From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Mon Aug 16 1999 - 00:54:30 MDT
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>>Me:
>> Free Will is the inability to always know what you will do next,
>>and not know when you'll not know, even in an unchanging environment.
Damien Broderick <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au> Wrote:
>No, that's just a side consequence. The idea that humans have (a faculty of)
>free will is surely an attempt to formalise or account for the tussle
>we often experience when we are impelled by `mixed motives'.
>We momentarily become aware of the usually inaccessible seething
>of the society of mind or self parliament.
That's pretty much what I said, I just said it shorter. I don't understand what
you're objecting to.
>To what extent an executive decision can actually prevail over the appetites
>is unclear to me
The executive always prevails, it always does what it wants to, it's just that
the appetites (and fears) can change what it wants.
>but *randomness* and/or *unknowability of alternatives* are not part of
>that obscurity.
Why not? If you knew with certainty every single thing you would do tomorrow
would you have free will, wouldn't you feel like a robot? My point is that even
a robot doesn't feel like a robot.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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