Francis
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Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:14:58 +0000 (WE)
From: "Arno L. Goudsmit" <Goudsmit@MAILBOX.UNIMAAS.NL>
Subject: free won'
To: prncyb-l%bingvmb.bitnet@HEARN.nic.SURFnet.nl
Arno Goudsmit:
I think the beautiful thing with artificial things is that you
can give them names as you like it. E.g. you may call them
intelligent, attribute them experiences, learning processes, etc.
This is all a matter of free will of the student, who is free
to define his terms (with the only constraint of consistency).
However, to call a living being free, attribute to it experiences,
learning processes, call it intelligent, etc., is something
entirely different: for a living being has its own perspective,
point of view or what you want.
If there is some free will etc. in a living being, then this is to
say that it does NOT fit into an observer's definitions, but instead
imposes upon the observer some facts of life (and of living) that
may not be consistent with the formalism the observer is cherishing.
This is not a limitation of the observer, it is due
to a complementarity between observation and definition, about which
Niels Bohr has been quite explicit already.
____________________NEW_ADDRESS_________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vub.ac.be
CLEA, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6442677; Fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html