From: Gordon Worley (redbird@rbisland.cx)
Date: Fri Jul 05 2002 - 01:59:35 MDT
At 01:20 AM 7/4/2002 -0400, Gordon Worley wrote:
> Besides, I assert there's no such thing as free will and it's just an
> illusion of the interpreter, but that's another thread.
I chose my wording carefully: I only assert that this is true, but
admit completely that I cannot prove one way or another whether free
will exists (if it can be proven please point me in the direction of
such a proof, since I have not spent endless time thinking on this).
As far as what free will is (and what I was thinking when I wrote this),
I use the common, folk sense of the word, meaning that you, at any time,
can decide to do or think anything. In other words, the common sense of
free will implies that you have a magic box in your head that
nondeterministically decides what happens in your brain next and it
could be anything that `you' want (remember, its `you' that has the free
will).
As for alternative definitions of free will, I'm not very interested.
Once you clear out the mystical means of choice, your choice is no
longer free but restricted by the confines of your brain and your
current mind state.
That's it for tonight. I have been kept up far too late with all the
Independence Day fun that everyone managed to involve me in.
-- Gordon Worley `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty http://www.rbisland.cx/ said, `it means just what I choose redbird@rbisland.cx it to mean--neither more nor less.' PGP: 0xBBD3B003 --Lewis Carroll
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