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From: Perry Swanborough <Perry.Swanborough@jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: influencing the environment in Tierra
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Douglas Dike <wmage@rahul.net> wrote:
>Perry Swanborough (Perry.Swanborough@jcu.edu.au) wrote:
>> A robot whose behaviour is controlled by a deterministic program 
>> (there's a tautology for you!) is not behaving in any way that I 
>> understand to be free will, regardless of whether we consider the 
>> program's output to be random or not.
>
>I'd be impressed if you could show me how humans have free will,
>being controlled by those pesky deterministic laws of physics.
>

I agree with you that there is a real philosophical problem here. If all 
of physics is deterministic, then free will is an illusion, but if this 
is so, why does the illusion exist? Like you, I would also be impressed 
if someone could show how free will can exist in a deterministic 
universe. 

Perry

