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From: kavuri@cb.ecn.purdue.edu (Surya N Kavuri )
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Keywords: Behaviorism, materialism, dogma, science
Message-ID: <954@cb.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 16 May 89 16:14:56 GMT
References: <10333@ihlpb.ATT.COM> <3850@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <52019@linus.UUCP> <528@orawest.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
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  In WAR AND PEACE, Tolstoy discussed free will and the underlying 
  rationality of historical evolution:

  The presence of the question of the freedom of the will, if not openly 
  expressed, is felt at every step in history....If the will of every man
  were free, that is, if every man could act as he chose, the whole of 
  history would be a tissue of disconnected accidents....If there is but 
  one law controlling the actions of men, there can be no free will, since 
  men's will must be subject to that law.  In this contradiction lies the 
  question of the freedom of the will, which from the most ancient times 
  has occupied the best intellects of mankind, and has from the most ancient
  times been regarded as of immense importance.  Looking at man as a subject
  of observation from any point of view- theological, hstorical, ethical, 
  philosophical- we find a general law of necessity to which he is subject
  like everything existing.  Looking at him from within ourselves, as what 
  we are conscious of, we feel ourselves free ....


                                                  SURYA KAVURI
                                                  (FIAT LUX)