From: lee@wang.com (Lee Story)
Subject: Re: Free will
Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: 22 Jul 92 13:36:55
	<1992Jul20.051558.14985@news.eng.convex.com>
	<LEE.92Jul21150620@meercat.wang.com>
	<1992Jul21.200956.13790@news.eng.convex.com>

In article <1992Jul21.200956.13790@news.eng.convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:

   (Lee Story) writes:
   >(Peter Cash) writes:
   ...
   > Yes, I share your puzzlement. I simply don't understand how people can
   > discuss "free will" in this thread without ever telling anyone what it is,
   > and I have no idea whatever what physics has to do with this "free will".

   >Is this an in-joke about definition (or word-games, or
   >deconstruction)?  Well if it isn't, I have the same problem with
   >"share" and "puzzlement", to say nothing of "understand" and "tell"
   >and "idea" and "do".  And what the hell is this "physics" stuff?  (If
   >Peter Cash merely feels that more terminological clarity is needed, he
   >should attempt to provide it, rather than just Socratically---and
   >rather pompously---complaining.)

   Well if the question is so simple, then why don't you answer it? What _is_
   "free will"? I've already admitted that _I_ don't know what you're talking
   about--could it be you don't either?

The original post was not mine, so I presume the "what you're talking about"
doesn't refer to me.

If Peter's questions are simply rhetorical statements to the effect that
he finds the term "free will" to be contentless, without predicate, or
whatever, I think he should say so with more forthrightness.  That was
my (rather un-forthright) complaint, and the reason for my sarcasm.

On the other hand, he may really feel the need for definition, or at
least clarification.  Do I claim an adequate definition of "free will"
to be a simple matter?  Indeed it may be impossible.  (Perhaps if one
were omniscient, but [aside] omniscience seems self-contradictory to
me.)  Actually, Charles Onstott made a pretty good stab at it, but
when he ended up recommending 300 pages of _Being_and_Time_ I lost
interest (though maybe I _should_ make it further into MH than I
have).  I'll make the rather strong (and pre-logical) statement that
concepts which appear fundamental should either be primitives or have
agreeably simple definitions.  Of course I was more than half serious
in questioning the other words ("share", etc.) for the same reason: is
there reason to expect that we can do better than a Quine-ean web of
mutually-supporting concepts?  It seems clear that one cannot define a
few primitive terms and axiom schema and deduce answers to most
significant philosophical questions.

DESPITE all of the above, I'll try:

Free will: A property (which may never exist!) of a subsystem whereby it
takes conscious, goal-directed, non-random, nondeterministic actions to
modify the behavior of its subsuming (enclosing) system.

Property: <primitive>

Goal-directed: <subcategory of "conscious"---define that first, then
return to this.  The difference between social and biological evolution
would seem to point to an example; maybe  it's just the difference
between "conscious" and "non-conscious".>

Random: <see Kolmogorov and others for attempts to define this; also
"probability">

Deterministic: When one experiment has precisely one outcome,
predictable given complete knowledge of the inputs and the
experimental structure.

Experiment: <refer to the whole field of epistemology>

Conscious: <Perhaps a better term to accept as primitive than "free
will".  Note that _some_ theoretical physicists do this.>

This is grossly unsatisfying.  Perhaps the only reasonable approach is
an etymological one---"define" intuitively essential terms like "free
will" by incomplete inference from synonyms gleaned from literary
citations, as is done in the OED.  (With all the interest that
philosophy has shown in language, it seems there should be an accepted
academic name for this approach; is there?)
--
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  Lee Story (lee@wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc.
              (Merrimack Valley Paddlers)
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