From: Thomas Buckner (tcbevolver@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Feb 04 2005 - 16:59:17 MST
--- fudley <fuddley@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Free will is one of those ideas that is so bad
> it’s not even wrong.
> People debate endlessly if people have free
> will or not without ever
> asking what on earth the odd term means, and of
> course most of the time
> it means precisely nothing. Gibberish is not
> right or wrong, it’s just
> gibberish.
>
> John K Clark
Hear, hear! Actually, I think there are several
problems with the free will idea, and one is that
it's generally considered boolean (you have it or
you don't) when in truth it's fuzzy (a rock has
none, an ant has a little, your dog has more, you
have a good bit, Bill Gates has a bunch more than
you, and a transhuman may have more than that,
but we don't know). Come to think of it, free
will is like temperature, or perhaps celerity is
a better metaphor, given the speed of light which
you can approach but not exceed. In any case,
excessive worry about whether you have 'it' or
not is a silly debate, better suited to divinity
students at the pub.
Tom Buckner
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