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From: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: How to dispose of the free will issue (long)
Summary: Old argument, new bottle, same irrelevance
Keywords: free will architecture terminology
Message-ID: <445@proxftl.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jul 88 22:04:43 GMT
References: <483@cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk> <794@l.cc.purdue.edu> <488@aiva.ed.ac.uk> <5384@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale
Lines: 39

In article <5384@sdcrdcf.UUCP>, markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) writes:
> In article <488@aiva.ed.ac.uk> jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton,E26 SB x206E,,2295119) writes:
> >In article <794@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
> >>Whether or not we have free will, we should behave as if we do,
> >>because if we don't, it doesn't matter.
> >If that is true -- if it doesn't matter -- then we will do just as well
> >to behave as if we do not have free will.
>
> Not so, believing in free will is a no lose situation; while
> believing that you don't have free is a no win situation.
> In the first case either your right or it doesn't matter, in the second
> case either your wrong or it doesn't matter.  Game theory (assuming
> you put more value on being right then wrong (if it doesn't matter
> there are no values anyway)) says the believing and acting like you
> have free will is the way that has the most expected return.

Pascal, I think it was, advanced essentially the same argument in
order to defend the proposition that one should believe in god.

However, both sides of the argument agree that the issue at hand
has no satisfactory resolution, and thus we are free to be
religious about it; both are also forgetting that the answer to
this question has practical consequences.

Pick your favorite definition of free will. Unless it is one
where the "free will" has no causal relationship with the rest
of the world (but then why does it matter?), the existence or
lack of existence of free will will have measurable consequences.

For example, my own definition of free will has consequences
that, among many other things, includes the proposition that,
under normal circumstances, an initiation of physical force is
harmful both to the agent and the patient. (Do not argue this
proposition in this newsgroup, PLEASE.) It also entails a
definition of the debatable terms like `normal' and `harm' by
means of which this statement can be interpreted. This means
that I can test the validity of my definition of free will by
normal scientific means and thus takes the problem of free will
out of the religious and into the practical.