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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 16:03:27 GMT
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In article <3blakl$k0r@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <3bl2qp$53e@tahoma.cwu.edu> scott@tahoma.cwu.edu (R. Scott Schilling) writes:
>>:  Neil Rickert, rickert@cs.niu.edu writes:
>
>>: >Now suppose the scientist has no free will.  It might happen that
>>: >sometimes when there is current flowing the needle deflects, but at
>>: >other times when there is current it does not.  That is, the
>>: >
>>: >The ability to do experimental science presupposes free will.
>
>>You know, I don't think that this scenerio is too limted to show 
>>something about free will.  It seems to me that it is a recursive 
>>argument: if we have free will and judge it by the magnetic experiment,
>>then we are correct in running a thinking "geganken" experiment on 
>>the exeriment itself, but if we do not have free will, then we cannot even
>>judge the magnetic experiment in the first place - we do not have the 
>>free will to do so. 
>
>Thanks.  That is just the point I was trying to make.  Roughly
>speaking if you deny that you have free will, you implicitly deny
>that you have the ability to acquire the knowledge to support your
>denial of free will.
--------------------------------------------
Horse-puckey. If you deny that you are determined, you merely deny that you
are aware of it. People deny things all the time. It does not mean that
they are right! If a chatty-Cathy doll said, "I am fully sentient and aware
with free will!", does this mean she therefore, by your example, prove that
she DOES have free will??? NO! And if she denies that she has free-will?
Same thing. No! Proves nothing! It's like the structure of the joke where a
man does not believe in God, and then God says he doesn't believe in the
man, and the man goes poof! Why didn't God go poof? Where did we get Her
for the joke? You're amusing this time, but not rational.
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

