[FRIAM] alternative response

[Jon Zingale]

Marcus, et al.

I do hope to some extent that the others agree with you about what is *the
point*. Though I am not sure with what certainty or authority one can make
such a claim. The concept of *meaning* arises from ontological commitments.
When the legal system includes notions like intent and punishment, they are
*exactly* making the ontological commitment to *free will*. It is within
this scope that any meaning for intent and punishment is accessible. You
speak of *believers* as if they *must* be troubled by inconsistency. I
suspect, like applied mathematicians, they need not be. Further, those
*believers* may not require an *all-knowing* condition to conflict with
choice, you would have to know what commitments they have already made. The
immediate commitments I may import when a *believer* describes choice under
an omniscient god, result in god predetermining sinners going to hell. The
*believer*, however, may make other commitments that escape this
predetermining.

Making judicious choices of ontological commitment happen everywhere in the
sciences. If someone decides that they are going to make a commitment to the
aether, I think it is polite to see what model they make and what they wish
to describe before jumping on them about Michelson-Morley. Showing that an
ontological commitment is not unique or necessary in some absolute sense
need not invalidate a theory. SteveG and Nick go back and forth about this
with respect to evolutionary theory. Nick points out how making a commitment
to *selection* produces fruit. SteveG argues that evolution is all
*Lagrangians*. Whichever commitment is made, I beg we use it to identify
further entailments. If we attempt to invalidate another's entailment by
switching the ontological grounds by which they were made, we act in bad
faith.



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