resignation, or the perpetuation of dogma than
the<br>delusion of FW. With it, there is no need to ever examine
human behavior as<br>due to anything else but
mysterious, non-determined, non-caused (and thus<br>non-real)
"choice".<br>(Cont.)

(Cont. From Part IV)Understanding this, I
conclude and add that it is virtually impossible to
communicate<br>ideas devoid of the assumption of FW because our
languages are so imbued<br>with it. To attempt it anyway
only creates a stilted, clumsy articulation<br>that
fails miserably in its primary task__to communicate
effectively. But<br>what's more important to this argument is
that in so using any FW_based<br>language, one cannot
help but create paradoxes and inconsistencies
in<br>argument. In other words, the deck is stacked against
anyone who would try<br>to argue against FW.<br><br>To
all this, I propose a compromise, but it is a
somewhat tangential notion.<br>So, suppose we agree to
give up on arguing if FW is real, false or
even<br>implied, (and thus we don't have to deal with all those
inevitable paradoxes<br>directly); instead, we simply learn
to ignore the subject altogether? But<br>the "quid
pro quo" would be that we also agree to only look at
human<br>behavior as the end product of a myriad of antecedent
conditions__especially<br>of learning, evolution (genetics) and the entirety
of all human beings'<br>dynamic, internal and
external milieus? I realize that some could argue<br>that
if this is a truly determined universe, the idea of
"learning" wouldn't<br>matter, because it wouldn't "change"
the outcome of anything. Therefore,<br>the
above-described model--I'll call it the "reconciled
determinism"<br>model-could yield a promising direction and at least break
the age-old<br>impasse. Also, it is humane, I believe
ethical, consistent with both the<br>scientific model and
the empirical evidence, and avoids making paradoxes
in<br>the bargain. As I see it, it is also congruent with
the concepts of<br>evolutionary psychology.<br><br>In
so considering this negotiation, what may be
reassuring to those more<br>interested in saving the status
quo, it allows for the more gradual change<br>of many
current institutions, (such as the "justice system" and
educational<br>institutions) albeit in a significantly modified forms. This
could also<br>include the continued practice of
attempting to shape behavior through<br>learning-based
theories and techniques__even by using positive and
negative<br>reinforcement. But immediately, one major difference would be
that we won't<br>ascribe all behavior to being simply
the result of individual "choice", the<br>"forces" of
"evil", "goodness", or some other metaphysical, dead end
idea.<br>Perhaps most importantly, now and forevermore, we won't
fear to look for the<br>truth in the remaining dark
places.<br><br>Most Earnestly,<br><br>Les Garwood, D.O.

(Cont. From Part III)<br>This is the state of
affairs we have today regarding FW; science
continually<br>shows<br>it to be an illusion, or at least fails to show it
as anything else. Yet,<br>again not surprisingly,
resistance to integrating this fact into modern<br>society
is<br>still met with the strongest opposition. This
phenomenon is, in my<br>experience, strikingly similar to
what you would encounter in trying to<br>persuade
someone who suffers from any other delusion (such as the
mentally<br>ill, or the addicted) to consider alternatives to
their views.<br>No, I'm not suggesting those who
believe in FW, or any other contrary view,<br>are either
mentally ill or addicted__only that their resistance to
giving up<br>(actually, unlearning) a delusion
is<br>similar in all cases. In fact, despite all I've said
above, I also still<br>experience the compelling
illusion of FW, and I must behave in the manner I<br>was
taught, and within the culture I inhabit. But for me, and
a growing<br>number of others, it is gradually, and
therefore less harmlessly, only an<br>illusion rather than
a delusion.<br><br>This brings up my final major
point regarding this important topic: Edward<br>Sapir
and Benjamin Whorf hypothesised (c. 1929):<br><br>
"Human beings do not live in the objective world alone,
nor alone in the<br>world of social activity as
ordinarily understood, but are very much at the<br>mercy of
the particular language which has become the medium
of expression<br>for their society. It is quite an
illusion to imagine that one adjusts to<br>reality
essentially without the use of language and that language is
merely<br>an incidental means of solving specific problems of
communication or<br>reflecition. The fact of the matter is that
the 'real world' is to a large<br>extent
unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No
two<br>languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as
representing the<br>same social reality. The worlds in which
different societies live are<br>distinct worlds, not merely
the same world with different labels attached .<br>.
. We see and hear and otherwise experience very
largely as we do because<br>the language habits of our
community predispose certain choices of<br>interpretation.
(Sapir 1958 [1929}, p. 69)<br><br>(Cont.)

(Cont. from part I)<br>But from a strictly
utilitarian aspect, we are simply teaching the
wrong<br>lessons today; not simply that revenge is OK, or even the
opposite, that<br>murder is always bad, but instead the
tacit but persistent message is that<br>"might makes
right". Not surprisingly, in fact, this is the most
common<br>point of view of the so_called "antisocial mind". He
has learned from an<br>abusive father, for instance,
that it isn't necessarily wrong to punish,<br>it's
only wrong if you lose (can't defend yourself), and if
you do lose, you<br>"deserved" it (this is,
interestingly, another message repeatedly reinforced<br>by his
contacts with the "judicial system"). Thus he beats and
kills his<br>victims not only without a true sense that
it is "wrong", but with the same<br>contempt for
their pleas of mercy, as was once shown his. Once
apprehended,<br>however, he often assumes an obsequious posture as a
learned defense since<br>he must now answer to an even
mightier tyrant__unless he sees an opportunity<br>to turn
the tables.<br><br>Thus, we are downright
self_defeating in how we utilize the data and<br>knowledge we do
possess about human behavior. This is, again, because of
our<br>reluctance (inability?) to abandon FW as an undisputed fact;
so we must<br>always persue wild goose chases for
truer causes of complex human behaviors.<br>This, in
turn, is because any theory that is obliged to remain
consistent<br>with the FW delusion is so futile that, to paraphrase
I believe Wolfgang<br>Pauli, ". . .isn't even
wrong".<br><br>With every passing day, more and more human behavior
can be understood from<br>not only a behavioristic,
but also a neurological and even
biochemical<br>standpoint. But, in my view, nothing of worth has ever been
added to our<br>understanding through the use of such
concepts as FW, or "evil". Thus, there<br>is less and less
"dark area" for such metaphysical delusions to hide
in.<br>The newest and most desperate one, of course, is in
the employment of the<br>mysterious and esoteric
realm of quantum effects to save out hope for
FW,<br>according to some devotees. But others are not so easily
beguiled by such<br>smoke, mirrors and speculation these
days. If we continue to try to explain<br>the Charles
Mansons, Adolf Hitlers or even Kip Kinkles as merely
"evil",<br>what new solutions, much less promising directions is
such a circular,<br>anachronistic notion likely to
yeild? And how would they be reconciled with<br>a
scientifically explained universe?<br>(Cont.)

, for one, believe that it *essential* to regard
FW as an illusion, though<br>perhaps not the *self*,
per se'. It is my premise, furthermore, that a<br>key
aspect of our most pervasive societal problems stems
from our ongoing<br>failure to recognize and deal with
the vestigial FW illusion appropriately.<br>Instead,
we desperately cling to this archaic, consensual
mythology, not<br>just because of neurologically mediated
compulsions but also because so many<br>of us have so much
invested in maintaining the status quo. We
also<br>naturally fear, or at least tend to be initially suspicious
of, any<br>change__especially concerning something
that exists on such a fundamental<br>level as
this.<br><br>Many other surviving illusions we may harbor, as is
true of any heritable<br>trait, may have had some
evolutionary advantage at one time in the past only<br>to
eventually become a handicap. For no trait can be expected
to remain<br>useful forever-that's not how evolution
appears to work. Examples of this<br>are ubiquitous and
obvious; I propose that FW has become just another
one.<br>As science and technology has relentlessly changed
so many of our other<br>views of the<br>universe, to
insist on salvaging FW simply may no longer be
practical__or<br>even possible.<br><br>Consider the illusion of a
geocentric universe, for instance, and the<br>related
experience that the sun seems to travel about the earth.
Religious<br>dogma was not the only casualty to the truth in that
instance, since early<br>scientists like Copernicus could
not accurately explain the motion of<br>"heavenly"
bodies and still maintain those "PC" illusions.<br><br>A
key disadvantage to the FW illusion/delusion today is
that the mere energy<br>price society must pay in
order to shelter it may already be too high.
To<br>illustrate, consider our striking failure to deal with social
and mental<br>health issues with anything close to
the skill we wield in most other areas<br>of human
pursuit, such as in the "hard" sciences and technology.
Yet, we<br>know a great deal more about human behavior
today than we did just a few<br>decades ago, but it is
still far behind what it could be. What's
tragically<br>worse, we don't even apply what we do know very
effectively. Instead, we<br>often favor counter_productive
(not to mention probably unethical)
vengeful<br>practices like incarceration and capital punishment. How,
for instance, can<br>a society hold that it believes
murder is wrong by murdering the murderer?<br>These
prurient practices may satisfy our old
testament-sanctioned lust for<br>revenge ("justice"), but are
inevitably self-defeating. Over the course of<br>history,
original teachings by great and insightful sages repeated
this<br>lesson about revenge, but largely in vain, perhaps
because the audience<br>consisted mostly of less evolved
individuals who could not yet fully grasp<br>it.<br>(Cont.)

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