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choices. If experience or logic dictates one choice over the oth
ers, then the alternatives are not equally appropriate, and choice
is biased rather than free. For example, in an icecream shop
where there are dozens of flavors, you know from past experi
ence that you like some flavors better than others, and these
preferences likely affect your choice.
a.
To what extent do you believe people are in a position to
make unbiased choices among equally appropriate choices?
That is, can you identify some circumstances for which a
person must choose among equally appropriate choices—
unbiased by past experience—or can you argue that such
circumstances cannot arise?
b.
Within computers, programs could make arbitrary choices
based on random events, such as the decomposition of ra
dioactive molecules. To what extent could such a choice
mechanism be used to simulate the concept of free will?
7.
In grade school, I followed the normal process for long divi
sion by finding successive digits in the quotient, multiplying a
digit by the divisor, subtracting to obtain a new dividend, and
continuing until the answer was obtained. For one problem, I
was asked to divide a fourdigit number by a twodigit num
ber using long division. In this specific case, at one step, I
multiplied incorrectly, and I made another error in subtrac
tion. At the end, I got the right answer, but the intermediate
steps contained two errors.
a.
Would my work on this problem pass blackbox testing?
b.
Would my work on this problem pass whitebox testing?
In each case, justify your conclusion.
