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From: ellis@chips2.sri.com (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Keywords: Libertarianism, behaviorism , existentialism
Message-ID: <146@unix.SRI.COM>
Date: 12 Jun 89 04:57:35 GMT
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Reply-To: ellis@chips2.sri.com.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: SRI International
Lines: 16

> Brian Colfer

>When I was an undergraduate many years ago my Prof. Kirk Gable told me that
>my concerns about free will were fundamentally a waste of time.  One of
>his reasons were that if behaviorism works as an acurate model for how we
>live our lives and proves useful for helping people in education, mental 
>health and other similar endevours then who cares about free will.
>Well, in a sense he's right but I always enjoy discussions about the 
>fundamental nature of humanity.  

    There are many good reasons for considering free will to be a waste
    of time. There are far fewer reasons for saying the same about
    responsibility. Behaviorism has little or nothing substantive
    to offer on either of these questions.

-michael