Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!mimsy!eneevax!umd5!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!COYOTE.STANFORD.EDU!eyal
From: eyal@COYOTE.STANFORD.EDU (Eyal Mozes)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will and Self-Awareness
Message-ID: <8805092354.AA05852@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 9 May 88 23:55:11 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 26

In article <796@hydra.riacs.edu>, nienart@turing.arc.nasa.gov (john nienart) writes:
>What makes you so certain that _anything_ perceived be introspection is
>fact? Introspection provides me with the "fact" that there is, in fact, a
>"me" to do the introspecting, but there are a number of philosophies and
>religions (mostly of the Eastern variety) which insist that this is _not_ a
>fact,

And that's exactly the point. Most philosophies, and all religions, make
a lot of a priori assumptions about what the world should be like, some
of them ridiculously contrary to fact. This approach must be rejected.

>Maybe its just me, but I find rather frequently that I'm thinking about
>something that I'm _sure_ I'd rather not think about (or humming a trashy
>pop song I hate, etc.). It certainly feels at these times that I don't have
>complete control over that upon which my consciousness is focussed.

Are you saying that, at those times, you are making a deliberate,
conscious effort to turn your thoughts to something else, and this
effort fails? If so then, yes, it is just you; all the evidence I'm
familiar with points to the fact that it's always possible for a human
being to control his thoughts by a conscious effort.

	Eyal Mozes

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