tsf@THEORY.CS.CMU.EDU (Timothy Freeman) (04/05/88)
In article <Apr.4.00.38.15.1988.25156@topaz.rutgers.edu> morrow@topaz.rutgers.edu (John Morrow) writes: >I'll, for the sake of arguement (read: I don't >really believe what I am about to say for religious reasons...), argue >against free will in the context of a universe with no "supernatural". I can't imagine any use for the concept of "free will" in a universe with no supernatural. Maybe someone can enlighten me. A creature has free will, as far as I can tell, if a being with unlimited reasoning power and perfect knowledge of the universe at this instant would not be able to predict what the creature will do in the future. (Is this definition right?) If that definition is right, then the concept of free will has no use in a universe without any supernatural, because there is no being powerful enough to do the predicting. People cannot predict with certainty what other people will do, and they will not be able to do so in the forseeable future. This is true regardless of whether one believes in the supernatural or in free will. What else matters? -- Tim Freeman Arpanet: tsf@theory.cs.cmu.edu Uucp: ...!seismo!theory.cs.cmu.edu!tsf