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From: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: How to dispose of the free will issue
Summary: Randomness doesn't give you free will. Self-determinism does.
Keywords: free will self-determinism randomness
Message-ID: <488@metapsy.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jul 88 23:20:24 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> <421@afit-ab.arpa>
Reply-To: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Organization: Metapsychology, Woodside, CA
Lines: 27

In article <421@afit-ab.arpa> dswinney@icc.UUCP (David V. Swinney) writes:
>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.

If my actions were random, I would not consider myself to have "free will".
Only if my actions were self-determined would I so consider myself.  As Bohm
pointed out: "The laws of chance are just as necessary as the causal laws
themselves." [*Causality and Chance in Modern Physics*]

I think most would agree that we have at least some degree of self-determinism,
and beyond that, we have some degree of causativeness over our own natures,
e.g. our habits and our understanding.  That is the basis upon which laws
concerning negligence rest.

How far this "second-order" self-determinism extends is an open question, but
the issue of randomness doesn't, I think, enter into it.
-- 
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.  Palo Alto, CA 94301
-- 
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.  Palo Alto, CA 94301