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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and unpredictability
Message-ID: <1103@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Jun-85 14:01:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1103
Posted: Tue Jun 18 14:01:18 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Jun-85 05:59:37 EDT
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Organization: The Chartered Accountants Who Want to Be Lion Tamers Association
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>     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.

But OUR lack of knowledge on a subject surely does not have a bearing on its
existence or non-existence.  The fact that we didn't know about quarks hundreds
of years ago (or microbes) doesn't mean that those things didn't exist back
then.  Likewise for the predictability factor.  Regardless of our knowledge,
if sequences of events are determined, they are determined, whether WE humans
can determine them or not.

>     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.
   
Not ANY definition.  Paul has certainly given definitions that are not
self-contradictory, but of course he defines it so that it DOES exist because
he wants to believe in free will.  What he refers to as "my" (Rich Rosen's)
definition of free will is in fact the common accepted notion of what free
will means, and it is THAT definition that directly implies a
self-contradiction:  how can an agent be truly free if it is a part of the
world of cause and effect, since that agent itself is thus subject to its
laws and is thus determined.  I'm with Michael in that the notion of free
will requires the acausal universe he describes, and in that it thus requires
an agent of action outside the scope of that universe to satisfy the
definition.  But then again, I think Mike is grasping for straws in that he
is defining a universe that provides for free will based on his desire to
have a universe in which there could be free will, rather than based on the
evidence.  Which is why he always concludes his articles by saying:

>     SMASH CAUSALITY!!!
-- 
"Wait a minute.  '*WE*' decided???   *MY* best interests????"
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr