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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
>>> One (maybe not completely physical) possibility would be if the
>>> computer/brain is able to make decision as a closed system. In other
>>> words, it's capable of processing and changing information, and making
>>> decisions without those decisions being the direct and inevitable
>>> consequence of external input or quantum randomness.
>
>> I understand what you're saying. I'm not seeing how that addresses any of
>> those questions I asked.
>
>> Basically, I was trying to investigate what might be the cause of the
>> (assumed) presence of this non-physical mechanism that's present in humans
>> but not in rocks.
>
> If the decisions made by a sentient being are
>
> 1) not random (in the quantum-mechanical sense), and
> 2) not a result of external influences, ie. not predictable
>
> because the decisions are being made in a closed system rather than as a
> consequence of the entire universe, then one could consider that sentient
> being as having a will of its own, with choices which are not just a direct
> consequence of external events, and this without necessarily having to
> ascend above physics. (But, as I said, I'm not sure if this would break
> some laws of physics regarding closed systems and what they can do.)
Right. That's the part I understand you're saying (altho "closed" I don't
think is the right term there). What I was asking is whether you think a
sufficiently complex deterministic system can ever show evidence of this
free choice? Or whether any sufficiently complex deterministic+quantum
system can show evidence of free choice? Would you attribute free choice to
a sufficiently complex computer program that is good enough to (say) pass
the turing test indefinitely?
> Of course if we examine the decisions from *inside* this closed system,
> then we might find out that it is still completely bound to deterministic
> and random consequences. However, from the *outside* it may be exactly as
> if it was a being having true unbounded free will. (In other words, from
> the outside it's impossible say whether the decisions are being done by
> supernatural or natural means.)
I see. You're using "closed" to mean "opaque" sort of. Impossible to examine
in detail. "Closed system" means something else in scientific theories.
> This would make the sentient being different from a rock, which does
> not have such an internal closed decision-making system.
>
> This might be somewhat similar to what you already wrote in some of your
> replies, and maybe this is just your point sinking in.
Yes, it's part of what I was saying, but then I asked if it was sensible to
ask whether a "closed" system that makes "free choices" can be distinguished
from a "closed" system that is affected by QM randomness.
>> Sure. But for it to meet your definition, not just "impossible to predict"
>> but "supernatural."
>
> I didn't really require for free choice to be supernatural. I only required
> that it must not be bound to previous events nor randomness (else it wouldn't
> really be free choice at all).
"Supernatural" as in "not driven by the laws of physics." Because you
either have something that's deterministic, or something that's driven by
randomness inherent in the laws of physics, or you have "supernatural", yes?
If you discount the random parts of physics and the deterministic parts of
physics, what else is there?
> If a closed system I described is physically possible, then (I think) it
> would perfectly *emulate* supernatural free will, even if it isn't really.
Right. And would it emulate free will so precisely that it's
indistinguishable from actual free will? It's like asking whether a
calculator is doing arithmetic, or only simulating doing arithmetic.
> Wouldn't it be a closed system if the internal decision process is
> impossible to observe from the outside, no matter what kind of stimulus
> is being applied? In other words, the responses are completely unpredictable,
> without necessarily being random (in the quantum-mechanical sense).
I'd call that "opaque." Normally "closed" means "not interacting with
something outside itself." So the second law of thermodynamics says a
closed system can never become more ordered. By "closed" there, they mean a
system with nothing entering or leaving.
Now that I understand what you meant by the word "closed", yes, I agree with
what you were saying. "Opaque" might be a better word in other
conversations, tho. It interacts, but you can't see inside.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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> In particular, it's caused to a great extent by the balls being convex,
> thereby amplifying any difference between predicted and actual.
Yes, I remember some small "puzzle" where there is a perfect sphere of
radius 0.2 (or similar) at every integer grid point in 3D space. You then
fire another sphere somewhere and try to predict the position after a few
seconds :-)
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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Ok, time for some philosophical tought.
>
> 1) The human mind does not transcend beyond the physical world, which means
> that free choice does not exist. Everything the human mind comes up with is
> predetermined by deterministic events, sometimes garbled by random quantum
> effects. This is not free choice.
>
> 2) The human mind does transcend beyond the physical world as we know it,
> and is able to perform true choices which change deterministic chains of
> events in non-random ways. In other words, the human consciousness is more
> than just the electric impulses in our brain.
>
> The religious (and possibly agnostic) point of view ...
>
> --
> - Warp
Master to a group of students: "Who amongst you has transcended the self?"
Particularly ungifted student(waving arms): "Me! Me! Me! Me!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I'd like to discuss what are, for me, some key terminology in option 2) from the
"agnostic" point of view as the term was originally coined by T. H. Huxley.
(This is the point of view that asserts that one should not claim to know what
one can not prove.) It is entirely possible that the human mind could
"transcend beyond the physical world AS WE KNOW IT" without implying the
existence of the supernatural because there is quite a bit about the universe
that we simply don't know. There's nothing irrational or supernatural about one
saying: "My experience of the universe is such that it seems to me that free
choice does exist, but I can not prove this and must refrain from treating the
existence of free choice as an objective fact when dealing with the rights and
claims of others." It's very nice to have objective facts when we can get them
and wise to act in deference to those facts when they are relevant, BUT... There
is so much about the universe that we have yet to learn that it is entirely
impractical for us to say nothing and do nothing when we are confronted with
issues that we do not presently have the objective knowledge to resolve on such
a basis.
Best Regards,
Mike C.
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Mike the Elder wrote:
> Master to a group of students: "Who amongst you has transcended the self?"
>
> Particularly ungifted student(waving arms): "Me! Me! Me! Me!"
http://dananau.com/wabe/humor/monkgloats.pdf
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> perfectly aware that studies on how the brain thinks have shown
>> "awareness" as a post hock attempt to invent justification for an action,
>
> Which isn't at odds with the supposition that there's something
> supernatural involved in helping people make "free will" choices.
> Perhaps the supernatural part is what starts the chain of events.
>
Uh.. I have a razor, if you want to shave that beard... Seriously, that
makes no bloody sense. Why have a supernatural event that does nothing
but push a button, which sends data through a million separate machines,
and multiple levels of filters, all so the end machine can tell itself,
"I picked an apple, instead of an orange, because I haven't had one in a
while", when the real explanation was, "it was closer", or worse, as at
least one experiment showed was possible, "even though I absolutely
despise apples, I decided to try them again, because some guy tricked me
into thinking I **had** ordered one, and the only logical explanation I
could come up with for doing that was my personal choice." They did that
one for real. People, who flat out stated they didn't like certain
things, rearranged their own perception of events, to justify having
ordered them anyway, because they where presented with "apparent"
evidence that they had ordered the item. And, even more crazy, their new
expectation that they had done in intentionally colored their reaction
to eating the thing **positively**.
In any case. What would be the point of such a supernatural button
pusher? It doesn't guide the decisions, it can't prevent the machine
from being intentionally derailed by someone else, and it doesn't have
any way to predict what the final, post hock, resolution of all the
steps are going to be. It would be like playing a video game, where 10
billion things happen, as you watch, without you being able to control
*any* of them, every time you clicked 'enter'. The supernatural world
must be damned boring... lol
>> Sentience is a deterministic machine,
>
> I don't think you know that either. :-) Certainly there's room for
> quantum effects, even if you leave out the supernatural.
>
I think the later can be discounted pretty well. The former.. is a bit
iffy, and some people take it in completely ridiculous directions.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> perfectly aware that studies on how the brain thinks have shown
>>> "awareness" as a post hock attempt to invent justification for an
>>> action,
>>
>> Which isn't at odds with the supposition that there's something
>> supernatural involved in helping people make "free will" choices.
>> Perhaps the supernatural part is what starts the chain of events.
>>
> Uh.. I have a razor, if you want to shave that beard... Seriously, that
> makes no bloody sense.
I didn't say it did. I just said you couldn't draw the conclusion that there
is no supernatural event simply because the actual knowledge of the decision
you make comes *after* the supernatural cause of that decision.
> Why have a supernatural event that does nothing
> but push a button, which sends data through a million separate machines,
> and multiple levels of filters, all so the end machine can tell itself,
> "I picked an apple, instead of an orange, because I haven't had one in a
> while",
The supernatural event would be the decision to pick the apple. Then it goes
through your brain to make your brain *aware* of it.
Not unlike how when you burn yourself and jerk your hand back, you then know
you've jerked your hand back. Just because it's "reflex" doesn't mean you
don't know about it after the fact. Just because the decision happens
before you're aware of it doesn't mean you didn't make a decision.
> In any case. What would be the point of such a supernatural button
> pusher? It doesn't guide the decisions,
It would be guiding the decisions. That's the point. It's not an external
button pusher. It's the source of you deciding you want one thing over another.
> it can't prevent the machine
> from being intentionally derailed by someone else, and it doesn't have
> any way to predict what the final, post hock, resolution of all the
> steps are going to be.
Presumedly it does, or we wouldn't be saying it's the thing making the
decision.
>>> Sentience is a deterministic machine,
>>
>> I don't think you know that either. :-) Certainly there's room for
>> quantum effects, even if you leave out the supernatural.
>>
> I think the later can be discounted pretty well.
Why? By definition, you can't discount the supernatural, *especially* in
something you don't understand the details for.
> The former.. is a bit iffy,
In what way?
> and some people take it in completely ridiculous directions.
That's true.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Darren New wrote:
>> it can't prevent the machine from being intentionally derailed by
>> someone else, and it doesn't have any way to predict what the final,
>> post hock, resolution of all the steps are going to be.
>
> Presumedly it does, or we wouldn't be saying it's the thing making the
> decision.
>
If not for the fact that you can map the decisions process pretty well,
if not exactly, and there isn't any evidence of some "trigger" event..
Nor does there seem to be any feasible reason you need such a thing at
all. See, the problem here is, people looking for supernatural
explanations are trying to find "souls", pretty much by definition. We
can make "simple" brains now, like fly intelligence, which *act*
deterministic, *act* like they think, and *act* exactly how one of these
"ensouled" things would, if a supernatural watzit was pushing the
buttons, yet.. the implications if the supernatural did exist, would be
that simply "building" something that allowed it to act like a mind
would "attract" the supernatural, and without it, the thing would just
sit their and do nothing. This contradicts everything we know, and
learned, and predict, about brains, minds, thinking, and how/why any of
it works.
Its an unnecessary addition, and it contradicts "existing" simple
examples that we *have* replicated.
>>> I don't think you know that either. :-) Certainly there's room for
>>> quantum effects, even if you leave out the supernatural.
>>>
>> I think the later can be discounted pretty well.
>
> Why? By definition, you can't discount the supernatural, *especially* in
> something you don't understand the details for.
>
I would argue that, in fact, we have a clear enough picture at this
point that the odds of the supernatural being involve is... slim to
none. I would even go so far as to say that people *researching* the
matter would state it even more strongly, based on everything I have
read on behavioral and the "physical" mechanics of modern neuroscience.
>> The former.. is a bit iffy,
>
> In what way?
>
Answered in the other part, about ridiculous directions. But, in
reality, at this point, it simply doesn't rise above "hypothesis". There
being only slightly more evidence to support the assertion than their is
for the supernatural, and then only due to there being pretty much no
support for the supernatural, other than the persistence of people to
insist it exists, and invent new ways to misunderstand things like
emeters, photography, noise analysis, and random patterns on toast, to
really support it. Hell, most of the BS people call "supernatural" is
**known** to have been made up by con artists in the early 18th century,
during the rise of the "spiritualist" movement. What wasn't, is a mish
mash of re-editing of things invented by the same people that built
"flying chariots", "doors that open on their own" and other contrivances
for their temples to various mythological figures, which they knew damn
well where engineered, not magicked.
As someone put it in a thread somewhere else recently, its all about the
inane concept of "sheep and shepards". Sheep are raised to be fleeces,
bred, so you can fleece more of them, and/or eaten. One may make up
ghosts and spirits to fill in things one doesn't know how to explain,
but in the end, the people that "promote them" as the best answer for
something tend to have shears stuck in their back pockets, or are just
some shearer's head sheep. Before you suggest the supernatural as a
plausible explanation for *anything* you first have to show that the
supernatural itself is at all *plausible*. Otherwise, you might as well
suggest alien's playing video games, or Santa Claus.
So, sure, quantum effects, to explain free will, never mind having
failed to prove you need to explain what you can't prove exists in the
first place, is more likely, but only because Santa Claus is "still" a
poor explanation for how presents got under your tree, even if no one in
the family remembers putting them there. lol
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>>> it can't prevent the machine from being intentionally derailed by
>>> someone else, and it doesn't have any way to predict what the final,
>>> post hock, resolution of all the steps are going to be.
>>
>> Presumedly it does, or we wouldn't be saying it's the thing making the
>> decision.
>>
> If not for the fact that you can map the decisions process pretty well,
> if not exactly, and there isn't any evidence of some "trigger" event..
Now you're talking about science. That's exactly *not* the point.
