On 14 May 2015, at 03:20, LizR wrote:
On 14 May 2015 at 12:01, Russell Standish <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 01:46:49PM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> On Tue, May 12, 2015 Russell Standish <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
> > Free will is the ability to do something stupid. Nonrational.
> >
>
> OK fine free will is non-rational, in other words an event
performed for NO
> REASON, in other words an event without a cause, in other words
random. So
> a radioactive atom has free will when it decays.
A radioactive atom isn't a person, consequently does not have
will. At least not when I last checked.
But a person choosing what to do as a result of an atom decaying
does have free will, I assume?
Only if you define free-will by random, but frankly, it seems that
random is the complete opposite of free-will. If you choose randomly,
it means you abandon your will to chance. It means you let chance
doing the decision at your place.
Imagine that I give you the liberty to go either in Hell or in
Paradise, with your own free will. Then, as you tell me that free will
= random, I can throw the coin for you, and ... Hell. Would say that
in that case you are going to hell by your own free will?
I think free will require determinacy, at least some amount so as
being able to do some planning.
(Perhaps the atom was inside their brain, and its decay just
happened to tip the balance of brain chemicals enough that the final
decision was in favour of tea rather than coffee... or perhaps the
person decided to decide which drink to have on the basis of a
reading from a Geiger counter... either way, in this particular case
human FW puts them in a bit of a Schroedinger's cat siutation...)
Which in my opinion illustrate well that both self-duplication and
self-superposition have no role in free -will.
Bruno
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