On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 11:56 PM, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can provide an example of something that is neither random nor > determined* > > * (from certain perspectives) > Of course it's not random or determined *FROM CERTAIN PERSPECTIVES*! I've said over and over that there are only 2 meanings to the phrase "free will" that are not gibberish, and one of them is the inability to always predict what you will do next even in a stable environment and even if such a prediction would be easy to make by someone else who has a different perspective. And I have also said that it is unfortunate that nobody except me has either meaning in mind when they make the "free will" noise and prefer circularity and gibberish. John K Clark > > Cursor movements when controlling a VM. While a super-intelligent AI > program running in the VM could come up with theories about the mouse > movements, even possibly learning some rudimentary rules about acceleration > and inertia from the movements of the cursor, or theorize they are > controlled by diurnal creatures, such an AI could never truly predict when > and where the mouse pointer will be moved next. > > Similarly, when one plays a computer game, from the perspective of the AI > characters in the game, your character is controlled by an indeterminable > process whose total information and description can never be fully known to > those characters within the simulation. Chalmers mentions this as a > possibility for concretely realizing dualism: > http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html > > There is little difference, that I can see, between Brent's proposed > spirit world intervening in the physical world, and brains in vats > intervening in a virtual world, and there is nothing impossible about the > latter scenario. From the perspective of those in the virtual world, the > actions of entities would be neither random nor determined. > > Jason > > >> >> >but believers in contra causal free will think that at least some of >>> their actions are. >>> >> >> In other words believers in contra causal free will (whatever the hell >> that's supposed to mean) believe that nothing caused them to do it and >> being masters of doublethink simultaneously believe that nothing didn't >> cause them to do it, in still other words believers in "contra causal free >> will" believe in the power of gibberish. >> >> > I don't know whether they would allow that psychological states must be >>> either deterministic or random. >>> >> >> What do you mean you don't know! If they did it because they wanted to >> then it's deterministic. >> >> > There is even an interpretation of QM (mostly associated with Henry >>> Stapp) that looks at "random" events as "caused by future states". >>> >> >> Fine, but if it's caused then it's not random. Maybe things we believe >> are random are really caused but the causes are very strange, however just >> because humans find them weird does not make them one bit less mechanical. >> Perhaps last month you had no choice and you just had to spend good money >> to see the movie "John Carter on Mars", you were forced into it because a >> hundred years from now your great great great granddaughter will buy an ice >> cream cone at a movie called "Mars on John Carter". But I don't understand >> how any of this is supposed to make the "free will" noise less idiotic. >> >> John K Clark >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
