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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and unpredictability
Message-ID: <325@spar.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Jun-85 10:02:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.325
Posted: Thu Jun 13 10:02:16 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Jun-85 08:26:24 EDT
References: <91@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 40

>>{John Williams}	>{Paul Torek}

>>      So the universe will chug away on it's laws of physics in  a
>> very  meticulous  and rigorous manner, but we will never know the
>> initial state.  This is where the " if you knew enough " argument
>> falls headlong into the dirt.
>>      Thus, free will can be attributed  as  an  artifact  of  the
>> unknown  origin.   
>
>You are confusing "free will" with "unpredictability".  That's a common
>mistake, but still a mistake.  Someone long ago (probably a religious
>official) figured (wrongly) that freedom was incompatible with 
>predictability, and we've been stuck with the association ever since.

    Just to keep things straight -- it appears we have at least four
    views of `Free Will':
			 
    John Williams:  The universe is deterministic but unknowable due to lack
		    of information about the universe's initial conditions.
		    Free Will somehow somehow derives from this built-in
		    lack of knowledge.

    Paul Torek:     Determinism is irrelevant. Even a perfectly predictable
    	 	    agent can have free will, which consists of the ability
		    to satisfactorily manipulate the universe based on
		    one's knowledge and desires.

    Michael Ellis:  Free Will probably requires a nondeterministic universe
		    with acausal connections and randomness, such as
		    we might be living in.

    Rich Rosen:     Regardless of whether the universe is deterministic
		    there is no free will because any definition appears to
		    be self-contradictory.
   
    Comments?

    SMASH CAUSALITY!!!

-michael