Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.physics,comp.ai,comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.meta,alt.memetics,alt.extropians
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!doug
From: doug@netcom.com (Doug Merritt)
Subject: Re: Randomness and free will
Message-ID: <dougDMGyLD.Cz6@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <823175308.29461@ray.division.co.uk> <1996Feb1.192126.28158@nb.rockwell.com> <4fc5hj$bpt@manuel.anu.edu.au>
Distribution: inet
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 18:12:48 GMT
Lines: 18
Sender: doug@netcom12.netcom.com
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.physics:170064 comp.ai:36853 comp.ai.philosophy:37542 sci.philosophy.meta:24431

In article <4fc5hj$bpt@manuel.anu.edu.au> Dave Davies <dave.davies@anu.edu.au> writes:
>I have never seen a scientific or mathematical definition of randomness. 

Although that is a slippery subject, what's *really* non-existent
is a scientific/mathematic definition of free will.

The philosophical arguments about all these subjects are kind of
amusing considering that all three relevant base concepts (randomness,
free will, and even determinism) are ill defined in the discussions.

Determinism is the easiest to nail down, relatively, but it assumes
causality, and causality has been questioned fairly effectively.
	Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt				doug@netcom.com
Professional Wild-eyed Visionary	Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow

Unicode Novis Cypherpunks Gutenberg Wavelets Conlang Logli Alife Anthro
Computational linguistics Fundamental physics Cogsci Egyptology GA TLAs
