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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: I must exercise my free will !
Message-ID: <721@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Mar-85 19:17:52 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.721
Posted: Tue Mar 19 19:17:52 1985
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Xref: watmath net.philosophy:1543 net.religion:6159

> "FREE WILL" MEANS freedom from the will of an OTHER entity, such as God,
> deamons, spirits, spouse, boss, president, draft board, whathaveyous.
> [RICK MERRILL]

What you describe is simply freedom from outside oppression/control by other
entities.  Real free will, on the other hand, has been defined as "freedom of
humans [I think that last part's a bit anthrpopcentric, but...] to make choices
that are not dtermined BY PRIOR CAUSES or divine intervention".

> Unless you think your mind is inhabited by deamons it is not correct to
> conclude that your brain chemistry precludes free will. In other words
> "free will" CAN BE deterministic as long as the causal environment being
> considered does not contain another entity.  

That may be true, but, as with Torek, what you describe as free will is not in
fact free will, though it is a freedom from certain things.

> How then do you tell the difference between your will and the various 
> influences impressed upon you?

One's "will" *IS* the various influences impressed upon one, is it not?

>>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.

> S. may or may not be right about the first derivative of free will: i.e.
> The Want That Causes One To Want.

Go ahead:  want a sever blow to the skull.  Now!  What's that?  You can't want
that?  Why not?  Because you don't want to want that?  Can you control or
decide what you "want" to "want"?

>>But it's not, is it?  In fact, to be truly free, one has to be free to be
>>absurd. 

> If you dont' believe in free will, watch some Month Python!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure if you are rephrasing what I state above, or just telling me
to go watch Monty Python because I disagree with you.  One may always choose
to be absurd (as I am now by responding to the very strange sentence above),
but those choices, like all others, are products of deterministic influences.

>>The "controlled by something" means "controlled by the biophysics
>>of our own bodies and environments."  

> That is a sophomorphic dead-end!

Why?  Because you don't like it?  Or its implications?  Do you posit something
better SOLELY based on the fact that you don't like it?  (What's sophomorphic?
In the image of a sophomore?)

>>`Free will' is one of my favorite subjects, but most people
>>don't take me seriously.  Yes, I believe that there is no
>>free will.

> We have willed not to take you seriously, therefore we have a will that
> is demonstrably free from yours!   :-)

First off, as "funny" as your witticism might appear to be (to you), the quote
above did not come from me, so don't lump it in with things I've said in an
effort to make your non-point.
-- 
"Which three books would *you* have taken?"
				Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr