[Avodah] Free Will vs. Physics

[Michael Poppers]

In Avodah Digest V25#362, RAM wrote:
> How does this happen? How CAN it happen? If they had identical
experiences in the past, won't they make identical decisions in the
present? Clearly, they must have some sort of desire for this or for that
which had not been pre-programmed, because if everything *was*
pre-programmed, then what happens to responsibility? How can he be given
praise or censure for decisions that were pre-programmed? <
If we posit that "responsibility" (and anything else you care to categorize
under or associate with "yeitzer hatov") isn't present ab initio -- such
that when you try to go back to a person's time point "0," you really can
only go back to when a person acquires that yeitzer, at which time a
storehouse of past actions, experiences, etc. already exists -- isn't this
discussion inexorably altered?

All the best from
-- Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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