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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Levels of Explanation and Definitions of Free
Message-ID: <914@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 20:30:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.914
Posted: Fri Jul 19 20:30:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jul-85 02:35:56 EDT
References: <6156@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1041@pyuxd.UUCP> <3@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1209@pyuxd.UUCP> <863@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1232@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: flink@maryland.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 60
Keywords: free will

In article <1232@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>the power to make rational choices is not the same as freedom.  Is a 
>machine with the power to only make the best rational decisions "free"?

You're talking about a hypothetical AI project but, yes, it would be.

> you have a very different definition of "free" (as in "free
>will") than I do, and mine seems to be well rooted in documentation:
>philosophical discussion of the topic for centuries has used that definition,
>as does the dictionary.  You're right, it's all semantic [...]

But the Oxford English Dictionary and World Book Dictionary definitions were
compatible with my view, as was definition 1 of the American Heritage Diction-
ary quoted by Poirier (sp?).

>You also mentioned Dennett's "Elbow Room".   I must ask if these people are,
>as you seem to be, seeking to find a "free will" at all cost, even if it
>means warping the definition.  I could just as easily assert that "hot fudge
>sauce" is "free will".  We *know* that to exist (as well as we can know
>anything to exist, probably better!), so to call "hot fudge sauce" free will
>would thus give us free will.  Does that work?  Does that change anything?

We are giving definitions of free will that address what people worry about
when they worry about free will and that are compatible with and suggested
by most of the usage of the term "free will", such as the usage by Robert
Trivers in the interview I quoted.

>> In other words, you're saying that one's decisions must have ABSOLUTELY NO
>> INPUT FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD in order to be free??!  A person blind, deaf,
>> with no sense of touch, completely ignorant of the external world is a 
>> paragon of freedom??  WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS (YOUR!) PICTURE??
>
>[...] this (YOUR!) picture [...] bears no relation to mine.  My picture 
>simply shows that the notion of free will as espoused for centuries and 
>as understood by philosophers and laypeople alike has a contradiction 
>built into it.

Your definition implies that people with no input from the external world
are more free (less unfree).  This shows that something is wrong with your 
definition, because that's NOT the way people use the word "free".

>[...] I reply by quoting my favorite quote from Schopenhauer:  "A
>man can do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants."  Only if the
>latter were true would we have free will.

But he CAN want what he wants.  He can be satisfied or dissatisfied with
the way his motives work.  And that's what free will is all about: in
Trivers's words, "reviewing our behavior and modifying it in ways that
seem desirable".

>The fact that certain rigorously defined notions lead to absurdities does
>not make such interpretations of the notions into misinterpretations, it
>merely makes the notions themselves into fallacies.

Yes, but, your interpretation is incompatible with the way people use the
word "free".  The absurdity I was referring to was not the absurdity of
believing that what-you-call-free-will exists -- I grant you, that IS
absurd -- but the absurdity of your calling *that* free will.

--Paul V Torek