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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Message-ID: <jqbCzJ9zF.G5G@netcom.com>
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References: <3agf03$qi5@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3aisbo$4pf@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3ajo2m$ig8@net.auckland.ac.nz> <3al0ma$1pu@africa.lm.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 21:21:14 GMT
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In article <3al0ma$1pu@africa.lm.com>,
Godshatter <mentat@telerama.lm.com> wrote:
>
>     What's all this argument about free will?  Is it possible people 
>have free will in some cases and not in others.  Is it possible that free 
>will is a continuum from 0 to infinity?  I'm not asserting anything 
>because I don't know.  It just seems that most people in this debate have 
>been around computers so long that they are beginning to think like 
>them.  "Free will is either on or off."  Maybe we should try to get beyond 
>digital thinking. 

There are at least three positions espoused:

1) We have it.
2) We don't have it.
3) I dunno, what is it?

Sure, it's possible that free will is a continuum, given an appropriate
definition; perhaps something like "freedom from external coercion" (with the
problem that "external" is arbitrary and hard to define at the os-so-important
margins).  But I don't think people agree on a definition.  Neil Rickert
says it means what he takes to be its common usage.  Unfortunately, I find
its common usage to be inconsistent and incoherent, so I still don't know
what he means by it, and I find his attempts to formulate arguments based
upon such nebulousness to be somewhat pointless.  If someone comes along and
says "well, I know what Neil means, and I agree", I find that no more persuasive
than my friend Dave telling me "I know what Bruce means by `flowing purply'
and I agree, and you would too if you had done some of this blotter with us".
-- 
<J Q B>
