From: perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry)
Subject: Re: Free will
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:18:54 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Jul21.111451.89473@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> che755v@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au writes:
>Path: vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au!che755v
>From: che755v@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
>Newsgroups: alt.atheism
>Subject: <None>
>Message-ID: <1992Jul21.111136.89472@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
>Date: 21 Jul 92 11:11:36 +1000
>References: <denmckinnon.2.711163361@halls1.cc.monash.edu.au> <1992Jul16.111215.21819@aber.ac.uk> <zlsiida.981@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> <Brp1yI.710@apollo.hp.com>
>Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia
>Lines: 38
>
>In article <Brp1yI.710@apollo.hp.com>, perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry) writes:
>> In article <zlsiida.981@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:
>>>In article <1992Jul16.111215.21819@aber.ac.uk> jma@aber.ac.uk (Jonathan Michael Ashley) writes:
>>>
>>>>I think the whole concept of free will is cobblers. Any decision or
>>>>"choice" either has a cause or it doesn't. If it does, then it is an
>>>>effect of that cause. If it doesn't, then it has no cause: ie. it is a
>>>>random occurrence.
>>>
>>>Actually I was pondering this last night.  What's the a.a. opinion on free
>>>will?  Do we have it?  If so, how does it work?  Which bit of us allows us
>>>to choose between options without the choice being predetermined by the
>>>physics of how the world including our brains works?
>>
>> As others have said later in the thread, I think it's a meaningless
>> term.  It is offered as an explanation[...]
>
>Hang on a sec!!  The way I read Dave Budd's question he was asking
>what ATHEISTS thought about free will, not inviting shots at various
>THEISTIC conceptions of free will.
>
>So let me ask it again... Do you in a.a, who do NOT believe in the
>existence of a god or gods, etc., think we human beings have FREE
>WILL or are our actions and decisions determined by things over
>which we have no control?

I am an atheist, and I think the term is meaningless, just as I said;
I think it is introduced because of certain consequences of some
theistic views.

The question in answering "do we have free will" is "free from what?"
Free from coercion by an spritual being?  Yes.  However, our actions
and decisions are determined by things over which we have no control:
external events and past experience.  If I am offered a choice between
chocolate marshmallow or blueberry ice cream, I will choose blueberry
almost invariably, not because a supernatural being compels me to, or
"fate" or some other force acts at that time to affect my choice, but
because through some combination of my physiology and experience, I
happen to like blueberry more than chocolate.  I *could* choose
chocolate, if I wanted, but 99 times out of 100 I wouldn't.  More
concretely, I could, in some sense, freely choose to buy a gun and
start shooting people on the street; no supernatural forces prevent me
from doing so.  My own personality, though, formed or programmed in
whatever ways it has, effectively *does* prevent me from doing that.
Thus I do and don't have free will regarding that shooting spree,
which is why I consider the term meaningless.
-- 
Jim Perry   	    	    	    Distributed Object Computing Program
perry@apollo.hp.com	    	    Hewlett-Packard Co., Chelmsford MA
This is the way the breakfast ends, not with a wimp but a banger.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism