On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 11:25 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As I said, a common definition of "control" is the ability to >> determine something's behaviour according to your wishes. That you >> have wishes is independent of whether you have free will, whatever the >> definition of free will. > > > What turns a wish into action other than free will? We have many wishes, > what determines which ones we promote to effort? There are a number of factors, including which wish is in mind due to current circumstances, the nature of competing wishes, how strong the wish is, how difficult it would be to act on the wish, what the costs and consequences of acting on the wish are, and so on. >> >> However, if you define control as >> >> incompatible with determinism or randomness then control is impossible >> > >> > >> > I would not say that free will/self-control>control is incompatible from >> > unintentional processes (determinism or randomness), but just as the >> > yellow >> > traffic light implies the customs and meanings of both red and green >> > lights, >> > there is a clear distinction between intention and unintention. >> > >> >> >> >> also. We will have to use an alternative word to indicate what was >> >> previously called control in order to avoid confusion in our >> >> discussions. >> > >> > >> > Why, getting too close to something that you can't deny and conflate? >> >> I know exactly what I mean by "free will" and "control" but if you >> define them differently then I'll happily agree that these things are >> impossible according to your definition. We are disagreeing about >> language in this case, not about facts. We disagree about facts in >> other cases, such as whether judges believe that the brain of the >> accused works according to deterministic or random processes. > > > I disagree that we are disagreeing about language. I have always proposed > that free will is orthogonal to deterministic or random processes, which are > both opposite kinds of unintentional phenomena. Free will is an intentional > process which explicitly opposes both external determination and randomness. > Intention is voluntary. As unintentional phenomena can be described as the > polarity of randomness and determination, intentional phenomena might > similarly be described in the polarity of active creativity and reactive > preference. But compatibilists and incompatibilists could agree on all the facts of the matter and still disagree on free will, which makes it a matter of definition. The argument is then over which definition is most commonly used or which definition ought to be adopted. > As far as judges go, any judge that believes that those they pass judgment > over are ruled by randomness or determinism would be a fraud, as all such > acts are by definition innocent. Likewise, to believe in their own capacity > for judgment they would be frauds to believe that their choices are random > or passively received by fate yet still present themselves as personally > responsible for their own judgments. I don't doubt that some judges do feel > this way, but they are still frauds if they could really take their beliefs > seriously. And there is the problem: you believe compatibilists are deluded or frauds, but they don't, because they define free will differently. How are you going to sell them your definition when they are happy with theirs? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
