Determinism vs. Free Will

I seem to remember that Ken and I discussed this some time before Old Dog joined us at the Institute. That's another one of those things that you can't conclusively prove, you either believe in it or you don't. I believe we ended up agreeing that it's a good policy to act as if you believed in free will, even if you don't, otherwise you would never get anything done....or something like that. My opinion on the subject is that life is like a poker game, you can't control which cards you are dealt, but you can decide which ones to keep and which ones to throw away.

I would define a good toaster as one that consistently makes toast the way I like it, and a bad toaster as one that doesn't. My hypothetical wife and I gave up on toasters a long time ago. Ever since they "improved" the old fashioned toasters, the ones that used to go "ticka-ticka", by making them work electronically, we had never been able to get our toast to come out the same way twice. Then we discovered toaster ovens, I think my mother gave us her old one after she got a new one. They don't last forever, and I believe we're on our third one now, but they go "ticka-ticka", and they have a window which enables you to watch the toast and pull it out if it looks done before the timer runs its course. That's the best kind of machine, one that you control yourself, or at least can intervene if the thing decides to disregard your instructions.

Now they are making driverless cars. Why? Who needs them? We both have cruise control on our cars, but neither of us have ever used it. The gas pedal and the brake pedal are all the cruise control we need. I like the idea of an automatic braking system that takes over if you fall asleep at the wheel or something, as long as it works properly. If I had that on my car, though, I would find some way to disable it the first time it gave me any shit. No matter how useful or how smart a machine is, it needs to be kept in its place. Otherwise, the next thing you know, they will be taking over our neighborhoods, marrying our daughters, and getting themselves elected President of the United States. No good can come of that!