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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Pfui
Message-ID: <1581@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Aug-85 14:40:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1581
Posted: Sat Aug 24 14:40:43 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 03:28:42 EDT
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>>All you've shown is that you have to power to want to condition yourself not
>>to do something. That happens to be great, and one of the best and most useful
>>things about being human.  I wouldn't call it "free will" though.  The fact
>>that it took time to squelch the desires and recondition yourself proves my
>>point:  you cannot simply will a desire (!) into or out of existence.

> 	Well, here is the main difference between us, that is
> *exactly* what I call free will. I do not remember any proponent of
> free will ever claiming the ability to magically will a result
> instantly. That is totally irrelevent to free will as far as I am
> concerned. Why should my inability to do something I never claimed was
> possible have any bearing on the existence of free will?

Because that's the definition.  What you call free will is hardly free.
If you cannot will your desires (and thus your actions) into or out of
existence, you are dependent upon the way your brain happens to be at that
time, and thus you are not free.  If it's NOT predisposed to doing what you
describe, due to not having learned it or other possibilities, then
it won't happen.
-- 
"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day
 to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human
 being can fight and never stop fighting."  - e. e. cummings
	Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr