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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Pfui
Message-ID: <660@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 13:57:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.660
Posted: Fri Aug 16 13:57:31 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 20:36:53 EDT
References: <1276@pyuxd.UUCP> <2145@pucc-h> <1313@pyuxd.UUCP> <434@spar.UUCP> <1388@pyuxd.UUCP> <626@psivax.UUCP> <1474@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 51
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:2322 net.religion:7422
Summary: 

In article <1474@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>
>> 	Oh great! Now you want to say that free will in your
>> definition requires that only certain methods be used to accomplish
>> a decision! [FRIESEN]
>
>Those "certain methods" being freedom from externals.  If you have to alter
>your mind(set) using external modification, if you cannot simply WILL
>the change to occur, you have struck a death blow to the notion of free will.
>You do have the power to accomplish this decision, but it is not decided
>freely.
>
	Hmm, it seems your definition of Free Will involves the
capacity to magically, instantaneously accomplish a decision by
force of will alone! With such a definition I can see why you do
not believe it exists! All my definition requirtes is that I have
the capability of carrying out my decisions as long as I am not
directly constrained by external forces. I consider the past
experiences and existing emotional structures which are involved
in making a decision to be *internal* factors, and thus not in any
way contradictory to my ability to make decisions. If I make a
decision to change myself, and that decision was made on the basis
of my own internal needs and desires, then I consider that decision
to have been freely made, and any manipulation of externals that I
need to accomplish it may be considered to proceed from the decision.

>
>Because the decision to do that was in fact based on external control!!!
>Because the only reason you decided to choose that was because of the
>way your mind happened to be set up at the time.  YOU had the opportunity
>to choose that self-conditioning therapy of sorts because you had the
>fortuitousness to have your mind set up to be able to make such a decision.

	But I do not call such things external, I call them internal.

>Others in your situation, who want to change the way things are for them,
>may not be amenable to making such a decision.  They might choose to pray
>for the change to happen, or to just forget about it and "accept" the way
>things are.
>
	Well, I consider those to be viable alternatives also, they
are not even mutually exvclusive. Or don't you realise that to "just
forget about it and accept the way things are" is itself a sort of
change, a change in one's attitude towards a situation!

-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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