John provides a wonderful paradox for many who "believe" in the
systemic approach. He makes a compelling case based in that approach
that there is no choice. Yet he creates a quandry that is likely to
draw much criticism. (I favour his position and enjoy working out
the challenges of life from that point of view.)
I'll offer another that is rather more "bottom up" from my point of
view. I would characterise his as "top down" in the sense that we
are part of larger systems (and historic systems) that have
determined what we "choose" based in larger contexts.
The bottom-up version goes something like this. If you are choosing,
choose something you really don't like, don't want in any way, abhor
- and then choose it anyway. That's not what happens, is it?
What happens when we say "I choose X"? Aren't we reporting on
something that has already happened? The choosing has already
occurred and we say "I chose". But when and where did the that act
of choosing occur? Wasn't it more like you just noticed that the
"choice" had been made? (Yes, I know that occasionally you struggle
with choice and can then report that you were active in the choosing.
In these instances, I return to John's approach.)
Now let's consider what is "bottom up" about this. I'd say that
choosing is an emergent phenomenon. It occurs from the accumulation
of thoughts, feelings, memories, etc which come together in some way
to create a choice. But which ones will come? Which ones will get
called? What will the various weightings be? Surely this is largely
already given by the time we get to notice them. More, each of these
is also emergent. They have come from distributed neurons which were
firing away long before we could recognise them and long before
anything that came up to a conscious level was present.
The point is that we are operating with distributed phenomena which
are below our ability to detect or monitor let alone control and, by
the time they have reached choice or even contributors to choosing,
they are well on the way and the choice is pretty much decided.
The question then is, "What is the role of human awareness, human
will, human morality?" It is this question on which the heat of the
argument will turn. John says, "That too, is determined by the
systems of outside and/or historic forces." I could say, "That too
is emergent and already decided" and on much less 'rational' grounds
than John's case suggests. But I won't.
Instead, I'll say that there lies the great challenge of being human.
We are faced with the dilemma of choosing and being responsible even
when we have little to say about what we choose. The choice is
existential and the most important one we face. There is no escape.
To say "it's all determined" does not remove the responsibility for
one's own life. I would say that to make the statements that John
made or the ones I made are what call forth the challenges of humnan
life. If we are supposed to be choosing and yet can't recognise that
the choices are mainly given to us from past or distributed neurons,
then we left with a worse dilemma.
I suggest that it is the nature of emergence and distributed
phenomena that provide us with the full challenges of freedom and
that this is the human condition. What there is to do is embrace it.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk