Dear Stathis,
isn't this getting out of control?
I am not talking about your ingenious octopus question (ask the octopus!)
I am talking of the simplistic anthropomodelled and today-level-related way
of thinking: something (anything) is black or white, in other words:
it is either this (one) way we can think about now, or it is THE other ONE
way we can think of now, as an alternative.
This list produced more advanced ways of thinking over the 5-6 years (?) I
have the pleasure of reading in.
Just as 'random' is not free, once it is the consequence of (any) generator
system (deterministic outcome, even if it includes 'many') and as the poorly
identified 'deterministic' is not "the one and only" (especially not the
teleological end-point identifying aberration) origination-way in a world of
more interlaced efects (in the complexity of the wholeness) than we. or any
(semi?)closed system can presently (and practically) compute, the question
of "Now, which one of the two do I feel?" is questionable to put it nicely.
You are right on when you wrote:
> "neither random nor determined", then I am misusing the word or deluding
myself, because everything has to be some combination of random or
determined. However, I didn't intend to enter such a debate when I used that
word!<
you just missed your own distinction of random as 'some combination'.
Based on the emotional brainwashing (religious AND scientific) in our young
years (schools?), we all are prone to such 'deluding' if we are not careful.
It is so interesting when members with free insight and unrestricted mind's
freedom fall back into the 'oneplane restricted' classical mathematical ways
and negate the (still) unknown. "If it is not Q-science it is not true".
Comp my way or the highway. 101 physix class. (Not even religion!)
It is so amazing how an unusual and emotion-based (superstition?) topic can
distort the advanced thinking in the minds! My God!!!!! (??????)
John Mikes
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
To: <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 6:27 AM
Subject: Re: "Free Will Theorem"
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> >Le 14-avr.-05, à 14:48, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> >
> >>A decision I make is "free" when I feel that I could have decided
> >>otherwise.
> >
> >OK I can take that definition of free-will, although I would bet that
> >free-will will always be in company of any genuine act of will.
> >
> >Bruno
> >
> >http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
> >
>
> It is exactly the quibbling over precise definitions etc. that I was
trying
> to avoid. When I say my decision was "free", I mean that it *felt* free,
as
> opposed to a decision I might have made with a gun held to my head. I have
> to use some word to describe it, so that you can understand what I'm
talking
> about, which is only possible if you have similar experiences.
Philosophers
> then take this word "free", look at various possible meanings, and decide
> whether my use of the word is appropriate. For example, if "free" means
> "neither random nor determined", then I am misusing the word or deluding
> myself, because everything has to be some combination of random or
> determined. However, I didn't intend to enter such a debate when I used
that
> word!
>
> Suppose an octopus, in addition to the regular human-type free will ("will
I
> have dinner now or later?"), has a special 8-free will when it has to
decide
> which tentacle it will use. This 8-free will feels completely different to
> the other sort, in that the octopus mentally spins a roulette wheel, which
> feels completely random, but at the moment it moves the thus-chosen
> tentacle, a strange retrospective causality event takes place, such that
the
> octopus knows with every fibre of its being that the chosen tentacle was
the
> "correct" one all along.
>
> OK, here is the question. Given our knowledge of physics, does the octopus
> really have 8-freedom, or not?
>
> --Stathis Papaioannou
>
Received on Fri Apr 15 2005 - 07:40:20 PDT