Russ #3,
I will attempt a serious response to your post, with a non-randomly generated
quote. I have recently been pondering the following quote by Pierce (founder of
the Pragmatism movement), which seems relevant:
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"The question of free-will and fate in its simplest form,
stripped of verbiage, is something like this: I have done something of which I
am ashamed: could I, by an effort of the will, have resisted the temptation,
and done otherwise? The philosophical reply is, that this is not a question of
fact, but only of the arrangement of facts. Arranging them so as to exhibit what
is particularly pertinent to my question --- namely, that I ought to blame
myself for having done wrong --- it is perfectly true to say that, if I had
willed to do otherwise than I did, I should have done otherwise. On the other
hand, arranging the facts so as to exhibit another important consideration, it
is equally true that, when a temptation has once been allowed to work, it will,
if it has a certain force, produce its effect, let me struggle how I may...
Many questions are involved in the
free-will discussion, and I am far from desiring to say that both sides are
equally right... But what I do say is, that the
above single question was the origin of the whole doubt; that, had it not been
for this question, the controversy would never have arisen; and that this
question is perfectly solved in the manner which I have indicated."
I think this quote seems relevant to me because it somehow suggests that both
Seneca's "certainty" and his "uncertainty" are somehow false.
Eric
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 12:39 PM, Russell Gonnering <rsgonneri...@mac.com> wrote:
>Not to stir the philosophical pot too much, but I spent a delightful day with
David Snowden this past week. He started his discussion with a quote from
Seneca:>
>
>>
>“The greatest loss of time is delay & expectation, which depend upon the
future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to
that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an
uncertainty.”
>
>
>
>>Could Seneca have been the original Complexity Theory proponent?
>>
>
>>Russ #3
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Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
