On Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:20:32 AM UTC-4, John K Clark wrote: > > > > 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*! >
Are you assuming that it is possible to have any other kind of perspective? An omniscient voyeur who sees all possible perspectives without participating in any of them in any way? > 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 > Why does my free will depend on someone else's ability to predict it? Just because what I say is not surprising doesn't mean that I am not generating my own words voluntarily and freely. > 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, >>> >> But not strange enough to be ordinary 'free will' apparently...that is the one thing that cannot exist or be named. Hard to prohibit the existence of something unless you know precisely what it is you are prohibiting....and if you know what free will is supposed to be, then it is hardly incomprehensible noise. however just because humans find them weird does not make them one bit less >>> mechanical. >>> >> Perhaps just because you find non-mechanical free will intolerable doesn't make it one bit less real? > 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. >>> >> What does it matter how much sense free will makes if you have no free will to determine your own opinion about it? Craig > >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/X78d4fpLzvUJ. 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.
