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From: lloyd@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Lloyd Greenwald)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <4543@super.upenn.edu>
Date: 6 May 88 13:31:25 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <10942@sunybcs.UUCP>
Sender: news@super.upenn.edu
Reply-To: lloyd@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Lloyd Greenwald)
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Organization: University of Pennsylvania
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Keywords: randomness responsibility

In article <10942@sunybcs.UUCP> sher@wolf.UUCP (David Sher) writes:
>It seems that people are discussing free will and determinism by
>trying to distinguish true free will from random behavior.  There is a
>fundamental problem with this topic.  Randomness itself is not well
>understood.  If you could get a good definition of random behavior you
>may have a better handle on free will.  
>

This is a good point.  It seems that some people are associating free will
closely with randomness.  To me true randomness is as difficult to comprehend
as true free will.  We can't demonstrate true randomness in present day
computers; the closest we can come (to my knowledge) is to generate a string 
of numbers which does not repeat itself.  Can anyone give us a better view
of randomness then this?  I've heard some mention of true randomness at the
quantum level.  Does anyone have any information on this?  Given that current
theories of free will tie it so closely to randomness, it seems necessary to
get a handle on true randomness.
 

			Lloyd Greenwald  
			lloyd@eniac.seas.upenn.edu