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Old February 17th, 2006, 01:59 PM
Fred H. Fred H. is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 483
Default Re: A Free Will Challenge

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MM: Fred, This is my follow up to "downward causation". As I expected this is very interesting and relevant to the concept of free will.
Actually Margaret, this ultimately boils down to only one essential issue: whether there is objective (mathematical) truth and whether we humans can consciously discern it and use it to understand the reality of the physical world and ourselves. And as I’ve noted elsewhere, the evidence that that is indeed the case is (IMO) overwhelming—and it’s the only way that we could ever “know” anything.

But if you’re convinced otherwise, then so be it. However, in a world as you perceive it, all there can ever be are our illusions, our subjective constructs; and even if we happen to agree on something, like “BIG MEMES,” so what? It’d be nothing more than a consensus of our illusions, our subjective constructs. Or, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth opined:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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