Why is there a conflict in saying that Action A is free and that Action A is not

Question:My professor e-mailed us this question (among others) and I'm not quite sure what he's getting at.

I find no conflict in saying that free will and non-determinism compare with one another...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My professor e-mailed us this question (among others) and I'm not quite sure what he's getting at.

I find no conflict in saying that free will and non-determinism compare with one another...

Action A didn't come to be out of thin air. For action A to occur, there must have been a previous event; your desire for it to occur, what ever influenced your desire, etc.

Your professor is saying every action is a result of a previous event --so this statement is false.

oh sweet duality.

what is action A free from?...

essentially i suppose what he is asking you is, can anything be free? i think the chap below me hit it right on the nose. any choice we make regarding our autonomy is based on all of the choices we've made previously, which have lead us here.

Perhaps he is saying exercise of free will implies a choice. The action is therefore caused by a previous event--the choosing.

It's been too long for me to remember the logic formulas, but here's a situational example.

Say Mary is supposed to fly to Phoenix on Monday morning. She misses her flight. The airline flies her in the afternoon instead. On the morning flight, she would have had the choice of fruit or eggs to eat. On the afternoon flight, she has the choice of yogurt or a sandwich. She makes her choice and eats yogurt on her way to Phoenix.

Call eating yogurt on the way to Phoenix "Action A" and missing the morning flight the "previous event." Mary's choice to eat yogurt is free, but had Mary not missed the previous flight, she would not have eaten yogurt on the way to Phoenix.

Everything hinges on the word "free," which, like other common terms, can mean a variety of things. In the case of the question your professor gave you, he seems to have meant to use "free" in the sense of "random." If this is true, the answer to this question becomes clear because an action cannot be either random or caused by a previous event.

Harleigh Kyson Jr.