Re: On Determinism


alex.j.k@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
My take on fitting randomness with free-will is this: I have
free-will because the randomness that is original to my brain is in
fact part of _me_ -- hence, in combination with my abilities to reason,
emote and make judgments, it becomes is _my_ free-will. Randomness is
the essential component of the spontaneity of most acts of my will, and
hence the essential component of my free-will.

Hi, Alex, I think we may have had a long discussion a while ago on this
topic. It seems to me that you confuse free will with indeterminism. In
the relevant literature, free will is said to involve 'origination'.
Ted Honderich defines origination thus:

"as an event or occurrence it is the emergence or bringing about of a
mental event such as a decision or an action (1) in such a way that the
opposite mental event or action might at that moment just as well have
occurred although the person had remained in every respect the same and
his or her situation had remained the same, and (2) in such a way that
the person had control of the mental event or action and can in a
certain way be held responsible for it or credited with responsibility
for it. Because of (1), origination in inconsistent with ordinary
causation and determinism; because of (2), an originated action is not
merely an uncaused or chance event; origination is indeterminism plus
something else.

.