Stack Exchange
open access
CC BY-SA
What is the difference between free-will and randomness and or non-determinism?
In relation to the question " What are the necessary conditions for an action to be regarded as a free choice? ", it came up that one way to insure the possibility of free-will was to have more than one choice. But that doesn't separate free-will from non-determinism or from randomness. In the context of a human making a choice, wanting to know 'Are my actions predestined?', 'free-will' means they can make the choice, 'random' means the choice is unpredictable (but by who), and 'non-determinism' means there is more than one choice. What is the relation of these three concepts? I think that non-determinism is a necessary condition for the other two, but that one could have free-will but still be predictable, and that randomness does not imply willful-ness. Is that an acceptable reading of those concepts? If not, what are alternate workable definitions?
Conceptio Open Archive
Analyze & explore related research in Conceptio
Connect this record directly into your research workflow or AI agent. Explore citations across open repositories, query full text, and export structured proof bundles.
This document is indexed with metadata only: full text is not available in the archive for this record. Open the official source ↗
Related documents
- Mistaking Randomness for Free Will#485792
- That's Where We're Living : Determinism and Free Will in "Unthought Known"#723038
- Free will as involving determination and inconceivable without it#740202
- Does Free Will Exist?#693820
- Free Will and Determinism: A Call for Nuanced Discussion#81447
Record · ID 787618
Retrieved via Conceptio: every document is proof-bundled with source, license, and retrieval metadata.
Retrieved via Conceptio: every document is proof-bundled with source, license, and retrieval metadata.
Bring this data into your agent: Connect via MCP or API · 20 free credits to start · no card required
Read the Docs → · View CLI source on GitHub · Conceptio Open Knowledge Archive
Read the Docs → · View CLI source on GitHub · Conceptio Open Knowledge Archive