The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #26439 Message #326909
Posted By: Ringer
25-Oct-00 - 09:40 AM
Thread Name: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
Sorry for the delay - I've been otherwise engaged.
NightWing: if all is caused, there can be no such thing as free-will, an "uncaused effect". That's my argument.
Skeptic: aren't you mixing up predictability with causation? I don't think that Chaos Theory says anything about cause and effect, though it does, I agree, have a lot to say about the unpredictability of complex systems (I'm no expert on CT: shoot me down, do, if I'm wrong). But my argument has got nothing to do with predictability. If there are no uncaused effects then my thoughts, too, are caused, and I can't see why caused = true (when we can see the cause of thoughts, we discount them, eg when the drunkard claims to see pink elephants we don't bother looking for them). Therefore I have to argue that cause-and-effect is not universal, because the converse leads to the reductio ad absurdem:
there are no uncaused effects therefore I cannot rely on my thoughts being true therefore I have no reason to suppose that there are no uncaused effects