Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!ames!ncar!tank!shamash!nis!sialis!orbit!pnet51!philo
From: philo@pnet51.cts.com (Scott Burke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Message-ID: <860@orbit.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jun 89 04:05:05 GMT
Sender: root@orbit.UUCP
Organization: People-Net [pnet51], Minneapolis, MN.
Lines: 24

ellis@chips2.sri.com (Michael Ellis) writes:
>    Belief in free will naturally arises whenever the background belief
>    system declares that all is controlled by some all-pervasive X, whether
>    X be some omnipotent being or some crackpot scientific theory. Either
>    way, something has to give when the current mythology directly contradicts
>    the direct first person evidence every person has access to.
>
   I have heard many claims that determinism contradicts first person
experience, but I have yet to hear such a claim which was not really the more
mundane "determinism contradicts A BELIEF about first person experience."  It
is my understanding that the concept of free will itself can be readily
traceable to the metaphysics of the european middle ages (free will as it is
contemporarily argued -- not "moral responsibility" as presented by
hellenistic philosophies), and as such, most free will arguments are not in
and of themselves statements about direct experience, but rather "expansions"
of the one concept into the full blown metaphysical system which requires it*
(ergo, man's ethical nature + personality + humanocentrism +...).  
  Just what does this "first person experience" of free will consist of,
without relying on other metaphysical postulates of the system to describe it
(if possible) ??

UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!philo
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!philo@nosc.mil
INET: philo@pnet51.cts.com