FreeWill is one of those common-sense things, like DefinitionOfLife and learning to walk, that seem simple ("every human does it!") until we try to build something that does it.
The "If it happens a lot, it must be simple" LogicalFallacy.
-- DavidCary
So, do dogs have free will? viruses?
Dogs have free will. Viruses do not have any will at all.
"No you won't." -- EricHodges
If it turns out that Newtonian physics are sufficient to explain what humans do, is the concept of Free Will still useful, or is it silly ?
Free will is a useful illusion (UsefulLie). It results from our ability to imagine alternate courses of action. We can imagine "What if I had bought that winning lottery ticket?" or "What if I took another route to work?". The fact that we can imagine these things gives us the sense that we are immune from the laws of physics and that our actions are non-deterministic, guided by consciousness. If you look at the physics of how we actually make decisions, it becomes clear that we aren't immune from the laws of physics and our consciousness is either deterministic or random. The illusion of free will is a successful survival strategy. Not having it doesn't mean we shouldn't keep pretending we do.
The illusion of free will is more than comforting. It gives us an evolutionary advantage over animals without the illusion of free will. By imagining and predicting various outcomes we increase our chance for survival and reproduction.
I'm the one discussing whether behaviour is predictable or not (and hence whether the illusion of free will is intuitively justifiable or not), not the one who thinks we actually have free will. I know the brain can't alter physics. But if we could actually make solid predictions about our behaviour, the illusion of free will would be silly.
Another point is that due to the uncertainty principle, we can never be sure ahead of time exactly what course of action we would have taken with absolute precision. Therefore, although I still believe that our course of action was predetermined, the fact that it cannot be known makes the illusion of free will a perfectly reasonable one (you don't gain anything by not believing in the illusion, and the illusion is comforting, so may as well go with it).
Please don't abuse the quantum uncertainty principle. It applies to predictions that amplify quantum effects, like Schrodinger's cat, but it doesn't apply to every prediction.
Think chaos, then you'll see the connection. The brain is highly complex. A minute change in the brain could potentially have drastic effects on the behaviour of the brain. It is utterly impossible to get even a good approximation of one person's brain (uncertainty multiplied by trillions of connections), therefore, it is utterly impossible to get an accurate model of any one person's behaviour. The best we can do is broaden the scope (sociology), or come up with vague heuristics (psychology).
Chaos means it's hard or impossible for us to predict with current technology, but it doesn't mean the underlying phenomena are impossible to predict in an absolute sense.
Chaos means one small local change can lead to huge global changes. Uncertainty means you can't be sure about the small changes. Complexity means there isn't just one small change, but literally trillions. We really cannot predict the underlying phenomena in an absolute sense. That is uncertainty. Chaos and complexity just amplify it so it can't be predicted even generally like a bouncing ball can.
There's a distinction between true uncertainty (as in the Quantum Uncertainty Principle) and chaos. Chaos theory is about systems that are difficult for humans to predict, but it doesn't say they are uncertain (non-deterministic).
: Yes, I tried to make that abundantly clear by separating the concepts of chaos, uncertainty, and complexity. Was I not clear enough? Three concepts, combined, make prediction impossible.
Only uncertainty makes prediction impossible. Chaos and complexity put prediction beyond our ability, but they do not make it impossible. They remain within the realm of determinism.
Uncertainty is not enough to make prediction impossible. Exact prediction, yes, but we can reasonably predict the motion of a bouncing ball for instance, because it is an aggregate of many quantum particles. The ball is highly unlikely to fall through the floor, though this is theoretically possible. For big things the size of brains, uncertainty is not enough. But the brain is highly complex as well. But even that's not enough to make it unpredictable. Crystals are highly complex and yet they behave much like balls (except they don't bounce very well). Add on chaos (small changes in the system produce large changes), and finally you've got an unpredictable system.
Uncertainty is enough to make prediction impossible. That's what Schrodinger's Cat was about. It amplified quantum uncertainty instead of aggregating it.
''Re: "within the realm of determinism". Highly complex systems, whose simulation is NpComplete or worse, are also within the realm of determinism, but that doesn't mean it's feasible to actually predict them. Even if the uncertainty principle weren't true, the resources required to simulate all the particles in a swimming pool would be beyond the capability of anything but the universe itself. Predicting where a particular water molecule would be in the next hour would be impossible.
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Whether modeling and predicting the future of a given brain runs into that sort of (Schrodinger's Cat) amplification (of quantum uncertainty) is unknown, but it doesn't matter. Even if it does, the outcome is either random or dependent on a hidden variable. There's no way the brain can alter the way matter and energy behave.
In fact, I'm beginning to think that the (Heisenberg) uncertainty principle isn't even the most important thing when it comes to maintaining the illusion of FreeWill. Probably complexity and chaos are enough when it comes to humans.''
Uncertainty is not necessary for free will. The actions of an individual can be predetermined and predictable and still the individual can make their own decisions and have free will.
If an individual's actions are predetermined, they do not have free will.
: If you are completely constrained in what you do, how could that possibly be considered free will? An illusion of free will may be there, but actual free will is not.
Why? If you can do whatever you want, then you have free will. Even if all your decisions are predetermined and preprogrammed, still they are your free will. The knowledge or lack of knowledge somebody has about your decisions does not matter. If it did, the existence of free will could never be proven, since nobody can prove that there is nobody who knows all your past and future decisions.
But you can't want whatever you want. You can only want what you have to want. All of your decisions are the result of deterministic or random processes. Nothing you do can change the laws of physics. Therefore you can only do what the laws of physics dictate that you must do. The sensation that you are choosing between various alternative actions is an illusion.
Of course you can want whatever you want. That is a truism, independent from physics or randomness. :-) Whether the laws of physics force me to want something, or my wishes have other reasons, still, they are my wishes. It does not matter whether there are more alternative actions to chose from or only one predetermined; what matters is my perception. It is not relevant for my freedom, whether my choices are predetermined - relevant is only the fact that I feel I make my decisions. That is free will.
And that free will is a subjective illusion. Objectively, you have no more free will than a falling stone.
Not at all. It is not an illusion that I have wishes. Falling stone (even if in free fall) does not make any decisions and has no wishes, no will at all.
It is an illusion that there are alternate outcomes to your "decisions". They aren't really decisions at all, they just feel like decisions from your perspective. Just as a falling stone must obey the laws of physics, so must your nervous system. There's nothing outside the realm of physics influencing the outcome of neural reactions.
Well, first you assume without any proof at all that there are no alternate outcomes to my decisions. But it actually does not matter. You correctly say that my nervous system has to obey the physics and that there is nothing outside physics. But this does not matter. We are talking about will - which is a mental process - a complex of feelings, perceptions and thoughts. You confuse freedom and will with randomness and impossibility to predict. Those are two orthogonal and independent subjects.
It isn't an assumption. It's an observation. The alternatives your brain considers are predetermined or random, depending on which laws of physics apply to those processes. If no quantum state vector collapses are magnified, then the alternatives are predetermined. If quantum state vector collapses are magnified, then the alternatives may be random. Likewise, the action that you eventually take is either predetermined or random, all subject to the laws of physics. Will, mental processes, feelings, perceptions and thoughts are physical events subject to the same laws as a falling rock. I don't confuse freedom or will with randomness or determinism. I say free will is a useful illusion.
All you have written about physics might be true, but is completely irrelevant when discussing free will. It is not relevant whether the actions or decisions are predetermined or "random". Not all mental constructs are illusions: time, speed, temperature or causality are all unproved mental constructs describing and simplifying some of our observations, but I would not call them illusions; neither would I call free will an illusion.
I call free will an illusion and I can explain why I do so. You're right, it doesn't matter whether our actions are predetermined or random. The fact that they are predetermined or random excludes free will. We don't really get to pick what we do. We only have the sensation or illusion of doing so.
Sensation and illusion are two different things. There is no "fact that they are predetermined or random"; it is only an assumption, so nothing excludes free will. And indeed we do pick up some of the things we do - in accordance with the laws of nature.
It isn't an assumption, it's an observation. Everything that goes on inside a brain is subject to laws of physics. The laws involved are either deterministic or random. Those are observable, testable facts.
what various people mean by the "laws of physics"; defining other terms - please trim
Well, you cannot observe the future, since the mentioned "laws of physics" apply to the future, they can only be assumptions. You can predict some observation and so test the assumed laws of physics. If nature behaves differently, you are forced to change the laws. So laws of physics are indeed partially observable and testable, but they are not facts - they are only assumptions. Useful ones. So is free will; it is observable and testable that people have free will.
Btw: Laws of physics is an "illusion" (mental construct we use to describe nature). The nature does not follow the laws of physics, the laws of physics follow that nature.
The laws of physics exist whether we describe them or not. Unless you are a solipsist, in which case I don't exist and you can safely ignore me.
What exactly do you mean by the word "law"?
I mean the way things work; the mechanics of things. Brains are made of matter. Matter behaves in certain deterministic or random ways that we call the laws of physics. That includes chemistry, electromagnetism, quantum physics, etc.
Why use the word "law" then? Law is a statement, a prescription how things should work or a formula which we can use to describe nature. There is no "way" for the things to work, they simply do - not regarding any of our sciences or laws. Still the concept of "laws of nature" is a useful one - even when you called it an illusion. :-)
I didn't coin the phrase "laws of physics". It's in common usage. If you'd like to use another phrase to describe the absolute behavior of the universe, feel free. Hehe.
The word "law" is used because of the scope of the descriptions. We don't need different laws for different days, places, or observers.
Exactly. But the "laws" are only useful and trusted formulas we use to predict nature's behaviour. Nature however is not forced to obey these "laws". And so, from time to time, we have to change the laws so that their predictions match the nature's behaviour better.
We find nature does seem to follow "laws" which we can discover or model. We observe that these laws seem to apply everywhere, including within the brain. The laws are enforced only in the limited sense that mathematical theorems are enforced. There needn't be an enforcement mechanism or agency to ensure that laws hold (or theorems remain true). We certainly have wishes, but it may still be an illusion that we have any freedom of choice as to what we wish.
The brain can't step outside of physics and alter the way matter and energy behave. Our wishes don't determine the way matter and energy behave. The way matter and energy behave determines our wishes. The way matter and energy behave determines how we behave because we are matter and energy.
Speaking about the behaviour of the nature, the word "determines" has no direction. So if A determines B, then B determines A. In a wire the voltage determines the current and equally the current determines the voltage. The following equations are equal: U = R * I and I = U/R. We can only observe that U and I are connected. The same applies to causality: The cause determines the effect and so the effect determines the cause. The future determines the past and the past determines the future.
That's one view of causality. It doesn't allow for free will, though.
Of course it does. Why not?
If (A implies B) implies (B implies A) (which I would not accept as a universal law of causation), then there is neither more nor less room for FreeWill than if the entailment is unidirectional. Consider "The water boiled because (after) heat had been applied" and/or "heat had been applied because (before) the water was going to boil". Neither the heat nor the water have FreeWill except in a HumptyDumpty sense of the word. Likewise, "He stole the bread because he was starving" and "He was starving because he was going to steal the bread" leave open the question of whether the male or the bread had FreeWill.
You are confusing the word "determines" with the word "causes". When we see the speed and position of the Moon tonight, we can determine where it was yesterday, so the speed and position of something today together with other data determine but do not cause its position yesterday. When a doctor examines marks on a dead body, he can often determine the cause of the death. So the effects determine the cause. But the whole mental construct we call causality would be useless, if we said the effects cause the cause.
No. I am not even using the word "determines". I am asserting that the directionality, or lack thereof, is irrelevant to the question of whether or not any FreeWill is involved.
Right. It doesn't matter if a signal traverses a synapse because of the level of calcium deposited there or if calcium deposits in the synapse because that traversal is going to happen. The human behavior that results is either deterministic (only one thing can happen) or random (lots of things can happen depending on the collapse of state vectors). What the human thinks can't change the laws of physics or the outcome of state vector collapses that determine how the brain behaves. The direction of causality is irrelevant.
But perhaps the essence of the indeterminist view is that human behaviour can be less than entirely deterministic and simultaneously more than entirely random - the Law'OfTheIndeterministic'Middle = FreeWill!
You are still confusing non-determinism with freedom. They are orthogonal. It is written down and determined, what Romeo and Juliet do, still they have free will and make their decisions. It is known, what I have done and wanted yesterday, still I was free and made my decisions.
Again, no. I am also not confusing determinism with predictability or predestination. FreeWill, considered as a possible or actual reality rather than a psychological illusion, is the ability to think/choose/decide/act in a way that is not wholly determined (in this context, "caused"). From the perspective of the past looking forward, such an act of will would be in principle not wholly predictable. From the perspective of the future looking backwards, such an act of will would be in principle not wholly explicable (without reference to the exercise of FreeWill).
Yes you are confusing "determinism, predictability or predestination" with freedom. Free will is not "the ability to think/choose/decide/act in a way that is not wholly determined (caused)".
That is what I and most philosophers and dictionaries mean by the term. If you think it means something different, it would save a lot of fruitless discussion if you defined what it is you are talking about and gave it a different name.
Saying Romeo and Juliet have free will doesn't make it so. If what they do is all that they can do that doesn't satisfy any meaningful definition of free will.
It certainly does. They have feeling, they are considering alternatives, they make their decisions. So they have free will.
Likewise, saying that they don't have FreeWill doesn't make it so... As they are fictional characters, though, they don't!
I don't just say we don't have free will. I explain why.
Perhaps you really don't have free will. We however have one :-)
Not yet well enough, however. Don't let that worry you, though; the question is still undecidable. All of human behaviour would have to be explicable before we would end up simply not being able to prove a negative.
Human behavior doesn't have to be explained. It is assumed to be subject to the laws of physics until proven otherwise.
You assume this. I assume that any position is tenable until proven untenable.
BTW: Human behaviour is not fully deterministic. The laws of physics cannot be used to predict precisely human behaviour. But this is irrelevant.
Opinions differ on this subject. Most agree, however, that the inability to predict behaviour does not, of itself, imply that the behaviour is not deterministic. The same applies to the weather and other complex or chaotic systems.
Chaotic systems are not deterministic. Deterministic indeed means predictable. There is no other meaningful definition.
No it doesn't. It means, in very precise philosophical discourse, that a given state of affairs (or consequent) is a necessary (logically inevitable) outcome given the immediately prior state of affairs (or antecedents).
Perhaps, but we are talking about physical systems, not mathematical equations or algorithms. In nature (physics), we cannot have "given state of affairs". Even when we ignore the discoveries of quantum physics, we have to consider that any system can be influenced by any other part of the nature. So to have a "given state of affairs" we need to have information about all aspects of the nature (un included). Since we are part of the nature, we have no "space" to store that information. The nature itself is the information. When we assume there is a linear time in which each state has one prior state then the nature is deterministic (in your sense of the word) and so no part of the nature, no subsystem, can be undeterministic. So the word "deterministic" has not much value for describing nature and is equivalent with the word "time".
Predictability of a system means, we can deduce from some part of a system how other parts of the system look like (including its states in time). So predictability means recognized redundancy. There are physical systems we can somehow predict, and some we cannot (yet or ever).
Of course, somebody might state that a part of nature is theoretically deterministic. Which would mean that if the system did not interact with the rest of nature, any state of it implies a determined future state. This can be a valuable statement, since given the equations (laws) we can predict future states of systems where the laws apply. Not precisely however, since we cannot avoid the interaction with the rest of the nature. But to test such hypothesis, we can only check whether the predictions of the recognized determinism match our observations. So practically determinism is equal to predictability and to redundancy.
Human behavior is either deterministic (depends on laws of physics (no matter how complex or chaotic) not dependent on quantum state vector collapses) or random (depends on quantum state vector collapses and there is no hidden variable). Neither of those allows a satisfactory definition of free will. DanielDennett's book "Elbow Room" is all about this.
Since it cannot be proved that such things as "laws of physics" exist, your statement is meaningless. Human behaviour is not fully deterministic, since it cannot be predicted. You state it depends on some laws of physics, but you cannot prove, something like laws of physics exist at all. The existence of human behaviour is however obvious.
A perfectly respectable opinion, but not a proven fact. FreeWill, if it actually existed, would imply that the world is not wholly deterministic and not wholly random, in exactly the same way as an interceding god would do.
All phenomena classified by physics (all proven facts) fall into deterministic (non-quantum stuff) or random (quantum stuff if there is no hidden variable). To prove that free will exists you'll have to show how a brain can affect matter and/or energy in a way that falls outside of those observed categories.
There is no one proven fact in physics. No "law" no formula is proven in a logical or mathematical sense of proof.
Not exactly. One would 'merely' have to show that some aspect of behaviour has no physical explanation whilst alternative behaviour was contemporaneously a possibility. Since this is almost certainly impossible to do, it follows that FreeWill is never likely to be proven. It does not follow, however, that it does not exist.
The only way to imagine that free will exists is to imagine that humans are exempt from the laws of physics and that the laws of physics can't be expanded to encompass humans. That's a mighty big stretch for no reason other than discomfort about our lack of free will.
I can only repeat myself, the predictability or determinism of human behaviour is no hindrance for the existence of free will. The behaviour of Romeo and Juliet is fully determined by Shakespeare's decisions - R and J cannot step out of the book - still they have free will.
That's a mighty stretch of common sense logic to say that "laws of physics" (which for the purpose of this discussion are as well-defined as the concept of UFO) have anything to do with the similarly ill-defined free will.
The laws of physics don't have to be well-defined, only acknowledged to exist. If they exist, they govern the behavior of everything that exists, including humans, human nervous systems, human thought, human consciousness, etc. Where's the stretch in that?
But the laws do not exist on they own. They depend fully on the behaviour of everything, including humans and our thoughts. There are no a priori laws the nature uses to play its game. There is no gap between the "rules" and the "game". Of course, you can assume there is a Meta-Shakespeare who has written the story we are in, but this hypothesis cannot be verified and so is not very useful.
Acknowledge that what exists? Functions defining the state of the universe, equations of the same, inequations, probability distribution, oranges, bananas, tortillas, enchiladas, the set of all sets, the barber who shaves all the men in his village that don't shave themselves, the smallest number that can't be defined in less than 1000 letters? What the hell are you talking about so that you expect people to take you seriously as opposed to TwoCentsPhilosophy? Sorry, but we haven't met anyone with "law of the universe" tattooed on his head.
Acknowledge that there exist laws of physics. I thought that was clear from the discussion. Like I said, we don't have to know what they are, just accept that things obey them. It's clear that the human nervous system obeys them and that nothing that goes on inside a human nervous system alters them.
That "there exist laws of physics and everything obeys them" is perfectly void of any information. It's like saying true is true. For example laws of physics might be that I can't travel with the speed of light or faster, so that's an inequation; it is possible that I can travel exactly as fast as I damn please within the allowable bounds. Or a law of physics can be that an electron will be in whatever position with X probability. What you actually do is pre-suppose that the "law of physics" is some kind of a functional relation , to allow for your total deterministic beliefs. So even if you have no clue what the law of physics is, you suppose (aka it's clear) they have certain nature, even if you are seriously challenged to say anything all, not about the grand equation of everything, but even about it's nature. If you claim the law of physics is encoded by a functional relation, let's state here what is the domain and what is the codomain.
I don't claim the laws of physics are encoded by a functional relation. Please re-read what I've written. I've included probabilistic physics as possible factors in nervous system behavior. If the human nervous system's behavior depends on physics currently modeled by Schrodinger's wave equation then it is non-deterministic. But random behavior isn't a satisfactory substitute for free will. It doesn't allow us to pick an outcome. I'm not saying the universe is deterministic. I'm saying nervous systems can't step outside physics and change the way physics works.
And then you argue that it is clear this and it is clear that. The only thing that is clear is that your argument is void, because you already encoded your conclusion in the presupposition, and even about that encoding you have no clue if it makes sense at all (i.e it is well-defined and it is not like the paradoxical barber. You see, there can be a barber in that village, no doubt about it, but the guy who told us about that barber came up with a nonsensical definition of the barber, so departing from his account of the barber, no valid reasoning about the barber can be made even if the barber exists). So the law of physics may exist, we can even postulate it's existence in nonsensical TwoCentsPhilosophyStyle?: the conjunction of all there is to say truthfully about the universe. And as you claim "our brains obeys it", even by definition, or else, there is some falsified part in the grand conjunction. But, to quote "it is clear", that alone leads nowhere.
I don't see this as philosophy. If there exists a set of rules that govern nervous system behavior, free will depends on being able to alter those rules. Otherwise the only alternatives we have are determinism or randomness. Perhaps I'm not being clear about something. You sound angry.
You sound confused. What you do is, of course philosophical argumentation. Who established that there can be only determinism or randomness and when?
That's all that has been observed. Are you aware of a third option?
The existence of free will does not depend on the ability to change the way nature exists. Free will is a natural phenomenon, not a supra-natural one.
How can the behavior of a nervous system alter the rules that determine how that nervous system behaves without stepping outside the laws of physics? It's true that the behaviour of a nervous system can change its structure and behavior (thoughts can alter calcification between synapses, neurotransmitter production, etc.) but that structure and behavior is still governed by the laws of physics. All meaningful definitions of free will (not just random chance) rely on the ability of an individual to pick one possible outcome from a set of many. The way they pick is either deterministic or random because the laws of physics are deterministic or random and nervous systems are subject to those laws. The notion of free will is a remnant of the days we believed that objects had spirits inside them that were outside the realm of physics.
So you don't know that law of physics, but now you've established that it is either deterministic or random. Cool. Excuse us, we don't buy assertions as arguments.
All physics was thought to be deterministic until Schrodinger's wave equation introduced the possibility of chance. It's likely that human nervous systems don't amplify quantum effects and are deterministic. It's possible that they do amplify quantum effects and are random. Those are the only alternatives I'm aware of. If you know of another, please let me know.
So you assume that all you know, actually all you've heard about, is all there is. This is most presumptuous. The laws of valid reasoning will tell us that what we have so far doesn't allow us to infer anything one way or the other.
I believe that there is a set (possibly unbounded) of rules that describe how matter and energy behave. I believe that human nervous systems behave according to those rules. There might be spirits inside neurons that don't obey the laws of physics. I've never seen any evidence for them. I've seen ample evidence that neural behavior can be explained without resorting to spirits. The spirits could be playing a trick on me, but I judge that the likelihood of that is so low that I don't have to worry about it.
The categorization of phenomenon into deterministic and random is a bit of a red herring when it comes to free will. The real issue is that matter and energy seem to follow rules, and there's no evidence that human nervous systems change those rules. When you look closely, we are as mechanical as computers.
Of course there are rules which DESCRIBE how matter and energy behave. These rules are stated and tested by scientists. Every now and then, they recognize that the rules are not perfectly valid and so they look for new, better, ones. Since the rules are invented by the scientists, it's their nervous system which creates and changes those rules. We might be as mechanical as computers and still have free will.
The rules aren't invented by scientists (unless you're a solipsist, in which case I don't exist and you can safely ignore what I say). The rules existed before the scientists started modelling them. Our models change, but our models don't change the rules. Those rules don't allow for any reasonable definition of free will. We have the sensation of deciding our actions, but our actions and our decisions are all the result of matter and energy following rules that our actions and decisions don't influence.
Would you please give the meaning of the word "rule" as you understand it? What is the difference between the "rules of nature" and the nature itself? And also, if you have the time, what is your meaning of the words "we", "deciding" and "allows"?. I think, our actions and decisions are "part" of the behaviour of matter and energy and not a "result" thereof. So is free will part of the nature (or as you like to say, part of the rules) and not its result.
Rule: a statement that describes what is true.
Who makes this statement? To whom is it described? Can a rule exist without an observer?
Difference between "rules of nature" and "nature itself": nature (everything that exists, has existed or will exist) obeys the "rules of nature" (although I try not to use those terms).
Do these rules exist? If so, they have to obey themselves. Are there any rules the rules have to obey?
The laws of physics describe when a neuron will fire. They describe when a signal will cross a synapse. Our actions and decisions are the result of chemical and electrical processes that are fairly well understood. Everything is part of nature. What we think and do are part of nature. The laws of physics describe (and determine) what we think and do. Any better?
BTW: Do solipsists specify the "laws of physics"? I know at last two people who have been solipsists for some time, but they denied having such ability.
Solipsists don't believe there are laws of physics, as far as I can tell.
You have said, if I were a solipsist you would not exist. Does your existence depend on my beliefs?
If you are a solipsist you don't believe I exist; I can't prove you wrong and I won't bother either of us by trying. I ignore solipsists and advise them to ignore me.
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You both agree that a mental state exists that (perhaps unwisely) is termed "will". Note that I've inserted mental for the purpose of excluding computers. Some might want to add "conscious" as well. However, I don't want to get bogged down in such details. Let's concentrate on whether it's appropriate to apply the adjective "free" to that state. What is it supposed to be free from?
Attaching "free" to will is pointless if justified merely by your own perception of freedom, given that your immediate perception is unreliable as a means of casually assessing the situation. An insect or computer could have free will in that sense. Your definition has no link to personal responsibility.
Very good point :-)
Free like in free speech, free like in free beer, free like in free fall, free radical and tax free. :-) You are right the attribute "free" is not necessary.
Those are freedoms from specific constraints. The constraints can be cited to explain what is meant by "free" in each context.
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