[FRIAM] alternative response

[Marcus Daniels]

This is how discussions about free will usually end, with someone deciding to define it in some narrow technical way that avoids the obvious problems Jon mentions.  This avoids the issue and others carry on with their magical thinking.

On 6/15/20, 5:20 PM, "glen∉ℂ" <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

    Nah. I'm not redefining the term at all. The definition I'm using is in the dictionary. It's in the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. It's a common usage and I won't be deprecating it. Just because there's a large body of people talking about 1 tiny subdomain of the term doesn't mean the standard definition should be changed.

    On 6/15/20 4:06 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
    > I hesitate to call this free will (except maybe to steal it away from deists
    > as SteveG wishes to do with his notion of god), though I do appreciate your
    > allusions to free and bound variables. To reiterate once more, before I drop
    > the point, *free will* is a limiting notion that became *all the rage* for
    > enlightenment thinkers. Much like SteveG sometimes plays a function which
    > takes a thing and asks about its opposite, these enlightenment thinkers
    > would take a concept, iterate, and ask about the limit. If we agree that a
    > discussion of *will* is a discussion of scope (bound versus free) then fine,
    > I also see this as useful. *Free will* on the other hand is (at best)
    > another unnecessary proxy and (possibly at worst) an unfounded
    > generalization. If we scope the conversation to ask to what degree can I
    > choose to go to the store, or that frog can choose to jump, or that
    > thermostat can choose to regulate, then I feel we are operating within
    > meaningful bounds. We can call it agency, or will, or whatever. But perhaps
    > we should leave *free will* in a corner somewhere to talk to itself.
    > 
    > Because *free will* has a meaningful part to play in the history of
    > responsibility, the *leaving in a corner* is not so easy with respect to the
    > progeny of moral responsibility. Our institutions still doff their hats to
    > *free will* and therefore continue to treat it as a viable technology. I
    > feel that what makes *free will* a relevant discussion today is that it
    > clearly needs to be *deprecated*. The question for me becomes, with what
    > should we replace it?

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