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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and reason (attn russ, rich, & laura)
Message-ID: <5485@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Apr-85 07:54:29 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5485
Posted: Mon Apr 15 07:54:29 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Apr-85 07:54:29 EST
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Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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No, Tony Wuersch and I have the same definition of freedom. What I
was trying to do is present indirect evidence (that we learn) for
the existence of free will. If being in jail, Tony, is not evidence for
petty tyrants, then what is?

The distinction I want to make is between freedom - something which
is more or less continuous and very dependent in an immediate way on
external agents (am I locked up, are you pointing a gun at my head,
am I shipwrecked and starving) and free will -- am a free to make
decisions at all? To have free will -- the ability -- does not imply
that at no time in the future will my freedom be diminished or
increased. Its converse is not ``less free will'' but fatalism. 
Around here we have been discussing the particular variety of
fatalism which is often called ``materialistic determinism''. Do
my present brain states cause my future brain states? Were they
in turn caused by my past brain states? And, were you to duplicate
both external conditions and my internal brain states at time t1,
would my brain states at time t2 be necessarily identical as at
t2-t1 units of time after the original ``snapshot''?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura