<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">I have read that there are people in science who think that thinking things in terms of cause and effect is old hat, or should be. We do have a strong tendency to use cause and effect as as understanding of what is going on. Maybe these people just want to know 'what' and 'how' and leave 'why' out of the question. Nondeterminists. bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 5:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou <<a href="mailto:stathisp@gmail.com">stathisp@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><br></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, 10 Jun 2023 at 23:36, John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 6:29 PM Stathis Papaioannou <<a href="mailto:stathisp@gmail.com" target="_blank">stathisp@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">>> </span>But why do you want to do it? There are only 2 possibilities, you wanted to do it for a reason or you wanted to do it for no reason, in other words it was random. There's just no getting around it, you and I are either a roulette wheel or a cuckoo clock. I can live with that.</font></div></div></blockquote><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Normally you do it for a reason. You pick the chocolate rather than vanilla ice cream because you like chocolate more. It’s your choice because you made it, using your brain. It’s a free choice because no-one held a gun to your head and forced you to choose it. You are responsible for the choice and therefore you have to pay for the ice cream.</i></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">It may not have been a gun but <b>something</b> made you choose chocolate rather than vanilla<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">; either that or you chose it for no reason and your choice was random. We're back to cuckoo clock or roulette wheel.</span></font></div></div></div></blockquote><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Usually the reason is that you prefer the one you choose. If you go with your preference it is called a “free” choice, if you go with the preference of the person holding a gun to your head it is called a “forced” choice. There is a real and important distinction here: people want to be able to make their own choices and they don’t like to be forced. That is the layperson’s understanding of the term “free will”, and most modern philosophers agree that that is all there is to it, and the debates about whether we can be free in a determined world are misguided.</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="auto"><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></span></font></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">Stathis Papaioannou</div>
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