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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Redefining free will
Message-ID: <709@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 22:00:23 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.709
Posted: Fri Mar 15 22:00:23 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 00:12:15 EST
References: <627@pyuxd.UUCP> <159@frog.UUCP>, <663@pyuxd.UUCP> <161@frog.UUCP>
Organization: Huxley College
Lines: 23

>>>To argue that there might be something outside of cause and effect
>>>that is somehow related to our conciousness is so far from the
>>>common understanding of the word "free" that the expression "free
>>>will" as it is commonly interpreted in philosophy should be replaced
>>>with something suitable to what is being discussed.  The discussion

>>From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
>>As Schopenhauer said:  "A man can do what he wants to, but he cannot want
>>what he wants to."  If he could, that would be free will.  As long as
>>we are not free to want what we want to want, as long as that wanting is
>>controlled by something, we have no free will.

> "Controlled" by something?? :-)  How much time do you think people
> would squander discussing the traditional "free will" if instead it
> were called "absurd will" (to try to pick a suitable term)?
> 					David Hudson

But it's not, is it?  In fact, to be truly free, one has to be free to be
absurd.  The "controlled by something" means controlled by the biophysics
of our own bodies and environments.
-- 
Otology recapitulates phonology.
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr