On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 7:07 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> > >> 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. I'm glad to hear I'm not alone! > > > My > > usual formulation is "free will is the ability to do something > stupid", which could be paraphrased as "do something irrational". If I believe 2+2= 5 that would certainly be stupid but it may not be irrational, there could be a reason I believe that, its just that whatever that reason is it has nothing to do with what 2+2 actually is. Or I could have that belief for no reason whatsoever, in other words it could be random. Or there could be a reason but not one I'm aware of, but I would still classify that as irrational because I don't know why I believe it I just know I do. > > > 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. > If its rational then there was a reason for it, and if randomness or pseudo-randomness was used judiciously and sparingly that strategy could be smart too in certain circumstances. John K Clark -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
