On Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 02:01:12PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > Do you also belive that you have no control over your actions at all, > its just whatever the initial conditions and quantum fluctuations > dictate?
That is an ambiguous question. What does it mean to have control over one's actions? What constitutes one? Rather than getting bogged down in semantic arguments, I will try to answer by comparing to something else that is similarly ambigous. Are you familiar with the drones in Iain Banks' Culture? For example, do you remember Chamlis Amalk-ney, from _Player of Games_? I think I am in control of my own actions in a similar way to how Chamlis is in control of Chamlis' own actions. Chamlis is controlled by programming, very complicated programming that responds to a multitude of outside stimuli, a program that can modify itself, and a program that was developed over many years with a great deal of input from other sapients and from millions of events occurring in the rest of the universe, and a program that had a bit of randomness intentionally included at the very beginning. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/
