Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Another possible definition would be "a selection made by a system from one 
> of multiple behaviors, where the selection of behavior is based on existing 
> circumstances, and the selection of which behavior before the selection is 
> made is impossible to predict by any system including the system making the 
> selection."  I.e., it's free will if it's impossible to know what you're 
> going to pick before you pick it, even for you. At that point, does it 
> matter whether it's natural or supernatural?

  I think that the difference between our definitions is that you are
defining the concept of "choice" while I am trying to define the concept
of "free choice". There's a difference.

  A computer makes choices based in its input. A conditional statement is
basically choice-making: Depending on the input, it chooses either one
execution branch or another.

  That kind of choice is deterministic and predictable. If a computer is
reading a source of true randomness (such as sampling the noise produced
by a resistor) and making choices based on that input, then these choices
are non-deterministic and unpredictable.

  However, neither case is "free choice". The computer is bound by the laws
of physics to act according to its input (be it deterministic or not). The
computer is not a sentient being which is making a choice according to what
it wants. It's mechanically making choices according to its input and to the
laws of physics. The computer is not "free" to make any choice it desires,
because it has no desires.

  So if we pose my original question in another way: Are we intelligent
sentient beings capable of making free choices, or are we simply computers
acting according to laws of physics based on input?

  If the latter case is the truth, then there is no free choice, even if
there is choice. It's "bound" choice, so to speak, not free choice. We are
simply biological machines with no true free will of their own.

  Maybe free will cannot exist, and is just an invented, artificial and
ultimately false notion. An illusion.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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