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From: dswinney@icc.afit.arpa (David V. Swinney)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: How to dispose of the free will issue
Summary: The issue is not actually "free-will".
Keywords: free will architecture terminology
Message-ID: <421@afit-ab.arpa>
Date: 20 Jul 88 14:10:01 GMT
References: <483@cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk> <794@l.cc.purdue.edu> <488@aiva.ed.ac.uk> <406@ns.ns.com> <407@ns.ns.com>
Sender: news@afit-ab.arpa
Reply-To: dswinney@icc.UUCP (David V. Swinney)
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH
Lines: 39

In article <407@ns.ns.com> logajan@ns.ns.com (John Logajan x3118) writes:
>
>The no-free-will theory is untestable.
>The free-will theory is like-wise untestable.
>When the no-free-will theorists are not thinking about their lack of free will
>they invariably adopt free-will outlooks.
>So go with the flow, why fight your natural instincts to believe in that which
>is un-provable.  If you must choose between un-provable beliefs, take the one
>that requires the least effort.
>
I contend that the use of the phrase "free will" is misleading.  No one
(at least no one I know of) believes in *FREE* will.  
The real question is  "To what extent is the universe deterministic?".

We all (?) believe that our decisions are based on our past experience
and our personality (read genetics or spirit depending on where you are
arguing from).  Thus the question is *not* whther or not we make choices, 
but rather whether or not our decision is partially or completely
determined by our prior training and nature.

The "free-will" theorists hold that are choices are only partially
deterministic and partially random.

The "no-free-will" theorists hold that are choices are completely
deterministic with no random component.

The shadings along the way tell you whether to punish crime (add negative
experiences to change behavior) or to ignore it completely (past input
makes no difference to a fully free will).

As I said before, I know no one who believes in completely free will
but the previous example indicates that the question can not be eliminated
by pretending that only two sides of the argument exist.



The opinions I express are my own...unless they prove to be wrong (in which
case I didn't really write this.)
D.V.Swinney     dswinney@galaxy.afit.af.mil