Stephen, just a brief remark to the discussion: if the 'agent' has complete info (it never occurs) it naturally coerces its decision (*will, choice*). We call *good-bad* according to OUR incomplete thinking. Same goes for the *"rational - irrational"* pair. We can NEVER have complete information - we are restricted in our mental capabilities from exploiting the total infinite complexity. All is condensed into: (as *R RAM wrote:* *With incomplete information, a rational being will make the best choice under the available information and would beat an irrational being most of the time )* (ambient lingo wording).
My position stands: there is NO free will, only ALMOST(!) and maybe considered 'some freedom carrying' will, (just as I did deny 'random' and got an 'almost': "under certain (given) circumstances"). The term YOUR FREE WILL arose from the faith-based authoritarian requirement to raise responsibility - hence a guilt feeling for a make-believe punishment (in eternity!). John M ** On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Stephen P. King <[email protected]>wrote: > Dear Russell, > > In our definition of the concept of "free will", it seems that we need > to elaborate a bit on the notions of coercion, autonomy and choice. From > what I have studied, the concept of a player used in game theory works > well. Free will is the ability for an autonomous agent to make uncoercered > choices from a set of simultaneously inspectable choices. > > > On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote: > >> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 11:08:29AM -0700, meekerdb wrote: >> >>> On 7/30/2012 4:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>>> Free-will is an informal term use in many informal setting. >>>> religious people defined it often by the ability to choose >>>> consciously between doing bad things or not, and people from the >>>> law can invoke it as a general precondition for making sense of >>>> the responsibility idea. In cognitive science we can at least >>>> approximate it in different ways, and basically, with >>>> computationalism it is the ability to make choice in absence of >>>> complete information, and knowledge of that incomplete feature. >>>> >>> I'm not clear on why you emphasize incomplete information? What >>> would constitute complete information? and why how would that >>> obviate 'free will'. Is it coercive? >>> >>> With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal >> choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being. >> >> Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a >> wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is >> usually beaten by an irrational being. >> >> This is where the idea that free will is the capability to act >> irrationally (or as I put it "do something stupid") comes from. There >> are definite evolutionary advantages to acting irrationally some of >> the time (though not all the time :). >> >> >> > > -- > Onward! > > Stephen > > "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." > ~ Francis Bacon > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to > everything-list@googlegroups.**com<[email protected]> > . > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@ > **googlegroups.com <everything-list%[email protected]>. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** > group/everything-list?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en> > . > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
