On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 21:27:54 +0100, William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 27 Aug 2004, at 8:05 pm, Bryon Daly wrote: > > > Maybe I'm wrong, but as I see it, the question is whether everything a > > person does, are all choices made purely a function of his biology, > > society, environment, etc, > > Isn't this > > > or is it real choice? > > the same as that? Why do you think there are two different things?
My intention was to distinguish the two (though I cannot say which is correct): The former is basically asserting that all decisions we make are essentially the inevitable result of our circumstances and thus IMHO not really free choices at all any more than a ball in a pachinko game is making choices in its path. In other words, following this to its extreme, we are essentially automata in a hyper-complex game of Life (the computer one, not the board game), just following our predestined roles. The latter was basically intended to mean "free will" as I would consider it: somehow we are more than the sum of our inputs and a decision a person makes is an actual decision and not just the inevitable response given the person's biology, history, environment, etc. I prefer to think its the latter case, though as Doug has pointed out, even if it's the former, the complexity is such that it's indistinguishable from the latter. As we've already seen here, though, the definition of free will is quite up for debate which makes the question of whether it exists that much more foggy. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l