From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert Mon Aug 24 15:41:29 EDT 1992
Article 6668 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Freewill, chaos and digital systems
Message-ID: <1992Aug20.192242.2728@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
References: <Bt4xt1.MA0.1@cs.cmu.edu> <1992Aug19.210204.29868@mp.cs.niu.edu> <25048@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:22:42 GMT
Lines: 26

In article <25048@castle.ed.ac.uk> fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:
>rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>>                The physical conditions which predetermined your vote
>>was that physical substance in your brain which represents your
>>principles.  Your reasoning was completely correct.  It was your
>>principles, or their physical embodiment, which determined your vote.
>
>Ah, yes. This is good as far as it goes, *but* did you have a choice in
>garnering those principles?

I'm sure I made many choices while gathering these principles.  And all
of these choices had a similar type of explanation.  That leaves my
explanation now in very deep recursion.  Still, it is not infinite
recursion.

>                            If the principles made the decision then
>does Free Will only exists if *you chose* those principles?

You're really asking about a more absolutist notion of free will.  My
explanation of free will was really an explanation of why free will is
a reasonable interpretation.  An absolutist free will is presumably
incompatible with determinism.  It seems equally incompatible with
randomness, unless random behavior not of your choosing is your idea of
free will.



