Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Levels of Explanation and Definitions of Free Message-ID: <1275@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 22:35:17 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1275 Posted: Sun Jul 21 22:35:17 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 24-Jul-85 20:58:03 EDT References: <6156@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1041@pyuxd.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 87 Keywords: free will >>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. Oh. A machine programmed to pick the best possible decision is free? Come on! What force-fitting! >> 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?). Let's hear them. Poirier's quoted definition was clearly NOT at all close to your asserted view, so I'm not sure what's going on here. >>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. See my response to Kenn Barry in a previous article for further discussion on definitions and their purposes. >>> 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". Not at all. Those people are not constrained input-wise, but they are most certainly constrained by the possible actions open to them. So clearly this is a straw man. >>[...] 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". Funny, I still can't seem to want to like apricots. Could you help me? >>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". It's incompatible with the way YOU 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. Sorry, that wasn't my doing. That was the doing of philosophers and thinkers throughout past centuries. To suddenly say "No, free will means THIS" is abhorrent to the notion of language as a common means of communication among people. "Oh, you didn't realize I was using MY meaning of free will? No, of course you don't have free will in the sense that the words are commonly used. Isn't that obvious? You should have known I was talking about this new definition. By the way, I also redefined god so that god exists, too." -- "There! I've run rings 'round you logically!" "Oh, intercourse the penguin!" Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr