Q&A: Buridan’s Donkey Draws Lots
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Buridan’s Donkey Draws Lots
Question
In the book The Science of Freedom, the Rabbi argues that drawing lots by Buridan’s donkey (or more accurately, the person) is a symmetry-breaking act and is incompatible with physicalism.
Why? What about this contradicts the symmetry? After all, it is not a preference for one of the troughs over the other, but rather handing the decision over to another factor.
Answer
That other factor is, by its very nature, not symmetrical. But I was discussing the (hypothetical) situation in which the entire world is symmetrical.
I was asked:
What possible way out is there other than handing the decision over to someone else? Even in the dualist picture, after the fact a person will have to explain why he chose the particular trough he chose and not the other one. So how is a decision even possible at all?
My response:
I didn’t understand the question. He would explain that he chose arbitrarily because one of them had to be chosen. That’s the essence of the argument.