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From: ellis@chips2.sri.com (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Message-ID: <474@unix.SRI.COM>
Date: 28 Jun 89 03:15:55 GMT
References: <860@orbit.UUCP>
Sender: news@unix.SRI.COM
Reply-To: ellis@chips2.sri.com.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: SRI International
Lines: 52

> Scott Burke >> Michael Ellis

>>  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."  

    There are lots of kinds of free will. Leaving out the spiritual or mystical
    versions, I assume we are talking about the thesis that mentalisms like
    beliefs and desires and volitions are real, that we actually do will
    our actions, that we can and ought to actually use our own reason to bear
    on these actions, and that we are thus accountable in various ways for
    what we do depending on whether it was on purpose, accidental, and so on.

    Now it is true that I believe something like the above, just as I believe
    that I am typing these very characters. But the belief is not a matter of
    faith, rather, it is a matter of experience, plain old observation. 
    I experience myself typing these characters, I experience my efforts
    bringing my intentions into action, I experience my typing being caused
    by my desire to express myself. These are not just a beliefs about first
    person experience, these are first person experiences, just as my
    perception of these words is not just a belief that these words are
    in front of me.
  
>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 +...).  

    I suspect that most concepts can be "readily traceable to the metaphysics
    of the european middle ages" and much further back than that, and I might
    add that determinism itself is as fully blown a metaphysical system as
    they get, one which requires the absolute omnipotence of cosmic law
    (ergo, man's nilpotence + irreality of the mind + nomocentrism +...)

    Let's do it again as Erasmus vs Luther.

>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) ??

    I hope I've covered that.

-michael