Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA18388 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 10 Apr 2001 11:09:35 +0100 Message-ID: <3AD2DB0C.10E293B9@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 11:06:04 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Determinism References: <013f01c0bd6b$21682e80$5eaefea9@rcn.com>; <3AD133AA.6664.BBCD42@localhost> <00ca01c0c113$29cfd680$5eaefea9@rcn.com> <20010409183947.A685@reborntechnology.co.uk> <003001c0c120$2cb138a0$5eaefea9@rcn.com> <20010410091320.A553@reborntechnology.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Freedom is subjective, not illusory.
> Agreed.
Would a person given a choice, at exactly the same point in time, under
exactly the same environmental conditions, with the same orientation of
molecules and distribution of charges around their body (incl. nervous
system), always make the same choice? [Thereby obeying simple
deterministic causality].
If this is true (and I think it's stated in a watertight enough way to
be unarguable) I'm interested in how we work within that to get our
feeling of free choice - I know that on different days I might make a
different choice about the same thing (because internals have changed,
and so have other externals), so am I building (flawed and internally
different) models of future behaviour all the time that come out at
equivalent fitness, or is there a more formal 'rounding' process going
on (i.e. most things seem roughly equivalent when not directly compared
side by side - you can tell different thickness of paper apart well when
they are both there to compare, but not so well when the examinations of
the two sheets are a day apart).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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