Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.physics,comp.ai,comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.meta,alt.memetics
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.coast.net!torn!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Randomness and free will
Message-ID: <DMIv91.ACE@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <823819927.16520@smrit.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 18:55:49 GMT
Lines: 36
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.physics:170339 comp.ai:36885 comp.ai.philosophy:37586 sci.philosophy.meta:24501

In article <823819927.16520@smrit.demon.co.uk>,
Steve @ Melanie Richards  <steve@smrit.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>doug@netcom.com (Doug Merritt) writes:
>> 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
>
>In the purest form, nothing is nor can be random! - therefore 
>it does not exist - only our inability to predict many events!  

Hmm... and where do you know this from? Is this an article of faith or
is the statement above falsifiable? Have you ever heard about Bell's
inequality?

Andrzej
-- 
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
