Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2013 sci.philosophy.tech:673
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu
From: gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu (Gene W. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: How to dispose of the free will issue (long)
Keywords: free will architecture terminology
Message-ID: <11906@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 11 Jul 88 01:47:57 GMT
References: <483@cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk> <794@l.cc.purdue.edu> <488@aiva.ed.ac.uk> <5384@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <445@proxftl.UUCP>
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Reply-To: gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu (Gene W. Smith)
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Organization: Garnet Gang Gems of Wisdom, Inc.
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In-reply-to: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)

In article <445@proxftl.UUCP>, bill@proxftl (T. William Wells) writes:

>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.

  Having a causal connection to the rest of the world is not the
same as having measurable consequences, so this argument won't
work. One possible definition of free will (with problems, but
don't let that worry us) is that there is no function (from
possible internal+external states to behavior, say) which
determines what the free will agent will do. To to test this is
to test a negative statement about the lack of a function, which
seems hard to do, to say the least.

>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.

  This is such a weak verification of your free will hypothesis
as to be nearly useless, even if I accept that you are able to
make the deduction you claim. Freud claimed that psychoanalysis
was a science, deducing all kinds of things from his egos and his
ids. But he failed to show his explanations were to be preferred
to the possible alternatives; in other words, to show his ideas
had any real explanatory power. You would need to show your
ideas, whatever they are, had genuine explanatory power to claim
you had a worthwhile scientific theory.
--
ucbvax!garnet!gsmith    Gene Ward Smith/Garnet Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
"Some people, like Chuq and Matt Wiener, naturally arouse suspicion by
behaving in an obnoxious fashion." -- Timothy Maroney, aka Mr. Mellow