Caledonian2 comments on Righting a Wrong Question - Less Wrong

68 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 March 2008 01:00PM

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Comment author: Caledonian2 09 March 2008 06:31:14PM 0 points [-]

What is the phrase 'free will' used to refer to? We cannot even start worrying about whether we need to answer or abolish the question until we understand what the question signifies.

We could ask ourselves "what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force?", and recognize that this question must be unasked. The reason why it's not a valid question is that the definitions of those two things turn out to be mutually contradictory once we analyze them down to their constituent parts.