Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!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: <8805091739.AA27922@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 9 May 88 17:41:09 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 41

In article <726@taurus.BITNET>, shani@TAURUS.BITNET writes:
>In article <402@aiva.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiva.BITNET writes:
>> Is this an Ayn Rand point?  It sure sounds like one.  Note the use
>> of `self-contradicting'.
>
>I bet you will not belive me, but I'm not sure I know who Ayn Rand is...

I didn't see anything in Shani's message that looks like it's based on
Ayn Rand (she certainly wasn't the only philosopher to oppose
self-contradiction), but I do agree with Jeff that Ayn Rand's writings
can shed light on the free will issue.

To those who haven't heard of her, Ayn Rand was a novelist and a
philosopher, and both her novels and her philosophy books are highly
recommended.

I think there are two main ways in which Ayn Rand was relevant to the
free will issue:

1. Her basic approach, of basing philosophical theories on observation
of facts rather than on assumptions about what the world should be
like, is an approach that all those who discuss the issue of free will
should learn. Specifically, we have to realize that free will is a
fact, perceived directly by introspection, and it is therefore wrong to
reject it just because we would like all natural processes to conform
to the model of physics.

2. Ayn Rand has identified the exact nature of free will, in a way that
is consistent with the facts, does not suffer from the philosophical
problems of other free will theories, and demonstrates why free will is
not connected to, and is actually incompatible with, randomness. Man's
free will lies in the act of focusing his consciousness, in his choice
to think or not and what to think about. This means that free will is
consistent with having reasons that determine your thoughts and your
actions, because, by your choice in focusing your consciousness, it is
you who chose those reasons.

	Eyal Mozes

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