friends: don't put so much brain-grease into Free Will, please! It is the religious mambo-jumbo put into the mind of the poor-believers in ancient times to make them responsible for deeds the powerful disliked - and consequently: make them punishable. Then it became a 'human treasure': *"We are FREE to Will!" *(like a god) and now even smart, reasonable people like us spend centuries to discuss it. A decision is right when it goes smoothly with the given and continuing circumstances it has to fit into (Think of the mis - construed 'evolution': if it does not 'fit' the mutant perishes). We may (or may not) know about the given circumstances and for sure may have only desultory and unsafe notions about the 'coming' ones. Our evaluation (call it computing?) results in a decision (conscious or not) for our activity - OR just way of thinking. Reasonably we try to abide by those circumstances we know of and formulate (consciously, or not) our decision according to our best belief (maybe this is contrary to our interest?). Hence emerges FREE WILL. I am not faithful enough to believe in MY free will and go to hell by force of this misconception. I may make mistakes. I am not deterministically forced to comply with all facets of the infinite complexity - known, or unknown. I can revolt. Meaning: I can knowingly choose the wrong decision. Is that free will? Maybe. That's a matter of definition.
Regards John Mikes On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 15 Mar 2013, at 18:22, meekerdb wrote: > > On 3/15/2013 7:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > You're walking down a road and spot a fork in the road far ahead. You > know of advantages and disadvantages to both paths so you arn't sure if you > will go right or left, you haven't finished the calculation yet, you > haven't decided yet. Once you get to the fork you find yourself on the left > path and retroactively conclude that you must have "decided" to go left. > > > Yes. That's what I mean by free will. Roughly speaking. Except that I > decided consciously before acting. If not, it is like randomness, or > unconscious decision, and that is not free will. Free-will is when I want > to go the left, and decide accordingly to go to the left, and nobody coerce > me to not go to the left. It is not much different than will + freedom. > > > That seems to me just and explanation of a certain *feeling* of a feeling > of freedom and of will. If you find yourself on the left path without > having consciously thought "I'll take the left." then you miss the feeling > of will. But it may just be that your conscious thoughts are lagging a > little. > > > ? > I agree but that makes free-will independent of the feeling. With my > definition of free will, it is real,even if not felt, as the machine have > the real possibility to hesitate between subgoals and make choice > hesitantly, knowing partially the consequences. > > > > When you're playing a game, say tennis, and you hit the ball to the left > you may have done so without conscious consideration yet it was just the > right shot and so was what you "willed" to win which you realize on > reflection. > > > OK. Although I think that free-will is more typical for decision taking > more time, and more self-controversial, like the decision to drink some > beer before driving a plane with passengers ... > > > > > You have a feeling of freedom so long as you are not coerced or limited by > something you can consciously consider; that's essentially all the feeling > of freedom is, not being able to think of anything that is restricting or > coercing you from taking an action. Since you can't be directly aware of > deterministic or random processes in your brain, whether they are random or > deterministic has no bearing on the freedom+will feeling. > > > I agree. But I think that free-will is more than a feeling. It is a real > possibility of reflected choice. Indeed it has nothing to so with > determinacy or randomness. > > Bruno > > > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
