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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: What do people mean by free will?
Message-ID: <616@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 19:10:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.616
Posted: Mon Aug 26 19:10:34 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 23:41:23 EDT
References: <1195@umcp-cs.UUCP> <596@mmintl.UUCP> <1267@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 39
Summary: 


In article <1267@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
>
>>I'm afraid I don't see randomness as being any closer to freedom than
>>determinism is.  If I flip a coin, is it "free" to come up either heads
>>or tails?  (Leave aside the question of whether it's movement is truly
>>random; assume it is.)  There is some sense of the word free in which it
>>is -- it is not externally constrained.  But it makes no choices; it
>>is just random.
>
>Here we run into that bugaboo again.  It makes all the difference in the world
>what lies behind the phrase "it [the coin] makes no choices."  First of all,
>one could argue that the random forces all come from outside the coin.  But
>laying that aside for the moment, why do I get this feeling that the author
>of the above was thinking, "It makes no choices because it has no mind"?

First, let me clarify: I am assuming that the quantum uncertainties in the
coin itself make its result random.  I don't want to debate about whether
that is true; if it isn't, we can easily come up with a system which does
reflect internal quantum uncertainties.

All right, what does choice mean?  I can come up with two possible meanings.

1) a choice is a decision based on analysis [of a situation] in the light of
[more or less clearly defined] goals.  This applies equally to a branch in
a computer program or to a human decision.  (It would not apply to a branch
taken by a computer executing random code.)

2) a choice is a decision made by free will (whatever that means).

These meanings are not incompatible, of course.

I was using the second definition; i.e., I was using choice as a code word
for free will.

A word certainly need not have only one definition (though it is worthwhile
to know what meaning one is referring to).  I think for example that Rich
Rosen is wrong to insist on his definition of free will, which has been
used in a wide variety of ways through the years.  But I cannot accept a
definition of choice whereby a flipped coin "chooses" which way to come down.