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,net.religion Subject: Re: Pfui Message-ID: <1564@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 18:32:42 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1564 Posted: Tue Aug 20 18:32:42 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 13:15:50 EDT References: <1276@pyuxd.UUCP> <2145@pucc-h> <1313@pyuxd.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 24 Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2377 net.religion:7446 > Perhaps you could clear up just one little detail for me, Rich. If > the definition of free will which *you* use is the real, historically used > definition of the term, why has the existence of 'free will' been a subject > of debate for so long? From your definition, it's obvious that 'free will' > does not exist, but the existance of free will has been debated by > philosophers for centuries, at least. Were they dim, or were they using > a different definition? [SONNTAG] Obviously not. It wasn't quite so "obvious" to them, perhaps, because they wishfully thought up things like souls and such to account for what they perceived as free will. The notion that souls (or agents external to physical reality---whatever that means) do not exist is not fully accepted even today. Many people who rooted their thinking in religious beliefs just took it for granted that there were. The fact that this definition depends on such things as souls does not ipso facto make it bad. In fact, it makes it quite good if you happen to believe in such things. Unfortunately, such a belief is a form of circular reason. (We have free will because we have souls, which we know to exist because we have free will, because...) It is only without the added notion of souls, which serves only to make our wishful wishes come true, that the definition of free will becomes "obviously" wrong. -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr