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From: rf@wu1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: YAOFW (Yet another Omni/Free Will)
Message-ID: <254@wu1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Feb-84 13:08:17 EST
Article-I.D.: wu1.254
Posted: Wed Feb 29 13:08:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Mar-84 10:59:37 EST
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Organization: Western Union Telegraph, Mahwah, NJ
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As part of a discussion of free will, Dave Norris writes:

  A cannon ball doesn't have the ability to change course, even
  if it had the free will to do so.  

According to quantum mechanical findings, a cannon ball can
change course.

There is a sense in which automata capable of random behaviour
can do more than strictly deterministic automata -- a fact of
considerable value to network designers, who use routing
programs based on such methods.  So, I pose these questions:

   1. Can we construct systems which will not work without randomness?

   2. Do such things exist in nature?

   3. Does what we call "free will" actually consist of
   randomness?


				Randolph Fritz