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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: net.ignorant.opinion
Message-ID: <751@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 17:06:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.751
Posted: Tue Sep 24 17:06:17 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 05:54:11 EDT
References: <1495@pyuxd.UUCP> <2197@pucc-h> <1510@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 63

In article <1749@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>
>You've been doing that in a variety of ways for some time now, Michael.  Mostly
>extremely boorish abusive ways.  "Practically everybody disagrees"?  I've
>noted how so many people have disagreed:  "Well, yeah, the consensus among
>dictionary definitions and among language users is that free will means, not
>just freedom from interference by other people in choosing your actions, but
>freedom from your own physical make-up.  But still, if we use that definition,
>we have to accept the notion of souls, or some non-physical means of making
>choices independent of the physical body/brain.  Since I don't believe in
>souls, the definition of free will must be wrong, thus we should change the
>definition to something that allows us to reach the conclusion that we have
>free will.  How dare Rosen say that this is a butchering of the notion of
>language and communication!"
>
	Except that the dictionary definition does *not* imply what
you say it implies(at least the one in my dictioanry doesn't). I say
ther *is* *not* any such consensus, there is instead a broad class of
related, interlocking definitions, only *one* of which is yours. The
dictionary "definition" is rather general and is in fact non-commital
at the level you are trying to assert. I say that the definition I use
is just as consistant with the dictionary definition as yours! And
there are many others who agree with me. Thus there is no valid
argument for accepting the definition you use as *the* definition.

>>     Descartes:
>
>>     Leibniz:
>
>>     Hobbes: 
>
>>     Hume: 
>
>>     Voltaire: 
>
>Altering things enough so that free will would "fit".  Clearly your friends
>agree with the position I have put forth that free will requires an
>independence from physical causality, including the physicality of their
>own bodies.
>
	Hmm, well now I can see how you can read the dictionary to
necessarily imply your favored definition. You seem to be able to read
a belief in acausality into every one of these philosophers, despite
the fact that several of them *clearly* stated otherwise and still
maintained a belief in free will based on conscious choice or some
such thing. Only Hume and Voltaire actually believed that free will
necessarily implies acausality of some sort. I am amazed at how far
you have misunderstood what Descartes and Leibniz were trying to say!

>Well, I just showed that it was YOU who was making the blatantly false
>statements.  Everyone you quoted believed that free will meant freedom even
>from one's own physical make-up, and either they didn't believe that it
>existed or they added in new axioms to make it "exist" on those terms.
>
	That is most definately not what I read in Descartes, Leibniz
and Hobbes(not to mention Kant). In fact they very clearly stated just
the opposite!
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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