At 01:51 PM 12/2/98 +0100, Anders wrote:
> As I see it free will is a macroscopic property
I must be mad, getting into this. But here's my 2 cents:
>of an agent being able to behave in a way that is hard to predict in
>general without simulating the whole agent
>So in my perspective, indeterminism isn't
>necessary for free will. But this can be debated for hours
The loop-hole in this argument, as I (dimly) understand it, is the sort of story told by non-monists such as Popper and Eccles. If it makes sense to suppose that minds have (or are) a non-physical or `spiritual' component - whatever that might mean - supervenient upon the hardware of the brain, then perhaps quantal uncertainties can provide the entrance point to a neural cascade causing the brain to enter specific states. Of course, this just pushes back the issue of `freedom of the will' into a mysterious impalpable black box, and one for which we have no independent evidence. (But if there is anything to the claims of lab evidence for psi, which I still find provocative [cf. PEAR, Dean Radin, etc], maybe we will be obliged to take into account some such mysterioso realm of being and perhaps consciousness.)
Damien Broderick