On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au>wrote:
> If you look at what I actually say [about free will] (page 167 of ToN), > "It is the ability for a conscious entity to do somthing irrational". [...] > Clearly the concept of rationality is also a can of worms Yes indeed rationality and irrationality are open to a lot of interpretations, but even so its not as big a can of worms as "conscious entity". > are you really claiming that roulette wheels are conscious? > I can't prove it or the opposite proposition but personally I feel that it's unlikely such things are conscious; but more to the point are you really claiming that roulette wheels have this thing you call "free will"? > Free will requires randomness, but it is more than just randomness. Yes I know, all advocates of the "free will" noise" say that, but the trouble is whenever they try to explain what that missing extra ingredient is they tie themselves up into logical knots in about .9 seconds. I don't understand why people can't just make the obvious conclusion that this thing called "free will" is of no use whatsoever in science or philosophy or law and is of no help in understanding how we or any other part of the Universe operates. > A random device will very rarely do something smart. > My pocket calculator-roulette wheel hybrid can do something smart half the time and something dumb the other half, and such a combination device would be easy to make. > Just like you, and me, and the dog, and a thermostat, and a rock, and a >> electron, and everything else in the universe, the dice and roulette wheel >> did what they did for a reason OR they did what they did for no reason. >> > > > Only when considered at the syntactic level. At the semantic level, > there are many alternatives. Many?? List them! > One of these is choice. > OK then explain the MEANING of choice, explain how if you chose it you didn't do it because you liked it and you didn't do it for any other reason either, AND in contradiction of all the laws of logic although you did it for no reason you didn't do it for no reason. I'd really like to know how that works! As I said it doesn't take fans of the "free will" noise long to tie themselves up into logical knots. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
