On 6/4/2018 4:07 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Mon, Jun 04, 2018 at 01:12:57PM -0400, John Clark wrote:
>* *
*Free-will is often defined by an ability to do something randomly, *
Free-will is NOT *often* described that way, I have but I've never heard
anyone else do so;
I'm _sure_ you've heard me describe it that way. It's in my book. My
usual formulation is "free will is the ability to do something
stupid", which could be paraphrased as "do something irrational". But
effectively, that is the same thing as "do something randomly", at
least for some definitions of "random".
I like it because, although it is not useful to the
slightest degree it is one of the very few free will definitions that is
not pure gibberish.
Not only is it not gibberish, but it also turns out that acting
a little bit irrational is useful, in that you prevent your enemies
from exploiting the predictability of you actions if you were
perfectly rational.
I would point out that even acting perfectly rationally doesn't entail
that your actions will be predictable by your enemies. In general you
will have different information than other people.
Brent
Cheers
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