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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: A reall strange notion about the utility of words
Message-ID: <1319@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 17:51:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1319
Posted: Wed Aug 21 17:51:54 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 06:02:07 EDT
References: <1556@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 30

In article <1556@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>>>Exactly.  Free will as originally and continually defined and used in
>>>human discourse, like the word "unicorn", does not represent a real
>>>object.  We don't go changing the meaning of "unicorn" to "get" unicorns
>>>to exist.  The same with any other word. [also ROSEN]

>> By the same token, then, no one can talk about Newtonian mechanics, since
>> the theory is demonstably wrong?

>On the contrary, Charles.  Just as Newtonian mechanics as a term refers
>to a set of theories that is "demonstrably wrong" (it still refers to
>the same theories), the term "free will" refers to a philosophical notion
>regarding the ability for human beings to make choices unconstrained by
>external dependencies.  The term "Newtonian mechanics" does not magically
>change to conform to modern theories so that, thus, Newton would be right.
>The same holds for "free will":  it refers to a notion that may be
>demonstrably wrong in its implications, but that doesn't mean we have the
>term point to something new that IS right.

HOWEVER.... Rich in another article freely admitted that he would accept a
definition of the "Will" (i.e., that it was the decision-making process of
the mind).  Free Will is therefore the doctrine that the decisions of the
will are not completely determined by external constraints.  (note that I
use the word "determined" and not "constrained".)  Certainly if the will
is supernatural, then we can have free will.  The implication does not
therefore run the other way.  Until it is determined how the Will works,
there is no real basis for claims for or against free will.

Charley Wingate