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<a style="font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:18px;" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/212835903/neither-random-nor-predetermined.shtml">Neither Random nor Predetermined</a>
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<span>Posted:</span> 07 Jan 2008 03:01 PM CST</p>
<div style="margin:0;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;line-height:140%;font-size:12px;color:#000000;"><p>Free Will is difficult to define. We’re saying that people make choices that are neither predetermined by outside causes, and yet non-random. Moshe Koppel, in his book “Metahalakhah” proves that such a domain exists, but without showing us what that domain might contain.</p>
<p>A random sequence is one whose next element is not predictable given the sequence’s history so far. But it’s easy to model, simply say that each it is random. It can be done in very few bits of a programming language.</p>
<p>A sequence that can be reduced to a shorter one is the product of lgorithm. For example:</p>
<blockquote><p> 10101010101….</p></blockquote>
<p>You don’t need to have every bit listed in order to reproduct the sequence. One need only have a set of bits that mean “10, repeat” in ome programming language.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<blockquote><p> 1010…</p></blockquote>
<p>Looks like it’s the old “10, repeat”. Until we get to:</p>
<blockquote><p> 101000101…</p></blockquote>
<p>Now it looks like</p>
<blockquote><p> if not a multiple of 5<br />
if odd 1<br />
if even 0<br />
if a multiple of 5 - 0</p></blockquote>
<p>But then we get some more items:</p>
<blockquote><p> 10100010111010…</p></blockquote>
<p>So we theorize:</p>
<blockquote><p> if not a multiple of 5<br />
if odd 1<br />
if even 0<br />
if a multiple of 5<br />
if odd 0<br />
if even 1</p></blockquote>
<p>But later on we learn:</p>
<blockquote><p> 101000101110100010111010101011…</p></blockquote>
<p>The 25th item didn’t obey this rule… and so our model gets ever more complex as we have more data to work with. We can always explain the sequence in less space than the sequence itself. So it isn’t random. However, the description of an infinite expansion of this sequence would be infinite. It’s not an algorithm because no finite model exists. They are “non-modelable”, since neither a coin tosser nor an algorithm will model the resulting output.</p>
<p>There is a middle ground between deterministic and random. If one watches a person’s decisions, it will fall into that class.</p>
<p>Dr. Koppel, following R’ JB Soloveitchik’s approach in “Halachic Man”, sees the role of halakhah as that of maximizing free ill. Man redeems himself through a creative partnership with G-d. That creativity is a product of being non-modelable; our decisions are neither inherent in our nature nor our environment nor random — they are something new, products that our uniquely our creations.</p>
<p>Perhaps the same dichotomy lies behind Euthyphro’s Dilemma.</p>
<p>To recap my summary of that dilemma from <a href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/05/ethics-and-morality.shtml" title="Ethics and Morality (May '05)">an earlier blog entry</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>In his essay “Euthyphro”, Plato has Socrates ask a young student named Euthyphro, “Is what is righteous righteous because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is righteous?” The Jewish spin would be to ask: Is an act good because HQBH chose to make it a mitzvah, or did Hashem command us to do it because it is good? What is the Source of morality?</p>
<p>The problem is that if you say that an act is good solely because Hashem commanded it, then He had no moral reason to tell us to do one set of things and not another. Can mitzvos be the product of Divine whim, the decision between “Thou shalt murder” and “Thou shalt not” entirely without any reason on His part? On the other hand, if there is an overarching definition of good and evil that Hashem conformed to, then we placed something “over” Him, something that even He is subject to.</p></blockquote>
<p>Notice how the options presented match the ones Dr Koppel rules out with respect to free will: either Hashem’s moral choice is predetermined by an outside notion of morality, or His choice is arbitrary.</p>
<p>The resolution I offered to Euthyphro’s Dilemma was:</p>
<blockquote><p>I would argue that HQBH created the world with a <em>tachlis</em>, a purpose, He placed each of us in it with a <em>tachlis</em>, and what is righteous is righteous because it is in accordance with furthering that <em>tachlis</em>.</p></blockquote>
<p>Moral good is thus defined in terms of Hashem’s purpose behind creating us. Notice again the third alternative is about being purposive. Deterministic behavior is caused by one’s past. Random behavior is arbitrary, without particular cause for one outcome over another. By not being modelable, people have the ability to make decisions based upon a desired future.</p><div class="feedflare">
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