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From: tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: "free" again
Message-ID: <242@frog.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 16:46:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: frog.242
Posted: Mon Jul 29 16:46:32 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 00:19:34 EDT
Reply-To: frog!tdh
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
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Words and phrases-denoting-concepts can have many meanings.
The concepts can be precise even where the words (or
phrases), lacking explicit context, are vague.

One of the criteria for selecting or creating a meaning for
a word is usefulness.  That is the epistemological principle
of economy in concepts.

It is true that the meanings of "free will" used by Rosen
and Torek (excepting r-e-a) have been used for a long time.
However, there is one important difference between the two.
Rosen's meaning is entirely useless (except as an
argumentative foil!).  For that reason, it would be
epistemological treason to yield to Rosen's contention that
"free will" means what he says it does (despite historical
precedent), let alone merely what he says it does; better
to not bother arguing that point.

Rosen's definition deviates from extending the common
meaning of "free", which is not a matter of "micro" versus
"macro", or "now" versus "the past", but of perspective and
degree.  It is a matter of perspective in that causal chains
flow from the consciousness (perhaps figurative, merely
anthropomorphic, consciousness) of an acting individual.  It
is a matter of degree in that it is often far more difficult
to counter the depredations of other humans than it is to
manipulate the rest of the physical world.

The extension of "free" to "free will", since freedom is
dependent on consciousness, then involves tracing causal
chains back to control by another entity.  (Such control
would necessarily operate over time, however short that
time might be.)  There would be two objective criteria for
saying that someone, in effect a marionette, did not have
free will:

        1) The marionette was incapable of consciousness
           (and therefore not a "someone").  (Warning:
           this presumes classifying cognizant of the
           difficulties involved.)
        2) Some puppeteer had an evident means of
           controlling the consciousness of the marionette,
           at least as far as controlling its values.
           (Note: it might not be evident to the
           marionette.)

Both of these characteristics are present to degrees in
the world around us.  As people develop from infancy into
adulthood, they are generally increasingly conscious and
decreasingly under the shaping of others.

I disagree that the use of r-e-a is essential to having
free will.  It may be a vital tool for escaping the control
of others, and its presence may be essential to
consciousness and therefore to free will, but many short-run
choices would be rendered impossible by the
information-processing requirements of concurrent conscious
thought.  It is better to think of conscious thought as
having patterned the later unconscious thought involved in a
choice and perhaps as aiming it as it happens.

				David Hudson