rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) (03/14/85)
[Believe it or not, Part 2, which is just as long, is called "Agreement with Torek"] > rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) writes: [ROSEN] > > This is just an assertion that rational choice is "freer" than choice > > made FOR an organism by circumstances (chemicals, environment, etc.) > > Both sets are in fact made FOR the organism. Choice, however, is a > > bad word because it implies and assumes an agent of choosing. > > Yes!, that's exactly what I'm asserting. Rational choice is made *by* the > organism. Yes, choice implies an agent, and that is where rationality > comes in -- it is precisely that which makes us agents. [TOREK] If the two are equivalent, just using different mechanisms, how can you make a distinction? By its results? Rational choice (with bad input or preconception) can have horrible results, while "choice" made without rational evaluative capability ("directly" through chemicals) might work just fine. You have no basis for distinction between the two. One simply uses another method, which may work better overall, but if you claim "in the first case, *I* am making a choice, but that animal over there isn't", well, that animal is making just as much of a choice, acting as just as much of an agent, as you are. As is that rock. As is ... >>> [Free will] is something that is (supposed to be) worth wanting. [me] >>Like the existence of a benevolent god, or ultimate justice, or a rewarding >>afterlife? Lots of things are worth wanting. > The point is that being worth wanting is a *necessary* (not sufficient) > condition of something's being equivalent to free will. Your definition > fails this condition... What? Free will is defined to mean something, and THEN you claim that because you call it free will it MUST be worth wanting, so you rearrange precepts to make it so? What kind of "defining" is that? >>As I said once before, our argument is totally based on the fact that we both >>define free will differently. It is my contention that you simply define it >>the way you like so that it (thus) WILL exist. > Yes to the first point, no to the second. I could just as well say that you > define it so that it (thus) WON'T exist. But *I'm* not defining it, I'm simply utilizing the commonly accepted definition of the term. Since you're not, you must be redefining it. > I contend that my definition captures the *extension* of the term > "free will" -- that is, it agrees with most of our "ordinary language users" > judgements about which things have free will and which don't, and which may > have some but not as much as others (highly intelligent animals). Furthermore > my definition *follows from* the *intension* (meaning) of the term. When you > look up "free will" in the dictionary, you find an unhelpful list of synonyms > -- choice, decisionmaking, etc. Not in either of the dictionaries I looked at. > But when you consider logical aspects of > these things -- that choice implies an evaluation of options, etc. -- you find > the features that appear in my definition. I didn't just pull it out of the > air; it plausibly explains the judgements that ordinary language users make > about free will. And I say your definition doesn't... Remember there's a difference between the use of the *phrase* "free will" (as in "I do this of my own free will.") and the use of the term as related to a universal concept (as in "Do humans have free will or not?"). Both Webster's and American Heritage concur on this, distinguishing the former use of the *phrase* with the notion or concept of "humans having free will". The definition of that concept is as follows: freedom of humans to make choices that are _n_o_t__d_e_t_e_r_m_i_n_e_d by _p_r_i_o_r _c_a_u_s_e_s or _d_i_v_i_n_e__i_n_t_e_r_v_e_n_t_i_o_n <the ongoing debate on free will> [WEBSTER'S] the belief that man's choices ultimately are _o_r__c_a_n__b_e voluntary, and _n_o_t__d_e_t_e_r_m_i_n_e_d__b_y__e_x_t_e_r_n_a_l__c_a_u_s_e_s [AMERICAN HERITAGE] If you're arguing about free will in terms of the use of the phrase (which is definition 1 in both dictionaries---as in "of my own free will" = "by choice"), then you're NOT talking about the notion of free will as discussed in what Webster's referred to as "the ongoing debate on free will"!!! And therefore your definition is different from the commonly accepted notion of free will as understood in the sense of "the ongoing debate..." >>> Compare your statement above [OMITTED FOR BREVITY THIS TIME AROUND --PVT] >>> with: "But the very notion of free will implies an ability to choose >>> regardless of any ghost-in-the-machine". >>> What makes your statement any more plausible than this? >>That's the entire point. Even an external agent of "will" or a "ghost in the >>machine", in turn, must have some mechanism itself that is causing it to >>"want" to, to "decide" to do certain things, thus IT does not have free will. > Well now you have an absurdity -- you define free will in such a way that *a > priori* it can't exist; you make it self-contradictory. Again, *I* didn't make it self-contradictory, the definition itself, as I've already stated, implies such self-contradictions. > Whatever free will is, it is not a self-contradictory notion. That's just like saying "Whatever god is, it is not a self-contradictory notion". You can't claim "I believe in this, it is worth believing, and it is not self-contradictory" just by asserting it! The evidence I've offered seems to show that the concept IS self-contradictory when using the commonly understood definition. > Note that my definition makes the > existence of free will an empirical issue (and when one looks in the real > world, one finds that there *are* creatures that have it); it neither rules > free will in nor rules it out *a priori*. Of course not. That's like looking for a property called "menglop", pointing at something and saying "There! That's menglop!" If you're "looking" for free will because you WANT it (as others would seem to "look" for gods), and then you mangle the definitions to say "See? It's so.", it becomes rather easy to "find" free will, and gods, and tooth fairies. -- "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr