Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!quintus!ok From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness Message-ID: <940@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> Date: 7 May 88 02:57:46 GMT References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <1179@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> Distribution: comp Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA Lines: 43 Keywords: randomness responsibility In article <1179@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes: > In article <4543@super.upenn.edu> lloyd@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Lloyd Greenwald) writes: > >This is a good point. It seems that some people are associating free will > >closely with randomness. > > Yes, I do so. I think this is a necessary definition. > > Consider the concept of Freedom in the most general sense. It is > opposed by the concept of Determinism. For what it is worth, my "feeling" of "free will" is strongest when I act in accord with my own character / value system &c. That is, when I act in a relatively predictable way. There is a strong philosophical and theological tradition of regarding free will and some sort of determinism as compatible. If I find myself acting in "random" or unpredictable ways, I look for causes outside myself ("oh, I brought the wrong book because someone has shuffled the books on my shelf"). Randomness is *NOT* freedom, it is the antithesis of freedom. If something else controls my behaviour, the randomness of the something else cannot make _me_ free. I suppose the philosophical position I can accept most readily is the one which identifies "free will" with being SELF-determined. That is, an agent possesses free will to the extent that its actions are explicable in terms of the agent's own beliefs and values. For example, I give money to beggars. This is not at all random; it is quite predictable. But I don't do it because someone else makes me do it, but because my own values and beliefs make it appropriate to do so. A perfectly good person, someone who always does the morally appropriate thing because that's what he likes best, might well be both predictable and as free as it is possible for a human being to be. > There has been a great debate as to whether quantum uncertainty was > subjective or objective. The subjectivists espoused "hidden variables" > theories (i.e.: there are determining factors going on, we just don't > know them yet, the variables are hidden). These theories can be tested. > Recently they have been shown to be false. Hidden variables theories are not "subjectivist" in the usual meaning of the term; they ascribe quantum uncertainty to objective physical processes. They haven't been shown false. It has been shown that **LOCAL** hidden variables theories are not consistent with observation, but NON-local theories (I believe there are at least two current) have not been falsified.