Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site boulder.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!nbires!boulder!geoff From: geoff@boulder.UUCP (Geoffrey M. Clemm) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: How does it feel to be part of a continuous function? Message-ID: <339@boulder.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Apr-85 04:08:19 EST Article-I.D.: boulder.339 Posted: Wed Apr 10 04:08:19 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Apr-85 07:06:54 EST References: Reply-To: geoff@boulder.UUCP (Geoffrey Clemm) Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 28 Keywords: free will, continuous models In article williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) writes: > Allow me to explain something to you. There has been an increasing amount of pomposity in this newsgroup. If one has something significant to say, it should be able to stand on its intellectual merit without this kind of nonsense. > We live in a continuous universe, meaning that there are >always transitions. This means that there is a continuous >function that describes the universe. In many cases, the appropriate model is not a continuous one. A continuous model is just a model, like any other, and has no "special connection" to reality. In particular, the specific concept of free will that interests many of us is not modeled best by a continuous model. (If you are about to respond that "this is false because YOUR concept concept of free will is different from this", please reread Laura's well argued posting about "personal dictionaries" first. > The simpler something is, the more deterministic. The >more complex, the more that process can be said to display free >will. This is an analysis of "free will" that has appeared frequently during the last month. Unfortunately this analysis applies to a concept that does not have all the properties that many of us would wish to capture with the term "free will" (such as a determiner for "responsibility").