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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and reason (attn russ, rich, & laura)
Message-ID: <5272@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Mar-85 21:42:57 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5272
Posted: Sun Mar 17 21:42:57 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 21:42:57 EST
References: <362@aesat.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 44

I don't think you understand me, Russ. I am not trying to find a chunk of me
and say that ``this bit gives me free will''.  What good would that do?
Assuming that I thought that I found it, the next obvious question is
``what makes that free''? This is relatively useless, then. If I have free
will, then, I want to identify it with the whole I. But, I am very
interested in demonstrating that I have free will. If I do not have
free will then there is no point in me bothering with ethics, politics,
doing a good job at work, using casts appropriately so that lint
passes my code, trying to treat the people I love with more respect and
in other ways trying to live a better life. I mean -- who cares? I can't
choose to improve myself, I can't choose to be evil, I can't sin and
I can't accomplish anything. All I can claim is that sins, accomplishments
and everything else happens -- I have no credit one way of another.

If I actually believed that I had no free will then I would go kill
myself tomorrow. What ever would be the use of anything?

I think that free will is a self-evident truth. Now, the implications
that one can draw from the existence of free will (that we have souls,
that God cares about ethics) may be entirely bogus. But I do not think that
it is possible to explain why human beings try to find out about the truth
without either assuming that they have free will, or that it happened by
chance. I suppsoe it could be chance .. but it is a rather long shot,
wouldn't you say?

For instance, take the proposition ``knowledge is good''. Try to refute it.
If you say ``Knowledge is bad for you'' then you are making a statement.
That statement is, in itself, knowledge. Thus, you are forced to admit that
certain knowlege is good. 

I do not think that you can ask the question ``does man have free will''
without using the free will whose existence you are questioning. The
question implies that there is a true answer to the question and that
you would like this knowledge. But why should knowledge interest you?
Because it is possible to make mistakes, and you are trying to avoid
making them. Aha! By your own effort, in searching for the truth, it
is possible to influence your actions so that you will make fewer
mistakes! This is an implicit assumption in asking any question. So,
in asking the question you are either performing another meaningless
action, or you are demonstrating the free will whose existence you
are trying to prove.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura