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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Ted Peters On Genetic Determinism & Free Will
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Jerry Boam
Shipmate
# 4551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
You certainly don't need to, but if you asked, the "entity" might explain that free will gives them the ability to choose between possible actions. You would be free to malign this and suggest their action was random and meaningless.
But can you imagine an explanation for how an organism or entity might make selections from a range of possible actions that isn't free will?
Or are you defining the ability to choose as free will (if so, RooK's problem-solving construct might be a description of "free will" but not one that is satisfying to many of those who use the term)?
I think Sarkycow's conception of RooK's system as overly reductionist is in itself overly reductionist. Just because RooK's system is based on small parts, as a system in complex interaction with the outer world, it might be breathtakingly complex and display extraordinary emergent properties...
In any case, thanks to all, especially JimT and RooK for a thoroughly enjoyable thread.
The image of RooK and JimT as conceptual spermatozoa dreaming of transcendental mitosis alone is worth the price of admission to this thread.
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If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you.
Posts: 2165 | From: Miskatonic University | Registered: May 2003
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
You certainly don't need to, but if you asked, the "entity" might explain that free will gives them the ability to choose between possible actions. You would be free to malign this and suggest their action was random and meaningless.
But can you imagine an explanation for how an organism or entity might make selections from a range of possible actions that isn't free will?
Or are you defining the ability to choose as free will (if so, RooK's problem-solving construct might be a description of "free will" but not one that is satisfying to many of those who use the term)?
Many valid deterministic explanations might answer your first question: habbit, hormones, even random chance. A person might even lie and tell you it was free will when they actually thought it was one of the above.
As to your second question, I'll wait and see if RooK thinks his construct is a description of "free will".
Posts: 1188 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Jerry Boam
Shipmate
# 4551
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Posted
If habbit, hormones, even random chance don't contribute to free will, then I'm pretty sure no human being has free will, however it is defined...
[ 30. October 2003, 01:23: Message edited by: Jerry Boam ]
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If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you.
Posts: 2165 | From: Miskatonic University | Registered: May 2003
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
JimT, thanks for the book! I'll hunt it down... eventually. It's coincidences like your story that make me arch my eyebrow, Spock-wise, and think, "...fascinating". You have indeed helped me bash off some of the moss from my "tool-self", such that I think it'll be published on my web site soon. Thanks.
quote:
Originally responded by Ley Druid:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I've maligned free will in this thread because 1) I can't define it, and 2) I don't think I need it for my crackpot idea.
Therefore nothing that I might say need change this.
I'm disappointed with the implied deduction of this statement, because:
1) You might be able to define it, and
2) You might be able to think of a reason why my crackpot idea would need it.
So, I don't know if my construct is a description of "free will" - that's why I asked. As best as I can guess (let me just emphasize - GUESS), free will is ascribed to a specific domain of the unknowable that lies within a greater realm of the unknown.
If we interpret your posts to assemble the possible meaning as "the ability to choose", then I think Jerry Boam might have flayed that idea already. My car has the "ability to choose" which key starts it, and even though I am extremely fond of my car I somehow doubt that it has much "free will".
[Winks at Jerry.]
Even though I find my crackpot theory quite amusing, I feel I should re-affirm that it represents only an entertaining contemplation, and that I'm 99.9999% certain that I have no idea what the truth is.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally responded by Ley Druid:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I've maligned free will in this thread because 1) I can't define it, and 2) I don't think I need it for my crackpot idea.
Therefore nothing that I might say need change this.
I'm disappointed with the implied deduction of this statement, because:
1) You might be able to define it, and
2) You might be able to think of a reason why my crackpot idea would need it.
People have been debating this issue for a long time; your position allows you dismiss free will as quote:
the biggest red herring in the history of philosophical thought
I will acknowledge you are always free to reject it. People who advocate for free will are not unaware of this
quote:
Although the case for free will cannot be rigorously proven, those of us who believe in it need feel no threat from the findings of the Human Genome Initiative - Ted Peters pages
quote:
Originally posted by RooK
free will is ascribed to a specific domain of the unknowable that lies within a greater realm of the unknown.
This is really good.
Now, who (or what) does the ascribing? You (or your problem solving system)?
Hint: so far, when you (or your problem solving system) have made judgements about other "problem solvers" it has been difficult to differentiate between plants, cars and people.
quote:
Originally posted by RooK;
Much of my speculation about "self" is clearly a by-product of my own considerations about "how I would do it" if I were a creator of a sentient-seeming being.
Posts: 1188 | Registered: Aug 2002
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
JimT...You have indeed helped me bash off
<strategic snip>
Hey, that's great.
I'll get a specific cite for that book. I've gotta take another look at it myself.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
And here I thought I was being subtle. I hardly think that the "strategic snip" was necessary, as I went on to use the term "tool".
Ley Druid, being free to reject something doesn't mean that they are uninterested in it. Professional wrestling and politics come to mind. Still, I can respect your preference to leave the definition of "free will" to others.
In terms of who (or what) I meant does the ascribing of "free will", I actually meant you and anyone else that wishes to believe/use the term. Please feel free to clarify if I am mistaken.
quote:
Originally mentioned by Ley Druid:
Hint: so far, when you (or your problem solving system) have made judgements about other "problem solvers" it has been difficult to differentiate between plants, cars and people.
This is an interesting point. Is it really that hard? There certainly is a connection between them in our discussion, as we mean to imply that "successful" versions of each are determined by how well they accomplish things that allow them to continue existing. The measure of success is therefore somewhat subjective, but can generally be agreed upon to a limited extent.
The differences should be quite poignant, however.
For plants/simple biological systems/politicians, the limit of their problem solving is a feedback loop were evolved traits help or hinder the being. The beings with the helpful traits proliferate, in classic animal husbandry and Dead Horse Darwinism. (Apologies, let's move on.) For designed mechanical entities, such as cars and accountants, they are made to accomplish specific tasks that are considered before they are made. There is a feedback loop for subsequent designs, but the important point is that the usual designed artifact is static in terms of capabilities (without intervention from helper monkeys). So specific changes in plants and cars usually address one solution to one problem. Period.
Lastly, you get to the beginning of the crackpot idea - yummy brains - such as in some people and critters. Instead of relying on some inhereted trait feedback system to deal with problems, the brain is used as a general and fast method for solving problems. In order for this tool to work, the problem-solver needs to have a goal or direction. That's where the "self" comes in, so that the brain can evaluate what to do in a way that would be "helpful".
So, I'm guessing that the confusion comes from the similarity of goals (help the "self"), and the multiplicity of possible solutions (outside change versus ability to contemplate the "self").
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
I took a moment to skim a few pages of Ronald Christensen's Belief and Behavior. It was not nearly as impenetrable as my first glance indicated. Directly bearing on RooK and Ley Druid's conversation, the book ends with "A Make Believe Physics of Belief." Christensen says that decision theory, which describes the behavior of entities with free will making choices on the basis of subjective probabilities and value matrices, can be exactly overlain on quantum mechanics, which describes the passive behavior of entities bound by physical law. Only the language of the description is different, he says. I did not know that decision theory had formal premises that start with free will and values, but that is what "decision" is all about. If there is no free will, there is no "decision." If there are no decision-making criteria, there can be no decision. The decision-making criteria are properly called "values" because when we choose we are seeking to maximize competing criteria: ease, delight, effectiveness, mercy, justice, etc. and values are shown by which criteria tend to "win" over the others when more than one value comes into play. The decision-making entity is naturally defined as the "self." It was kind of cool.
It reminded me of another book, Man is Moral Choice, by Albert Hobbs. We simply seem to perceive the operation of our Selves as in a constant state of making choices, striving to make the "best" choice, whatever that means to us. It seems to me that to remove this perception we have of choice making is to remove our humanity. It is somewhat like saying, "You must not dedicate your life to painting works of art, because there is no such thing as color. There are only different wavelengths of light, mixed with different intensities. Color and the emotions evoked by them are illusions of perception." We simply cannot rearrange our brains to see dispassionately see wavelengths and intensities when we see a sunset. So it is with trying to make best choices.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
Rook, I do so like your pet theory. If I were to take your pet for a walk, I would wonder about the implications on identity and the dread of death. I would wander about the existential crisis of humanity.
It is exactly this problem of consciousness and self identity that leads to a personal crisis. We have the knowledge that we exists now and that someday we will no longer exist. I think that much of this dread stems from a very small view of ourselves as being bounded by our skin and a desperate desire to set ourselves apart from the rest of humanity. It is our ego that cannot tolerate the idea that we will not go on and the dread comes from losing our perspective as a meaningful part of the whole.
I like your idea of expanding our identity to include the world. Even if death is The End for our particular collection of cells, our life goes on in the ways we have touched the people around us, in the worms that eat our dead flesh, and in our children. One particular part dies but the whole of life goes on. Extending our identity to include the world is a way to put ourselves in perspective, not as insignificant specks in vast sea of humanity, but as meaningful interactive entities.
For the adventurous, there are some parallels here to Christianity. Christians aim to find their identity in a God that embraces the world. This integrates their identity with God and thereby they care for all people (that's the goal anyway). Putting it another way, it is by loving all people that we love God.
Is there really much difference?
Freehand ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 673 | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
Freehand! What took you so long to show up, buddy?
A welcome tangent. Once Identity is established, and internal communication begins with that Identity, establishing a Self, a curious fact emerges: Others, who are similar, die. The Self begins a countdown, not knowing which number is equal to the Reaper's Zero. Maddening. Possibly frightening.
Why frightening? Is Death not simply Sleep without awakening or dreams? Recall that the Greek god of Death, Thanatos, is the twin of Hypnus, god of Sleep. The twin. Forget the Styx and the Great White Throne; they are the products of minds that fear the unknown. Stop reading Hamlet's soliliquy at this line: "And by a sleep to say we end the heartaches and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished." The answer to "Who would bear the whips and scorns of time" is: "One who has found Meaning in living."
So where does Meaning come from? Believing that this pathetic world is a brief moment in time that will be shattered by a new world order with Christ as the King, Evil abolished, the Elect arising from their graves to eternal life in an unending, deathless state of ecstatic and perpetual union with the Power of All? Too much for me to swallow. Way more than I need to find Meaning in living.
Every now and then, touch another person in love. As often as possible, make the choice, make the effort, exert the Will of the Self, to touch other Minds in Love. Then lie down, and rest in peace. If you awake in Eternal Reward, what a nice surprise. If you awake in Eternal Punishment, well you're just going to have to feel sorry for the prick that did it to you.
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Concerning other "problem-solvers" RooK said:
"successful" versions of each are DETERMINED by how well they accomplish things that allow them to continue existing.
...So specific changes in plants and cars usually address one solution to one problem. Period.
This is reductionist. The overwhelming majority of scientists would acknowledge that variation, that is, changes or "versions" as you put it, in genotype, phenotype and dramatype can occur randomly whith neither cause or effect vis-a-vis continued existence or problem solving.
But guess what? -- you are free to make this assumption if you want to. There will be consequences to your assumption, but if they don't bother you, then knock yourself out.
You are also free to assume that another person quote:
needs to have a goal or direction.
Obviously if you make this assumption, there's no more free will; an action is chosen to obtain a goal or direction (or it's random).
Let me suggest what I see as an inevitable consequence of your assumption. If you study an electron going through two holes in a wall, hopefully you would realize, as Alan Cresswell said on this thread, that which hole the electron goes through is a random event. If you study me going through two holes in a wall you are likely to come to the same conclusion. Control all the variables you want, you will never find what determines which door I go through. Your crackpot theory will say that my behavior is "random and meaningless" or quote:
a specific domain of the unknowable that lies within a greater realm of the unknown
The consequence of your theory is that you will be wrong, laughably wrong to me. All you had to do was ask. But how things appear to me is obviously no reason at all why you need to change your crackpot theory.
Likewise people who assume "free will", have to live with the consequences of that assumption. They can never prove "free will", because they have assumed it to be true (hence JimT's objections to a seeming tautology).
Personally, it always seemed arbitrary why humans should be special, but now I see that the fact that another person can tell you somehing, can have a large effect on what you know about them. The role of language in epistemology really should make this obvious.
Posts: 1188 | Registered: Aug 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
Why frightening? Is Death not simply Sleep without awakening or dreams?
But isn't that the most frightening thing imaginable? Didn't it ever keep you up awake when you were a kid, scared to sleep in case it was the same as dying?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
Freehand finally showed up!
I think we discussed my contemplations of the "self" being imaginary on one of our Crawford rides. As you can see, it's gotten only slightly more rigorous.
I particularly liked the line, quote:
I would wander about the existential crisis of humanity.
Even though I suspect it was just a typo, I legitimately wonder where you would "go".
Also, as you noticed, and JimT taunted, the cognitive and perceptual similarity between the "extended self" and the christian ideal is what makes the religion charming for me.
Ley Druid, you'll have to pardong the following comments and replies - because I really couldn't divine an actual point from your post.
quote:
The overwhelming majority of scientists would acknowledge that variation, that is, changes or "versions" as you put it, in genotype, phenotype and dramatype can occur randomly whith neither cause or effect vis-a-vis continued existence or problem solving.
Er, I disagree. While the actual changes might be random (and I certainly didn't deny that), there exists those few changes that accidentally solve a certain problem. These successful few, theoretically, are more successful than their randomly-different peers, thus propogating the "solution". The comment about "consequences to [my] assumption" completely whizzed over my problem-solving lobe. Sorry, no idea what you meant.
quote:
You are also free to assume that another person "needs to have a goal or direction". Obviously if you make this assumption, there's no more free will; an action is chosen to obtain a goal or direction (or it's random).
What little sense of this gibberish I can make seems incorrect. I made the distinction between intentional and unintentional, and you seem to be saying that those two exclude "free will"? Please tell me I missed something there.
quote:
Let me suggest what I see as an inevitable consequence of your assumption. If you study an electron going through two holes in a wall, hopefully you would realize, as Alan Cresswell said on this thread, that which hole the electron goes through is a random event. If you study me going through two holes in a wall you are likely to come to the same conclusion. Control all the variables you want, you will never find what determines which door I go through. Your crackpot theory will say that my behavior is "random and meaningless" <snip>
The consequence of your theory is that you will be wrong, laughably wrong to me. All you had to do was ask.
Why is this a consequence, much less an inevitable one? At no point are quantum effects or probabilities even relevant, much less dismissed. More importantly, the Crackpot Theory™ has nothing at all to do with experimentally determining people's motivations - so your whole analogy is pointless and inappropriate.
Quite honestly, this last post leads me to suspect that you have really no understanding of what we're talking about, and that you may just be reacting to my dismissing of "free will". If that is the case, I hope you will accept my apology and believe that no slight was intended. You really don't need to defend free will, per-se; it's not going to cease to exist because of this conversation.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
It certainly looks like it's still going Mark ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
And, it's still a mighty fine thread.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
If you study an electron going through two holes in a wall, hopefully you would realize, as Alan Cresswell said on this thread, that which hole the electron goes through is a random event. If you study me going through two holes in a wall you are likely to come to the same conclusion. Control all the variables you want, you will never find what determines which door I go through.
I thought that by the end of page 1 of this thread we'd come to the conclusion that quantum indeterminancy wasn't relevant to this discussion?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Ley Druid, you'll have to pardong the following comments and replies - because I really couldn't divine an actual point from your post.
Perhaps if you were the creator and I was a sentinent-seeming being it would have been easier (that's a play on your use of "divine")
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
You are also free to assume that another person "needs to have a goal or direction". Obviously if you make this assumption, there's no more free will; an action is chosen to obtain a goal or direction (or it's random).
What little sense of this gibberish I can make seems incorrect. I made the distinction between intentional and unintentional ...
You made no mention of "intentional and unintentional". Interesting distinction.
You did call my post gibberish.
The mention of "free will" in the OP, may have something to do with its re-occurrence in my posts.
Is it your "crackpot theory about human brains" that
quote:
leads me to suspect that you have really no understanding of what we're talking about...
or is this the result of some other inspiration (that would be another play on your use of "divine").
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I thought that by the end of page 1 of this thread we'd come to the conclusion that quantum indeterminancy wasn't relevant to this discussion?
The quantum part is neither here nor there.
Many discussions about "free will" contrast determinancy with indeterminancy. If you can provide me with acceptable synonyms for "indeterminancy" I'll be happy to use them. Similarly if you don't want me to talk about determinancy, indeterminancy, or "free will" I would also be happy to oblige.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
The quantum part is neither here nor there.
Well, you introduced the quantum system of electrons going through holes. You refered to it as "random" where as it is indeterminate ... the best description is that the electron goes through both holes. Random is not synonymous with indeterminate.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
Perhaps if you were the creator and I was a sentinent-seeming being it would have been easier
Perhaps? Now that's thinking I can appreciate. Question those silly preconceived notions about your religion.
quote:
You made no mention of "intentional and unintentional".
What do you think I meant by segregating the actions of entities with brains from entities without brains?
quote:
Interesting distinction.
Indeed. Welcome to the discussion... a page or so ago.
quote:
You did call my post gibberish.
It was unnecessary and presumptuous of me. Sorry. I should have clarified that it seemed to me like meaningless gibberish that could have been derived from randomly picking words from the various other posts, the appendix of a 1st-year college textbook, and a cereal box.
quote:
The mention of "free will" in the OP, may have something to do with its re-occurrence in my posts.
Fair enough. I suppose that if you post about it often enough, the laws of probability state that it should eventually have something to do with what we're actually talking about.
quote:
Is it your "crackpot theory about human brains" that leads [you] to suspect that [I] have really no understanding of what we're talking about... or is this the result of some other inspiration.
Mostly it comes my observation that your posts never seem to have any significant relevance to the discussion, that you seem mostly unwilling to directly answer any question I ask, and that your questions could be seen as puerile.
Whoa... hey. That could be just an inference from the pattern-recognition function of my problem-solving brain. It seems like there is dubious means for any quantitative determination of another's understanding (translation: I don't have faith in test scores?). Perhaps this is an arbitrary problem-solving attempt that is based on some pre-conceived template for what ignorance manifests itself as. I mean, a perfectly plausible alternate explanation is that I just don't understan what Ley Druid has been saying (or, have been mistaking it).
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
Why frightening? Is Death not simply Sleep without awakening or dreams?
But isn't that the most frightening thing imaginable? Didn't it ever keep you up awake when you were a kid, scared to sleep in case it was the same as dying?
Ken, the absolute truth is that I never feared death. I only feared Hell. I find oblivion completely relaxing. I find the prospect of eternal life ultimately unappealing. Eternity in a single state, albeit perpetual enlightenment, with no future to look forward to, no struggles, no achievement, no babies watch grow, young people to assist, hurting people to help, is meaningless to me. Perpetual reincarnation where you retain full memory of your past life sounds like a more appealing fantasy, but I'll gladly settle for oblivion. I don't think people really think through the whole Eternal Life thing. When you press them, they back off to, "God will make it interesting; we can't imagine how wonderful it will be." But they sound like they are convincing themselves. What it seems to me they crave is not the full vision of Eternal Life; they simply do not want Death. Eternal Life must be good if you don't have to die. Maybe it's better to die.
Robert Heinlein wrote a book about a guy who just wants to die after living thousands of years after Man achieves immortality. I think it's called Time Enough for Love.
And Mark, what did you think it was like when Unitarians witness to agnostics? It's not like you can just pull out John 3:16 and get them on their knees begging for Eternal Life. You Fundamentalists have it so easy. But look at this. RooK has backed off all the way from "Dead guy on a stick" to "interesting." The next thing you know he'll be reading Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. Might be worth it just to hear an angel in Heaven say, "I'll be damned."
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
What's going on here? Everyone agrees with me. Fr. Gregory thinks I'm orthodox and people don't disagree with me on this thread (yet). Is it starting to happen? Is my identity expanding out into the world?
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
And Mark, what did you think it was like when Unitarians witness to agnostics? It's not like you can just pull out John 3:16 and get them on their knees begging for Eternal Life. You Fundamentalists have it so easy. But look at this. RooK has backed off all the way from "Dead guy on a stick" to "interesting." The next thing you know he'll be reading Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. Might be worth it just to hear an angel in Heaven say, "I'll be damned."
JimT, you're a goofball. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) Also, didn't some angel already say "I'll be damned?"
I will define freewill seeing as no one else wants to define it. I see freewill occurring when a choice is made that originates from within the self. If an animal chooses to go left or right on a trail and they are not compelled by an external force, they have freewill.
The existence of freewill depends upon where we draw the lines of our identity. Let's say that a particular decision is pre-determined by genetics. If a person considers their genetics to be a part of themselves, then their being has made a decision. However, if a person thinks, "no, my self cannot be pre-determined by genetics," then they push their genetics out of their identity and see their true identity in some other place. The spiritual solution is to say that our real selves exist as a spirit, relatively independent of the body, and that our true choices originate from this spirit. This can, in extreme cases, lead to a dichotomy where the spirit has no relationship to the physical at all.
The real problem lies in causality. If we assume that everything is caused by something else then there is no freewill aside from either:
(a) the arbitrary lines we draw around ourselves to distinguish the origin of our decisions, as I have described.
(b) the first cause as the ONLY agent of freewill.
At first (a) looks like a weaker concept of freewill than the idea of absolutely free spirits. However, I would ask, "what made the spirit choose?" If nothing made the spirit choose, then it is just randomness anyway. Alternately, if the spirit had motivation to make the choice, then was it really free? Was the spirit pre-determined by its' identity? It really comes down to the same thing. It's called freewill because the decision originates from within the identity.
The only way to have true freewill, I think, is to relax the conditions of causality. However, causality is an the underlying assumption of this whole discussion. Without causality, it is difficult to talk about much at all (though it would be fun to try). For the sake of argument, I'll stick to causality. It's an arbitrary choice on my part.
The development of consciousness results in a distinction that we make between self and not-self. Not only does this result in dread of death and non-being, but it results in the appearance of freewill. There are seemingly arbitrary decisions that we (at least sometimes) make, originating from within ourselves, utterly immune to influence from external forces.
What happens when we push our identity outwards to embrace the world? Not only do we lose the distinction between us and them but all decisions become our decisions and all experiences are our experiences. All is one and one is all. The infinite diversity of life finds wholeness, and oneness is expressed through infinite variation. We reach a state of transcendence or perhaps it is just self-delusion. I'm still trying to tell the difference. Maybe there is no difference in that the concept of a distinct self has been obliterated. Transcendence = self-delusion. I like it.
Freehand
[Edited for UBB.]
[ 01. November 2003, 12:18: Message edited by: Tortuf ]
Posts: 673 | Registered: May 2001
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St. Punk the Pious
Biblical™ Punk
# 683
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freehand:
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
And Mark, what did you think it was like when Unitarians witness to agnostics? It's not like you can just pull out John 3:16 and get them on their knees begging for Eternal Life. You Fundamentalists have it so easy. But look at this. RooK has backed off all the way from "Dead guy on a stick" to "interesting." The next thing you know he'll be reading Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. Might be worth it just to hear an angel in Heaven say, "I'll be damned."
JimT, you're a goofball. Also, didn't some angel already say "I'll be damned?"
Unitarians witness?!? ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
I'll be damned.
[Edited for UBB.]
[ 01. November 2003, 13:09: Message edited by: Tortuf ]
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The Society of St. Pius *
Wannabe Anglican, Reader
My reely gud book.
Posts: 4161 | From: Choral Evensong | Registered: Jul 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Boy--Go away for a couple of days and see what happens.
OK, Rook--I'm with you all the way on free will vs. determinism as a pseudo-problem. As I said before, subjectively, we have no choice but to regard ourselves as having free will, and it makes no sense to have a theory that applies to others but not to ourselves (a good psychological theory must be reflexive--it has to explain the act of theorizing).
Someone (I forget who, and now I'm in the post page and can't go back to check) defined free will as action that originates from within the self. I think there's something to this--the human ability to symbolize gives us the ability (something I doubt other species have) to imagine alternative outcomes, and so to construe stimuli in more than one way. This opens up the possibility of genuine choice--but we can't choose alternatives we can't imagine, and our imagination may be limited by our experience. If one defines the self as "that which construes the environment and makes choices," then you're in tautological territory.
The things we can say (almost)for sure is that the brain is designed to adapt to the environment in which it finds itself, and (IMHO) with only 30,000 genes, there is no way that most complex behaviors can be genetically hard-wired in humans. Genetic predispositions that may be activated or potentiated by environmental factors, sure. But overall, the nature/nurture distinction just hasn't panned out as a useful construct.
I'd go on, but I have a feeling that last shot of Tullamore Dew isn't helping...
Timothy
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
Thinking about Freehand's comments on causality, it made me wonder in a weird direction. It seems to me that all that I know and can conceive of in terms of mental models are absolutely tied to causality. Perhaps, if there were some way to remove the causality from a particular being, what would emerge could be the nebulous "free will" aspect. Of course, that observation requires causality, so the irony of that definition is how it remains amusingly unknowable.
So, Timothy, do you think that symbolic visualization would be purely the domain of "free will"? How does this reflect on those animals that have shown capabilities for understanding symbolic logic?
I have to agree with Timothy about the limitations of the genome. There might be more specific determinations from the proteome, but I think that too is an insufficient explanation. Environmental factors and just plain random effects are too prominent to discount.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Perhaps, if there were some way to remove the causality from a particular being, what would emerge could be the nebulous "free will" aspect. Of course, that observation requires causality, so the irony of that definition is how it remains amusingly unknowable.
I agree. The concept of freewill is about a non-causal being. I think that your following statement is tremendously profound. We will not be able to interrogate the nature of freewill because freewill is non-causal and reasoning is causal. This is why I say that I am the sound of one hand clapping.
The only way out of this is to think in a non-causal manner. Perhaps this happens when we observe beauty and experience love. Both of these experiences are non-logical and beyond reason. Yes, I know that they can be dissected in a causal manner but I always get the feeling that something is lost, like slicing up a live baby. Reason is a knife that cuts life into smaller and smaller pieces. How many poems have been ruined through analysis? The truth is often found in seeing the whole, in seeing holistically. This manner of thinking has been an ideal of mine for a long time. Life can look so different when I do not judge and just embrace it. The fact that I am writing this shows that I am a slicer and dicer. I analyze but try not to lose sight of the whole. And when I embrace beauty, I maintain logical checks to ensure that I don't go loony. At other times I vacillate wildly between the two extremes.
What I really wanted to talk about was freewill. In my last post, I was attempting to suggest a different way to look at freewill. I wanted to discuss the interaction of freewill with our identity without having to definitively say whether we have freewill or not (how agnostic of me ). As I see it, we live in the middle of many, interacting causal strings. We can only chase the strings a little bit each way. We cannot fully understand the causal events that brought us to our current identity. Heck, we are only aware of a fraction of our brain's computations. We are also unaware of the full future repercussions of our own actions. This is why I suggested drawing a line around ourselves and describing freewill as being that which originates from within ourselves. I don't know whether this is real freewill or not but it gives us a tool for examining conditions where real freewill can arise. So, my last post was really about understanding our capacity for freewill and it's interaction with our identity.
I do not think it is important to identify whether we have real freewill or not. It is more critical to answer the question of who we are. The size and nature of our capacity for freewill will then become more apparent as we learn more about ourselves.
Our identity is created by a combination of our mental construct and our life experiences. The line where we draw the line between "me" and "not-me" is somewhat arbitrary. As RooK suggested, if we have freewill, our own fundamental nature will remain impervious to full analysis. It is this mysterious aspect of myself that keeps me from thinking of myself as a machine and keeps me dreaming about God.
I had fun with the tangent of transcendence being synonymous with the obliteration of self. Everything became terribly ethereal and spiritualized. However, there is another kind of transcendence that GK Chesterton described quite well in one of his books. In Chesterton's sense, transcendence was not the case of a loss of identity and a smudging of all things into one, but a distinct and clear awareness of the specificity of life. Chesterton was often caught up in a rapture of wonder, not about an all pervading oneness, but in the form and beauty of every day things. I would say, in the embracing of all, don't lose sight of the individual and in the affirmation of the individual, don't lose sight of the whole.
Whew! That was fun,
Freehand
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
It is interesting that causality has entered the picture. I have been thinking along the lines that Timothy offered:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy:
I think there's something to this--the human ability to symbolize gives us the ability (something I doubt other species have) to imagine alternative outcomes, and so to construe stimuli in more than one way. This opens up the possibility of genuine choice--but we can't choose alternatives we can't imagine, and our imagination may be limited by our experience.
However, I was taking alternative outcomes in a different direction, consonant with RooK's problem solving. A brain that can imagine swimming, rafting, or bridging a stream and then choose from the alternatives is going to be ahead of one that cannot generate alternatives, analyze, and make a choice. Even if under the conditions, one alternative is clearly best and will be chosen every time, that doesn't really mean that there was no "choice." There was a best choice, and it was chosen from among worse alternatives. I think where I wound up was with Freehand: free will is the capacity for choice that arises within us.
Animals making choices can be imagined. Animals sensing their identity and deciding to make choices within the social context of a pack can also be imagined. Primitive criteria like fear of punishment or loyalty to primary caregivers who have fed and protected can be imagined. More noble criteria, requiring communication, like giving someone a second chance when they have apologized for wrong and made retribution are harder to imagine in animals. One would suspect that such things have to be learned by an advanced symbolic thinker.
Have we arrived at Original Sin being the hardwiring that solves social problems with threat, fear, deception, and force that are clearly seen throughout the animal kingdom and in young children? Do we think that perhaps salvation from this Original Sin requires someone who has progressed beyond it to show the uninitiated that unity in love is a way for humans to interact in a spiritual way? That unity is best achieved by extending the Self outward, beyond the backslidden Judeans, beyond the half-breed Samaritans, and outward to "the uttermost parts of the Earth?"
I thought of RooK's suggestion of extention of Self in terms of the Good Samaritan story. The lesson can be seen as much more than, "be nice to strangers" which is what the phrase has become. It was that there really is no such thing spiritually as a "stranger." Spiritually, we have the chance to pick our parent and become brothers and sisters with other children who have made the same choice. Coming from a culture that believed all inheritence came from the seed of the father, with mother as the passive location of development, he thought it was sufficient to pick a spiritual father only, his Father in Heaven. But we get the idea. People who will not make the choice are doomed to a transient, animal-like existence whereas the others can participate in the eternal realm of the spirit, which constantly grows and renews itself.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Well, you introduced the quantum system of electrons going through holes. You refered to it as "random" where as it is indeterminate ... the best description is that the electron goes through both holes.
quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Alan Cresswell:
you can't say in advance which hole the electron will go through, the best you can do is give a probability of it going through one particular hole
random : Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution. Dictionary.com
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Yes, random relates to probalistic events. But these can be determinate or indeterminate. The outcome of a throw of a die is random - but the die obeys classical laws of physics and is in principle deterministic (in practice, we can't actually measure initial conditions sufficiently to determine the outcome). With the electrons going through a pair of holes, even if we could measure the initial conditions precisely we can't determine in advance which hole it will be detected going through (assuming you set up an experiment to measure which hole it goes through and collapse the wave function).
A classical event may be random (probalistic) to all intents and purposes due to lack of knowledge. A quantum event is random (probalistic) due to the very nature of quantum particles.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Can't there be classical chaotic systems, AC? Are those deterministic? (not trying to be difficult but just trying to understand.)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Can't there be classical chaotic systems, AC? Are those deterministic?
Even my zeppelin-like ego will bow before Doctor Cresswell, but I'm pretty sure that the fundamental beauty - and limitation - of classical physics is that all interactions thereof can be completely resolved.
...theoretically. In practical applications of things that are technically bound by classical physics there can be indeterminate, chaotic systems. This is because of the bogglingly-huge number of variables that can arise. Fluid mechanics is one such field.
Going back to the painfully abstract topic of free will:
JimT and Freehand, your fundamental instinct that there exists something not attributable to the purely problem-solving brain causes me to wonder. If we call this extra something "free will", and we don't give up and wave our hands and say "because God did it" - can we guess its origin? I mean, following an evolutionary model, was there some point in our evolutionary past that this free will entered? Could there be another type of organism alive today that might be on the cusp of obtaining it?
The reason I ask is because of my own interests in artificial intelligence. It's possible, with some clever coding, to make an autonomous robot approximately as intelligent as an insect. I've got the feeling that with some crude "problem-solving-self" mental abilities, a robot about as intelligent as a simple mammal could be made. If we keep extrapolating, do we eventually hit the invisible "free will" barrier?
If we eventually make a robotic being that passes the Turing test, would that be sufficient to dismiss your "free will" theories?
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
A classical event may be random (probalistic) to all intents and purposes due to lack of knowledge. A quantum event is random (probalistic) due to the very nature of quantum particles.
There you go again with a dichotomy between classical and quantum.
Aren't "quantum concepts" like "The Heisenberg uncertainty principle" and "wavefunction collapse" part of the reason why quote:
in practice, we can't actually measure initial conditions sufficiently to determine the outcome
quote:
Orignially posted by Rook
I know and can conceive of in terms of mental models are absolutely tied to causality. Perhaps, if there were some way to remove the causality from a particular being, what would emerge could be the nebulous "free will" aspect.
Let's see if Dr. Heisenberg can remove all causality
quote:
I believe that the existence of the classical "path" can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The "path" comes into existence only when we observe it.-- from Zeitschrift für Physik , 43, 1927
Quantum indeterminancy is NOT what causes free will, because otherwise electrons get free will as much as humans. But it is important that the universe is fundamentally indeterminate, and any determinism is a product of our observation. quote:
Originally posted by Timothy:
a good psychological theory must be reflexive--it has to explain the act of theorizing
Free will assumes that others are not always determined by our crackpot theories, but that they can speak for themselves.
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
I would like to thank you all for an interesting discusssion.
I said things quite badly in the previous post.
All I meant to say was that the dichotomy between classical and quantum (microscopic and macroscopic) is not always easily maintained.
People have been debating this since Schrodinger's Cat
This link provides a good discussion of the uncertaintity principle etc. etc.
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
JimT and Freehand, your fundamental instinct that there exists something not attributable to the purely problem-solving brain causes me to wonder.
All I am saying is that we cannot tell whether there is genuine freewill or not and that it's not useful (maybe?) to try chasing the causal string all the way back to the first causes. Chasing the string results in Ley Druid's perspective of particles with some kind of freedom that result in a macro phenomenon in humans called freewill. Chasing the causal string, chases our identity into the oblivion of complexity. It divorces our identity, as we commonly perceive it, from our experience of what it really feels like to have freewill. If I wasn't so abstractly convoluted, I would just say, "we may not have freewill, but it sure feels like we do, so we might as well act as though we have it."
Rather than arguing yes or no in the absolute sense, perhaps it would be more meaningful to think of freewill as a mechanism for making a choice. Perhaps our deterministic plus random Will can be honestly labeled free in the same way that we say that deterministic lottery balls are random. This attitude reminds me of Turing's attitude in the wikipedia link:
quote:
Turing originally proposed the test in order to replace the emotionally charged and for him meaningless question "Can machines think?" with a more well-defined one.
Rather than asking "do we have freewill?" I am proposing that we ask, "how does our freewill, apparent or real, meaningfully play itself out in our lives?"
quote:
RooK wrote:
If we call this extra something "free will", and we don't give up and wave our hands and say "because God did it" - can we guess its origin?
I'm guessing that we can't do it today, but who knows? I don't know if there is an extra something or not. I doubt it. I'm just saying that science, as of today, does not have an answer that satisfies me. I'm thinking on the level of day to day experience.
quote:
RooK wrote:
I mean, following an evolutionary model, was there some point in our evolutionary past that this free will entered? Could there be another type of organism alive today that might be on the cusp of obtaining it?
Sure, I suspect that many animals have a form of freewill. Maybe even electrons have freewill. I think that it's just our narrow minded pride as a species that makes us think that we are oh-so-much-better than the rest of the living organisms.
quote:
RooK wrote:
The reason I ask is because of my own interests in artificial intelligence. It's possible, with some clever coding, to make an autonomous robot approximately as intelligent as an insect. I've got the feeling that with some crude "problem-solving-self" mental abilities, a robot about as intelligent as a simple mammal could be made. If we keep extrapolating, do we eventually hit the invisible "free will" barrier?
I think that it is entirely possible to create a robot that looks like it has freewill. Perhaps that is the case for ourselves.
quote:
RooK wrote:
If we eventually make a robotic being that passes the Turing test, would that be sufficient to dismiss your "free will" theories?
No, because I'm not suggesting that we have or do not have genuine freewill. Even after freewill is disproven, it will still be a meaningful way to think about life. If we assume that everything is pre-determined and refuse to make decisions, we have just thrown away half of our intelligence along with a meaningful decision mechanism. Freewill is a label that can meaningfully be applied to this decision mechanism, even if it actually is deterministic. In the same way, I suspect that people will continue to believe in God for a long while yet.
BTW, I don't think that the Turing test is a good test for freewill but I look forward to more intelligent machines in the future. Can you create a machine that replicates the existential crisis within humanity? Now that would be something interesting!
I apologize for the abstractions. It is just that the real world is so painfully... well... um... real.
Freehand
Posts: 673 | Registered: May 2001
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
I am thinking, perhaps the reason I am here at Ship of Fools is not because of any meaningful content but just because my brain is a problem solving machine that enjoys complex philosophical challenges. Compulsions are not reality!
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
There you go again with a dichotomy between classical and quantum.
Aren't "quantum concepts" like "The Heisenberg uncertainty principle" and "wavefunction collapse" part of the reason why quote:
in practice, we can't actually measure initial conditions sufficiently to determine the outcome
Well, that's because it's so much easier to type than constantly restating that "classical" and "quantum" are short-hand for refering to explaining physical systems using either classical (eg: Newtonian Mechanics or Einsteinian Relativity) or quantum descriptions. The problem is that whether quantum indeterminacy affects classical descriptions is something which is undecided; basically the uncertainties on quantum scales effectively disappear when you have sufficiently large numbers of quantum particles involved. Even by the time you have objects as large as the transistors packed in enormous numbers onto the chips inside your computer the outcome is deterministic otherwise it would be impossible to use a computer as you could never be entirely sure that the same operation would do the same thing (hmmm, on second thoughts maybe computers aren't all that deterministic ).
Quantum and classical descriptions of physics are radically different and incompatible. There are semi-classical approximations of large number of quantum particles (I used several of these during my PhD on nuclear structure), but these are more than anything attempts to simplify the maths by introducing classical concepts. But, this fundamental incompatibility with quantum and classical physics is a great embarrassment to theoretical physicists - which is why there is such a great interest in Grand Unified Theories. Until we have a good GUT I'm not sure there's anyway we can do more than speculate about whether quantum indeterminacy affects the outcome of events on larger scales such as neuron firing in the human brain.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Can't there be classical chaotic systems,
Yes.
Determined by initial conditions but final conditions perhaps not computable, and sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Until we have a good GUT I'm not sure there's anyway we can do more than speculate about whether quantum indeterminacy affects the outcome of events on larger scales such as neuron firing in the human brain.
But atomic-scale events can cause single point gene mutations which can have macroscopic effects.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
Ken, the absolute truth is that I never feared death. I only feared Hell. I find oblivion completely relaxing. I find the prospect of eternal life ultimately unappealing.
You are, by definition, insane. Well, by my working definition anyway.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Until we have a good GUT I'm not sure there's anyway we can do more than speculate about whether quantum indeterminacy affects the outcome of events on larger scales such as neuron firing in the human brain.
But atomic-scale events can cause single point gene mutations which can have macroscopic effects.
Exactly.
This is a genetic Schrodinger's Cat: the nuclide emits ionizing radiation which changes a base, which induces a mutation. The base is either changed or it isn't, but until you look, isn't it best to say that the status of the base is indeterminate? Why is it better to say that indeterminancy isn't relevant to the discussion? Why isn't it relevant to question our roles as observers in deterministic crackpot theories?
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
Well-said, Freehand. I think most of us can understand what you mean.
But...
I'd still love to hear any random theories that percolate up from the depths, regardless of how unlikely they might be to actually describe simplified "free will".
Ley Druid, I think I might be calling you to Hell shortly - just for fun.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
The opening post said that freewill is the result of:
This view points to a concept of self as being separate from our material body. As I see it, the two main views of self proposed on this thread are: self composed exclusively of our material being and self being something spiritual, distinct from our material body.
The view of self as being distinct from our bodies, I think, results in a self-of-the-gaps, where we attempt to chase our spiritual control mechanism throughout our bodies, essentially chasing ourselves into some non-deterministic electrons or hot-spots in our brains. When pushed to the limit, this results in a spiritualized perspective on life, akin to gnosticism, where the goal is to transcend the body.
The view of self as being exclusively deterministic and random can render the concept of freewill to be meaningless. This isn't desirable either in that freewill, real or apparent, is a meaningful existential reality.
I see neither of these approaches to be desirable. I am proposing a concept of self where we include our material being in our identity without precluding the possibility of some unpredictable mechanism by which we have genuine freewill. I would define self as being made up of:
- genes
- our response to the environment
- a mysterious factor relating to consciousness and freewill, which may or may not be the result of organic complexity
Let's try to reproduce this mysterious factor without presuming that we have the answers. RooK, I appreciate that you have this perspective.
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I'd still love to hear any random theories that percolate up from the depths, regardless of how unlikely they might be to actually describe simplified "free will".
I said that I don't think it's meaningful to chase the causal string. What I really should have said is, "go ahead and chase the causal string but let's not forget to embrace our identity here in the now. Let's not place our identity in a self-of-the-gaps or in a simplified, deterministic model that renders our existential reality meaningless."
Let's hear random theories and see some intelligent machines. We can judge them based upon how well they match reality and not upon the faith that we have in theory.
Have fun,
Freehand
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
If we eventually make a robotic being that passes the Turing test, would that be sufficient to dismiss your "free will" theories?
I am with those who say "no" on the basis of it proving simulation of conversation, not internal experience of perception, particularly perception of Self and Will. A machine can say, "Personally, I am moved more deeply by music than art so I go to more concerts than art shows," and they only sound human. True enough, humans can simply sound human but we think their perceptual world is similar to our own. I don't know how to solve the problem of measuring perception. A machine can discriminate colors by digital sampling. Giving it a feeling of beauty from the mental images of perceived color is another matter.
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
You are, by definition, insane. Well, by my working definition anyway.
Insanity is an adaptive response to unusual circumstances. I'm proud to say that I've adapted. As a result of therapy, I accept death as inevitable, natural, and nothing to be feared. I wouldn't say it with such conviction, but I was robbed at gunpoint a few years ago and at one point was concerned that I might be killed. I felt gratitude that my wife would be cared for financially, that I would simply get a quick bullet to the back of the head and not suffer, and grieved at the thought of the young man making the wrong choice by compounding robbery with murder and never getting off drugs. In therapy, I drew on the inspiration from the countless Bible stories I heard about facing death unafraid. It is unnatural, but recommended in the Bible, and required for those with a neurotic and repressed terror of death. That was my old kind of insanity.
Some see a "pathology" in "normalcy," rooted in a failure to accept the inevitability of a firm and final cessation of existence at death. Perhaps it is the kind of pathology that has positive adaptive value, like bacteria in the colon, but to the extent that it distorts reality, it is insane. It is refreshing to me that theology is emerging that is not based on what I believe to be the myth of conscious, willful life beyond physical death. Even our Ship's own Pentecostal Universalist is with me on that one and she's obviously not crazy.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
I've got the agree with you guys about the Turing Test. I know too many humans that would fail it.
What if we were to create a thinking machine that, without any instructions to do so, and based soley on its interaction with people, decided to become Christian?
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Oh dear! I didn't realise until today that this thread was so wonderful. Now I'm full of ideas and questions.
I want to ask RooK if you've read Julian Jayne's wonderfully weird 'The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.' It's not a million miles from your explanation of the evolution of 'yummy brain' - though I think Jayne is lacking in clarity at basic levels. It doesn't matter on an artistic level as his book is a stupendous piece of work.
I wonder if anyone here has read and understood John Cobb, expounding A N Whitehead. He suggests that each particle, each electron, in each moment 'chooses' what to become, influenced by the bi-polar lure of God. Or something. It's a long time ago since I read it, but it fits with some thoughts on page 1 of this thread.
I also want to ask about a point I came across in John Macquarrie (though it's not his) that if the human mind is determined and not free, then our judgements are not to be trusted, and all science and philosophy falls. Is this right?
I've long agreed with the point that evolution can favour the competitive group, meaning the community minded genome. I also agree that to expand our circle of belonging, as the Bible encourages us to do, from the tribe to the nation, to all humanity (read Second Isaiah), to the neighbour-whoever (Good Samaritan), to the cross-cultural Body where Jew, slave, male mean nothing is the way God calls us.
And JimT's comments on death and eternity ... Yes!
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
Showing something isn't free will doesn't dismiss free will (showing that drugs affect choices no more dismisses the possibility of free choices than showing that snoopy isn't a dog dismisses the possibility of dogs)
If the program determines the choices of the thinking machine by an algorithm, then the choices aren't free. One could mistakenly think they were.
If the choice among possibilities is not determined by the program alone, but by the program's response to some other event (random, pseudorandom, or chaotic), then the choice will be ultimately caused by the event and not free. One could mistakenly think it was.
If the program generates truly random choices, because the program is truly random, then nothing causes the choices. If the program subsequently claims to have freely made the choice and the choice causes an action, that would be free will. I think it would be wiser to predict the program's future actions based on its choices than to assume such a choice was meaningless.
If a human designs a program, it will be designed and not random, therefore humans could never design a program with free will.
Posts: 1188 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
hatless wrote:
"I also want to ask about a point I came across in John Macquarrie (though it's not his) that if the human mind is determined and not free, then our judgements are not to be trusted, and all science and philosophy falls. Is this right?"
I'm not sure it completely falls, but it definitely begins to teeter a bit. Especially in my field, psychology, where academics and clinicians have a history of assuming that research subjects, clients, and the generic human beings of psychology textbooks are determined by their drives, contingent reinforcements, or what have you, while taking it for granted that they as certified scientific researchers or therapy practitioners are making free choices based on data and logic.... That's why reflexivity in theories is important (George Kelly had a lot to say about this nearly 50 years ago, but not enough people paid attention).
As for symbolism as the means to "free will" (a phrase I don't much like--I'd rather speak of agency or choice): I do think that's the critical point--because we can symbolize our environment, mapping patterns of symbols and their relationships onto the world around us (and within us), we can construct alternative models of the world and choose among them. A stimlulus, for us, is not simply what it is but whatever we can imagine it to be. This does not mean we are unconstrained, which to me is what "free will" implies, but it does mean that we have genuine alternatives. A few other species may be able to do this in a rudimentary way (apes that have been taught sign language might be pretty good at it), but I'm pretty sure it takes a well-developed prefrontal cortex to do it in a complex way.
Terence Deacon's book THE SYMBOLIC SPECIES lays this out in a fairly accessible way, and I recommend it highly.
Timothy
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
RooK, getting one machine to utter the words “I have decided to be a Christian” is a start. But we need much more I think to demonstrate the Self-evaluating and Self-modifying concepts embodied in Free Will. Perhaps two machines with the same exact program could be given access to a rabbi, a priest, an atheist, and an agnostic. After five minutes both machines say, “I am agnostic.” After three days, one says, “I have decided to become a Jew” while the other says, “I have decided to become a Christian.” The machines then discuss their beliefs with each other and the Jew becomes an evangelical Christian while the Christian modifies their beliefs to non-theist Christianity. That would be impressive, especially if in later discussions one of them tried to unplug the other.
Hatless, the “community-minded genome” is of course very interesting to me. You get a huge fuss from geneticists that selection can only act at the level of individuals, but it is indeed surprising how many times the individuals are better off cooperating. A new discovery for me is “quorum sensing” in bacteria: each individual puts out a tiny bit of chemical, all sense the concentration, and thus the community “behaves” differently depending on how many individuals there are. But I see this as a model of choice rather than a Free Will kind of choice. I can’t go with electron “choices” for the same reason. With respect to the consequences of a choiceless mind, it is ethics which falls apart it seems to me. Still, I find comfort in the mere perception of choice and am happy to live within that possible delusion. Hey, I’m already nuts, right?
Ley Druid, I don’t quite get you here:
quote:
If a human designs a program, it will be designed and not random, therefore humans could never design a program with free will.
I don’t get the insistence on randomness. I can see different outcomes being one way to show that perhaps choice might be happening, but I don’t see a need to demonstrate randomness in choices. In fact, randomness would seem equally likely to demonstrate no choice-making at all: pure “noise” with no structured analysis based on beliefs, values, and probable outcomes. Apart from that, randomness can be built into programs and they can be made self-modifying, even though they are designed.
Timothy I am right with you on symbolism and some day hope to get to the Deacon book. Your reference to other species making value choices reminds me of a PBS special I saw showing such things as an elephant appearing to decide whether to go with the herd or stay behind to help her mother care for a deformed infant that had trouble learning to walk. It also included a love-fight between two gorillas taught sign language where one called the other “devil.”
Too bad I have work to do.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
I slept on it and came up with this test for RooK.
A finite set of thinking, feeling machines are constructed with these characteristics: Terror, Greed, Compassion, and Rationality. The initial settings are infinite Terror and Greed, zero Compassion and Rationality. At regular intervals, a quantum increase in Rationality is made, up to a limit. The highest setting is that of the most intelligent human to model against. Different machines stop adding Rationality at different points.
The Terror component must be characterized by Rationality causing it to quickly alternate between Protection and Attack. The minimum sources of Terror are Loss of Existence, Withdrawal of Compassion, and Loss of Rationality. Greed must have at least one source of Pleasure. Compassion must consist of a desire to Understand Another and Be Understood as well as a need to Love and Be Loved. Rationality must be capable, via internal conversation, to modify levels of Terror, Greed, and Compassion.
The machines must replicate through multiple generations, under a limited set of resources, with the original machines disappearing. If along the way, one of the machines spontaneously comes up with the notion that the settings must be adjusted so that each machine loves other machines as much as it loves itself, then Christian Free Will has been demonstrated in an artificially conscious machine.
Embellishments welcome.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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