----- Original Message -----
From: <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
To: <mortongr@flash.net>
Cc: <stark2301@voyager.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2000 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: Preprogrammed
> There are a number of things to comment on in the four messages beginning
> with Jim's post. I append abbreviated versions below, with reference to
> them. I hope this does not become too confusing.
>
> In I (1) (the first message, where I have put a number), Jim objects to
> equating random generators with free will. Glenn responds in II (2) that
> he can substitute a "person." Later, II (3) and (4), he says that
> "free-will involves unpredictability." I am persuaded that Jim is right,
> and that the proposed substitution of a chooser is irrelevant. First, no
> one is going to choose enough times to create a gasket.
Dave, that is like saying that planets around stars in other galaxies don't
exist because no one is going to go to the trouble of actually traveling to
one. Such an objection is really irrelevant in itself to the existence of
planets in Andromedae. Similarly, boredom on the part of the people involved
is a poor reason to say that something can't be done.
Second, when
> people choose, they become predictable by falling into a pattern. This is
> why the requirement for randomization turns them to flipping coins,
> throwing dice (though there are ways to "educate" both), psuedo-random
> number generators, or the IBM tables.
If people are so predictable, predict the stock market for the next year.
Lets see how accurately you predict the behavior of the people investing in
the market. Simple answers like up 5, down 30 will suffice. If you get the
numbers to the leftof the decimal correct on the next year, I will gladly
stand corrected.
>
> As for unpredictability, consider a moral person who finds a wallet which
> contains identification and some cash. What will he/she (to be
> politically correct) do? Anyone have any problem with the prediction?
> Does that mean the person lacks free will?
Moral people do bad things all the time. That is why you can't predict it.
Maybe he just found out he needs a new car.
> I recall reading of some tribes whose members were psychotic. Were these
> individuals irrational? The report indicated that the culture was so
> disfunctional that the only way to survive within the tribe was to be
> insane. So which term of the three applies to their decisions? The
> obvious fact is that their choices were circumscribed in ways that those
> of other individuals were not. However, it does not prevent them from
> choosing among the available options, the essence of free will.
>
> In III (6), Jim notes his problems with quantum mechanics as explanatory
> for human freedom. First, anything which ends up producing a Gaussian (?)
> distribution seems to me not to be simply random. Second, such a random
> source of consequences cannot provide for morality. If "my" decision just
> happens because of whatever quanta do, I am not responsible for it any
> more than I am responsible for what happens with something that is
> strictly determined. The problem is that people have seen that strict
> determinism cannot give rise to moral decisions and have concluded that
> indeterminism must be the answer. It isn't. It can't be. What is required
> is SELF-determination, which cannot be demonstrated empirically.
>
> I'm sorry, Glenn, but IV (7) doesn't help freedom. Moving toward one of
> the dots is neither good, bad nor neutral. And calling on the stock
> market for intelligent activity seems preposterous, given the recent
> gyrations.
Those gyrations are caused by rational people trying to maximize their
wealth. And they are doing it with their free wills--like it or not. And
they aren't falling into these patterns you seem to think all human behavior
must fall into.
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