Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!oddjob!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!vu0112
From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <1189@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 9 May 88 18:12:00 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <1182@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <948@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Distribution: comp
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
Lines: 103
Keywords: randomness responsibility

In article <948@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>I'm not sure that there is any point in continuing this, our basic
>presuppositions seem to be so alien.

All the more reason to keep talking, in my book!

>Orthodox Christianity holds that
>[1]    - God is able to do anything that is doable
>[2]    - God is not constrained by anything other than His own nature
>[3]    - it is impossible for God to sin
>From my perspective, such a God is maximally free.

Hmm.  [1] and [3] seem blatantly inconsistent - surely sinning is
doable? [2] seems to be saying that there are no external causes acting
on God - doesn't this beg the question as to the cause of God's nature?
Perhaps you don't require God to hold to logical argument - I have no
problem with that.  I'm sure you're sensitive to the logical problems in
making arguments about such absolute and self-sufficient entities as
Gods. 

>From Chris Joslyn's perspective, such a God is minimally free.
      ^^^^^
      Cliff

>I think the problem lies in my disagreement with Joslyn's definition
>quoted above.  

I think the problem is that I'm basically talking from an Objective
perspective: how can I know whether something is free or not? Whereas
you're speaking phenomenologically.  

>He defines freedom as the ability to make choices, and

Surely this is the essence of the concept!  What else could you possibly
offer? 

Spite is the essence of Freedom.  See, I believe, Kierkegaard.

>seems to regard unmotivated (random) ``choices'' as the freest kind.

*This* may be the real argument - and where you might have me.

>I also take exception with his view that a value system is an
>external cause.  

This is also sensitive - the question is: external to what?  To your
body?  Obviously not: your value system is in your mind, which is in
your body, so you're right that it's not external to you as a whole.  On
the other hand, it does seem to be external to your *will* your
*deciding agent*, *that which is making the choice*.  Otherwise, you
would be *compelled* to act in accordance with your value system.  On
the contrary, I say that you *are* free, which means you are *free to
choose* whether or not to adhere to your value system, whether or not to
commit an evil act, say.  Surely this is also traditional theology?

OK, so you are free *not* to adhere to your value system.  On what basis
is this choice made?  Can you tell me?  If you can, then we can recurse
the argument and say: well, then you are also *free* to ignore that
basis.  In the limit, we will arrive at chance.

> in order to move
>_rationally_ from one state of your value system to another, you have
>to believe that the new state is _better_, which is to say that your
>existing value system has to endorse the new one.  

I agree.  But notice that you are now offering *rationality* as the
basis for decision making - not free will.  Are you free to act
irrationally?  If not, then you are not free.

>I would regard
>"scrapping" one's value system as irrational (and it is not clear to
>me that it is possible far a human being to do it), and if being able
>to do it is freedom, that's not a kind of freedom worth having.

You're making my argument for me: we're not arguing whether freedom is
*worth having*, but whether you have it!  If, as you suggest, it is
impossible for people to scrap their value systems, then surely we can
say that they are not free to scrap their value systems.  To that
extent, their value systems constrain their freedom, and their values
systems partially determine (that is control) their behavior.

>My objection to randomness as a significant component of freedom is
>that a random act is not an act that **I** have *willed*.  

Of course.  But you're getting confused: your will determines your
behavior, true.  What determines your will?

>Unfortunately, we
>have living proof that randomness as such is not freedom: consider the
>people who suffer from Tourette's syndrome.

Yes, but reflexes are not acts of whole people, rather acts of parts of
people. Something in the Tourette's victim's *body* is controlling their
behavior - here the behavior itself is free from mental control, in fact
the mind (and that is what we are arguing about: mental freedom) is not
involved.  That's the problem: they desparately *want* to determine
their behavior.

-- 
O---------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large
| Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .