Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: A Figment of the Imagination ( 1/2 of life - RLR ) Message-ID: <1555@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 21:19:18 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1555 Posted: Mon Aug 19 21:19:18 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 19:58:02 EDT References: <3518@decwrl.UUCP> <1451@pyuxd.UUCP> <661@psivax.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 34 >>On the contrary, it's a perfectly valid analogy because the subject >>of the words is irrelevant to the analogy. If you find that something >>you have defined, some word, does not represent a thing that exists >>(e.g., some mythical creature/phenomenon), you can't just change the >>definition to mean something else on the fly just because you feel >>like it, just because you WANT a world in which centaurs, or unicorns, >>or free wills, exist. [ROSEN] > Well, I also say the analogy is invalid, but for a different > reason. The term 'free"(and also the phrase Free Will) has more than > on accepted, historically valid definition. Yours is one, but the one > we are using is by no means new. [FRIESEN] What is it? What references do you cite for the validity of it? I honestly have yet to see any. Surely you don't mean "without cost"? I think we are dealing in the same definition of free here: unconstrained by dependencies on other things. > The word "unicorn" has only one > accepted definition, so using it in another sense violates the > accepted usage of the word. In the case of "free" there is no such > problem, it is perfectly acceptible, when a word has several meanings, > to use the one which is most useful in a given context. All we are > saying is that the definition you have chosen is less useful than the > alternative definition. Not true. You are in fact not changing the meaning of the word "free" (I think we're all talking about the definition above), you are talking about changing the meaning of the term "free will", which is entirely different. -- Meanwhile, the Germans were engaging in their heavy cream experiments in Finland, where the results kept coming out like Swiss cheese... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr