On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 3:45 AM, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au>wrote:
> In both your examples, (dice and roulette wheels), they always do > something stupid (generate a random number). But you said free will is the ability to do something stupid so both dice and roulette wheels have free will. But perhaps it's the "always" that bothers you, after all sometimes people do smart things; so then rig up some dice with a pocket calculator and make a hybrid machine, usually the calculator produces the correct answer but on average of one time in 6 it does not and it does something dumb, like give the wrong answer. Now it has free will. > There is no choice in their actions Just like you, and me, and the dog, and a thermostat, and a rock, and a electron, and everything else in the universe, the dice and roulette wheel did what they did for a reason OR they did what they did for no reason. The word "choice" does not help because there is no third alternative. > I think you may be deliberately taking my statement out of context. > Please note that I am not rejecting your definition, all I'm doing is using logic to see where it leads; if it ends up endowing things with free will that you don't want to have free will don't blame me, it's your definition not mine. John K Clark -- 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. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
