Subject: Mike on My Thought Experiment

From: [email-masked] (ASP-Disc)
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 21:58:03 -0500

From: Bryan Douglas Caplan <[email-masked]>

Just two points on Mike's critique.

1. Well, you're right that my view implies that there is no fact of
the matter about my future behavior.  That is, at time t it is not
yet a fact that I will do A at time t+1 -- even if I wind up doing
A.  It isn't merely that we can't know; the fact just isn't in
existence yet.
This would seem to apply to any substantive theory of free will.
My short answer is that it's violation of the law of the excluded
middle isn't a problem because claims about my future behavior
have a false presupposition which renders the proposition defective.
(More strictly, a claim that it is now  
a fact that I am going to do A later contains a false presupposition.
I'm not sure how to distinguish this from a common-sense prediction
about my behavior, but perhaps you can see the difference?)

2. I don't think that my economics background makes me assume away
the problem of initial conditions; it just seems to be a feature
of all thought experiments to freely make assumptions to prove a point.
I don't buy this whole feedback problem; but anyway, suppose we 
are physical determinists.  We can get a deterministic theory of matter
and energy, right?  And mental properties just supervene on physical
ones, right?  So if our equations could predict the behavior of the
physical parts of our bodies, and our mental activity is just so much
froth on the waves, why should mental feedback loops be a problem?
I can see how the dualist determinist might buy your rebuttal; but
I don't see how the hard-core physical determinist could.
   --Bryan