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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Open Letter to Professor Penrose
Message-ID: <DL8w8s.Jus@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <4bncj5$a94@panix3.panix.com> <4ca1rj$nfa@cnn.Princeton.EDU> <BILL.96Jan12143031@subiculum.nsma.arizona.edu> <4d7296$arh@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>
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Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:07:39 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:35949 comp.ai.philosophy:36652 sci.philosophy.meta:23154

In article <4d7296$arh@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>,
Edward LaBonte  <elabonte@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <BILL.96Jan12143031@subiculum.nsma.arizona.edu>
>bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes: 
>
>>Let me pursue this point a bit further.  The idea that determinism
>>conflicts with free will is a relic of obsolete metaphysics,
>>specifically the notion of the soul.  An action would be said to be
>>free if it was determined by the soul, rather than the body or the
>>world; this was a reasonable concept because the soul was considered
>>to be something separate from the world.  Now that we no longer accept
>>the notion of a nonphysical soul, this line of reasoning has no
>>validity.  Determination of an action by the self (i.e., free will)
>>can no longer be taken to imply lack of determination by the physical
>>world. 
>
>Does that mean that my computer asserts its free will when it tells me
>that I don't have enough memory to run an application or that my car is
>asserting free will when the oil light comes on? Human behavior is a
>lot more complex, but if it is determined by physical law then I really
>don't see how meaningful it is to call it free. Of course you can
>always use the term in the relative sense, like freedom from outside
>coercion, but in the broader sense I think it is inconsistent with
>determinism.

It all, I believe, comes down what you mean by 'self', 'personality', etc.
Please note that, for instance, a very old car (or in fact any old compli-
cated machine), which has gone through a number of minor and major repairs, 
is often said to have 'personality' in the sense that to run it one has to
have experience with this particular car, and not just any car. It may
require sometimes strange, seemingly irrational actions, to do what you
want (i.e. to drive you to a required destination). The point is that the
sum of 'experiences' through which it has gone (the driving style of
its drivers including)  made it a very unique system, with a behavior which 
is very difficult (if at all possible) to explain in rational terms.      
Interaction of all those changes to the structure made over the years is
practically impossible to understand. In some situations the behavior of the
car is decided by this (largely unknown) arrangement of various components
and their current state and not by the actions you take - it has 'its own
will'.
As one of the participants said, quoting an oriental wisdom 
"You are what your innermost desire is"

and I see this "innermost desire" as a sum of what we were born with and what 
we went through. This will decide the beahvior in specific circumstances
and this is "us" since such a combination of inborn structure and the
following experiences is unique, others are different combinations.
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Information Commons                   what they think and not what they see.
pindor@breeze.hprc.utoronto.ca                      Huang Po
