----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 2:42 PM Subject: thinking about free will
> Bryon wrote: > > << > Maybe I'm wrong, but as I see it, the question is whether everything a > person does, are all choices made purely a function of his biology, > society, environment, etc, or is it real choice? Are we more than > the sum of our inputs? > >> > > I think that while it's possible (probable?) that we are the sum of our > inputs, those inputs are so complex that it doesn't matter. In other > words, while you might be able to predict what a person might do in any > given situation, the computation would be extremely complex and subject to > change in the time it would take to compute it - even if that computation > was nearly instantaneous. > > So, IMO, while we might not have _pure_ free will, what we do have is > virtually indistinguishable from it. If that makes it virtually indistinguishable, then, photons also have free will in the same sense that we do....because we cannot in principal, predict where they hit. We only give probabilities, but we can measure with enough precision to in the same manner that humans do? My point is that there is no experimental evidence for a number of things most people accept. Arguing the tautology that anything that is not experimentally testable is meaningless because it is not experimentally testable is not really proving anything. If people want to believe only in those things that can be empirically verified, then that's certainly an option. I'd just like the logical consequences of that to also be accepted. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