We're not arguing whether such a supernatural bit exists or not. We're
speculating on what it "means" to people if it exists or not, regardless of
the truth of the proposition.
It's like Larry Niven talking about all the cool things that would happen
with society if cheap instant teleportation was available, and then you're
complaining "but physics says you can't do that."
> Nor does there seem to be any feasible reason you need such a thing at
> all.
Sure there is.
> See, the problem here is, people looking for supernatural
> explanations are trying to find "souls", pretty much by definition.
Sort of, I suppose.
> This contradicts everything we know, and
> learned, and predict, about brains, minds, thinking, and how/why any of
> it works.
Well, that's why I described it as supernatural, rather than just "neither
deterministic nor random." :-)
> Its an unnecessary addition, and it contradicts "existing" simple
> examples that we *have* replicated.
You're arguing that it doesn't exist, but that isn't the point of the
discussion.
>> Why? By definition, you can't discount the supernatural, *especially*
>> in something you don't understand the details for.
>>
> I would argue that, in fact, we have a clear enough picture at this
> point that the odds of the supernatural being involve is... slim to
> none.
I would disagree that it's possible to know such a thing, by definition of
the word "supernatural." By definition, research into the supernatural will
never show you the existence of the supernatural. Otherwise, it would be
natural.
> Answered in the other part, about ridiculous directions. But, in
> reality, at this point, it simply doesn't rise above "hypothesis".
Sure. But we're discussing the consequences of what the hypothesis being
true or false would be, not whether it's true or false.
We're arguing over whether Luke Skywalker *would* have done X, and how the
future of the Empire would have changed had he done so. The fact that it's
all fictional doesn't detract from the discussion.
> Before you suggest the supernatural as a
> plausible explanation for *anything*
Show me where I did that.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Free choice is a believable illusion until you can predict the future.
> In the physical world as we know it, at macroscopic levels, every action
> is deterministic: Every event is just a deterministic consequence of some
> earlier events.
One you can predict the future (maybe by working out the result of all the
deterministic events) then things get funkier because your deterministic
events can have inputs from the future (maybe you'll see the lotto numbers
from next week and buy a ticket). But it's still totally predictable, (if
you look you will also see yourself buying the ticket and winning). And
then you'll see that everything is totally predictable and you can't change
anything (even if you try really hard not to, you will be forced to go and
buy that ticket exactly as you had already seen). Then there really is no
free choice.
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Darren New wrote:
>> I would argue that, in fact, we have a clear enough picture at this
>> point that the odds of the supernatural being involve is... slim to none.
>
> I would disagree that it's possible to know such a thing, by definition
> of the word "supernatural." By definition, research into the
> supernatural will never show you the existence of the supernatural.
> Otherwise, it would be natural.
>
Tell that to the idiots running around doing Blair Witch every week on
Syfy (or how ever they are spelling it now), who claim to be ghost
hunters.. lol
>> Answered in the other part, about ridiculous directions. But, in
>> reality, at this point, it simply doesn't rise above "hypothesis".
>
> Sure. But we're discussing the consequences of what the hypothesis being
> true or false would be, not whether it's true or false.
>
Ok, so what.. We are arguing with the intent of writing a novel, or
something? lol Seriously, we could have a much more productive, and
interesting, discussion of the consequences that the sky where green, or
Simpson's yellow, instead of blue, since at least we have the tools
here to "show" what that would be. The thing that annoys me, I suppose,
about the supernatural is that while we, onces its established we are
talking about pure hypotheticals, are not seriously examining something
that, by any measure or standard we apply to things, doesn't exist, this
doesn't alter the fact that there are in indeterminate number of wackos
around that will quote mine any serious attempts to discuss it, as
though it where true, as evidence that someone, someplace *thinks* its true.
Besides, you never the less have a problem, in that its hard to escape
what you *do* know, to talk about such hypotheticals, without wandering
into areas that are, if anything, more absurd than what other people
have already come up with. Witness what the ID people have done to both
theology *and* science, by trying to cram mythology into biology. Its
incoherent gibberish, supported by nothing by careful cherry picking of
any tiny scrap of information that appears, superficially, since looking
too hard tends to derail things, to support their position.
I guess I just have an easier time applying my imagination to "what
ifs", when the universe they are being applied to already defies the
laws of physics, so beating more of them to death with the arm you
ripped off the corpse of logic, to come up with such a universe, isn't
quite so irritating. lol
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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