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From: pnp@ihnp1.UUCP (Peter Prokopowicz)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Free Will
Message-ID: <286@ihnp1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Jul-85 14:04:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnp1.286
Posted: Tue Jul 23 14:04:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 04:06:37 EDT
Reply-To: pnp@ihnp1.UUCP (45262-Peter Prokopowicz)
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 19
Summary: 

As I have just become acquainted with this august forum
of scholarly debate, I ask everyone's patience should I
repeat points that may have been given earlier.  First,
would the following be accepted as a desription of free
will?  Free will is the doctrine that humans are capable
of deliberate (ie not random) actions which are not 
wholly determined by preceding events.  Based on this,
notions of free will founded on quantum mechanics are
not valid in that they imply random actions, not deliberate
choice.  Also, it seems that the hypothetical rational 
being disussed earlier would not be free, in that its
actions would be entirely predicatable, at least in priniciple,
and hence wholly determined by preceding events.  It seems that
anyone placing faith in the modern scientific view of the world
would be forced to admit that ALL events ("internal" as well as
visible) are wholly determined.  However, I know of no one who 
will claim that modern science can explain how it is that chemical
processes, acting together, can produce a consciousness, free or
otherwise, such as we all experience.