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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Rich Rosen vs Free Will
Message-ID: <204@spar.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 07:51:21 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.204
Posted: Wed Apr 24 07:51:21 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Apr-85 05:24:54 EST
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 39


    As a relative newcomer to this debate, I decided to dig thru our system
    archives to catch up on the notorious net.philosophy Free Will debate.
    Please correct me if I'm mistaken. Flames will receive random response.

    At one point, two definitions of Free Will were being discussed:

 A) freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior
    causes or divine intervention
 B) the belief that man's choices ultimately are or can be voluntary, and
    not determined by external causes
    
    (B) was generally selected as the topic of discussion.

    The indomitable Rich Rosen has argued more ferociously than most.
    His argument seems to run, roughly:	

	If you have free will, the `agent of choice' must either reside
	within the physical world, or without.

    1)	If the agent of choice resides within the physical universe, then it
	is just a bunch of chemicals. But chemicals have no power to decide
	which course they take:

	...since their behavior is fully determined. { LATER AMENDED TO: }
	...since their behavior is fully determined by biochemical equations
	up to quantum randomness, after which behavior is nondetermined
	rather than chosen by an agent.

    2)	If the agent of choice does not reside in the physical world, then
	it is an external agent. QED.

	{Furthermore a `ghost-in-the-machine', in turn, must have some
	 mechanism itself that causes it to decide, thus, it does not
	 have free will}

    Rich, have I represented your arguments accurately?

-michael