Glen: What's most interesting about the concept is where selection happens and the scope of its impact.
I hesitate to call this free will (except maybe to steal it away from deists as SteveG wishes to do with his notion of god), though I do appreciate your allusions to free and bound variables. To reiterate once more, before I drop the point, *free will* is a limiting notion that became *all the rage* for enlightenment thinkers. Much like SteveG sometimes plays a function which takes a thing and asks about its opposite, these enlightenment thinkers would take a concept, iterate, and ask about the limit. If we agree that a discussion of *will* is a discussion of scope (bound versus free) then fine, I also see this as useful. *Free will* on the other hand is (at best) another unnecessary proxy and (possibly at worst) an unfounded generalization. If we scope the conversation to ask to what degree can I choose to go to the store, or that frog can choose to jump, or that thermostat can choose to regulate, then I feel we are operating within meaningful bounds. We can call it agency, or will, or whatever. But perhaps we should leave *free will* in a corner somewhere to talk to itself. Because *free will* has a meaningful part to play in the history of responsibility, the *leaving in a corner* is not so easy with respect to the progeny of moral responsibility. Our institutions still doff their hats to *free will* and therefore continue to treat it as a viable technology. I feel that what makes *free will* a relevant discussion today is that it clearly needs to be *deprecated*. The question for me becomes, with what should we replace it? -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
