Hi Craig, On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 2:00 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > [Steve] >> She can even choose what she does not prefer... >> Are we not slaves to our preferences? > > You answered your own question. We can choose what we don't > prefer, therefore we are NOT slaves to our preferences. > > [Steve] >> We did not choose our preferences > > Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. > I prefer Italian food to Chinese food. The former just tastes better; > I didn't choose it to taste better. > But my wife is allergic to cheese, so when we go out to dinner, > I prefer to go to a Chinese restaurant. That preference I do choose.
Steve: You misunderstand. My point is that you can't choose to prefer something you don't already prefer. Or do you have this special ability? Can you, say, will yourself to prefer Bach if you actually prefer Mozart? Can you will yourself to prefer F=2*ma if you already prefer F=ma? Please demonstrate your free will by willing a change in some such preference. Since we literally are our preferences, there is no "I" that could possess an extra added ingredient of free will that could stand outside of the collection of preferences known as "I." This doesn't mean that preference never change. They evolve, and the story of the evolution of the pattern of preferences is the same thing as the story of the evolution of the person since they are one and the same. But there is no "I" that stands apart from preferences that could be called the thing willing these changes. Again, if you think otherwise, please demonstrate by willing yourself to change a preference that you hold. > > [Steve] >> How could it ever aid in our decision making to determine whether or >> not we have free will? > > Consider the case where we are trying to decide what to do about someone > who broke the law. Our response will depend on whether we think that person > acted freely or not. Steve: In such cases, what we want to establish is whether someone else under similar circumstances would have behaved differently. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
