Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!vu0112
From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (vu0112)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 5 May 88 06:12:45 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk>
Reply-To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Distribution: comp
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
Lines: 60

In article <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> jadwa@henry.cs.reading.ac.uk (James Anderson) writes:
>3a) Random events in the choice mechanism deny free will to the
>    extent that they prevent the agent from determining the
>    outcome of a decision.

Interesting.  So you understand freedom to be the ability for me to
determine my own actions, as opposed to them being determined by
external sources.  Thus you're defining freedom in terms of a different
kind of determinism, a stance which seems problematic. 

Why not instead freedom as simply the *lack* of *complete* external
control?  This way you allow *degrees of freedom*.  That is, I am free
if I am not determined.  This in no ways implies that I in turn must
determine something else.

This also helps us sort out the difference between subjective and
objective uncertainty (freedom).  Objective freedom is understood as the
(e.g.  quantum) inherent uncertainty in processes, whereas subjective
uncertainty is the premise that I lack information about a possibly
determinate process.  On my definition, both conditions indicate freedom
to me, but to you in the latter case we are still determined. 

>So far, so good. But here comes the free will paradox, with knobs
>on!

I think my definition knocks your knobs off.

>If the world is deterministic I am denied free will because I can
>not determine the outcome of a decision. 

For me, if the world is deterministic I am granted freedom when I cannot
determine the outcome of a decision. 

>On the other hand, if
>the world is random, I am denied free will because I can not
>determine the outcome of a decision. 

Yes, no matter if the world is determined or not, I can never determine
the outcome of a decision.  This is an inherent epistemic limitation,
independent of the state of the world. 

I think that's obviously correct.  Further, by showing us that
determinism is impossible, I think you've just demonstrated that freedom
is necessary. 

>I am going to think about that for a little while before I post
>again.

What I find fascinating is the implicit assumption that determinism is
the "normal" general case, and that freedom is come kind of strange
property rarely seen.  I think that just the opposite is true, that
deterministic processes of any kind are very rare.  Demonstrating the
freedom of *any* organism, let alone humans, is trivial.  Demonstrating
our determinism is a silly philosophical waste of time. 

-- 
O---------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large
| Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .