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From: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Dennett and Indeterminism
Message-ID: <2462@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 27-Oct-85 21:31:33 EST
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.2462
Posted: Sun Oct 27 21:31:33 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 23:37:17 EST
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Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA.
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[]
I number of people have argued that indeterminism is at least a
necessary condition for free will.  That is, one condition of a
system's having free will is that its past states are not related to
ints present states deterministically.

I have recently reread an article by Daniel Dennett in which he
develops a fairly straightforward thesis of this sort.  I am referring
to "On Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want," included in
_Brainstorms_ (Bradford, 1978).  It's a fairly short piece, and it's
very clearly written.  Many of the same points are made in his more
recent _Elbow_Room_, but personally I think his style has not
benefitted by his association with Hofstadter; I can take only so much
cuteness.

Dennett