On 30 Jul 2012, at 19:42, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> religious people defined it [free will] often by the ability to
choose consciously
And those very same religious people define consciousness as the
ability to have free will, and around and around we go.
> and people from the law can invoke it as a general precondition
for making sense of the responsibility idea.
That is precisely what it does NOT do and is why the "free will"
noise turns the idea of responsibility, which is needed for any
society to work, into ridiculous self contradictory idiocy.
Only for those defending idiotic definition in idiotic theories, but
without making precise such theories we can not refute them.
> The "Free" prefix is just an emphasis, and I don't take it too
much seriously.
You say that but I don't believe it
? (what can I say to such an assertion?)
Does it matter I say anything, if you believe I am not saying what I
think. This is ridiculous.
and I don't think even you really believe it, otherwise you'd just
say "will" means you want to do some things and don't want to do
other things and we'd move on and talk about other things, but you
can't seem to do that and keep inserting more bafflegab into the
free will "idea" and not the will idea.
I don't care at all about free-will. The notion is not used in my
derivation and work. It is just a simple application of the comp
theory. It illustrates that the argument against mechanism based on
the free-will absence for machine" is not valid, for it confuse
absolute and relative self-indeterminacy.
> It can be mean things like absence of coercion.
In other words I can't do everything I want to do. I don't need a
philosopher to figure that out and doesn't deserve the many many
millions of words they have written about "free will"?
You are doing a confusion level. I could say I don't need artificial
intelligence to be able to think. It necessitate many thousand years
of evolution and interaction for you to be able to do what you want to
do, and the question here is could machine do that, and how, and what
does it mean, etc.
> I never said that such a definition makes everything clear, nor do
I have said it was marvelous, nor even self-consistent. I did say
that you ignore it, for reason which eludes me,
I don't ignore "it", in fact in post after post after post I have
asked you, almost begged you, to tell me even approximately if
that's the best you can do, what "it" is; but for reasons which
eludes me you will not do so.
?
I have done so, each time you asked. Free will is the ability to make
a willing choice among alternatives we can be partially conscious of.
> The first person indeterminacy has nothing to do with free will.
I don't know what "first person indeterminacy" is
You have oscillate between non sense and trivial. I was hoping you
were in the "trivial" mode. If you are will you be kind enough to tell
us if you agree with the step 4 (in sane04)?
but I know that your above statement is true because nothing has
anything to do with free will.
I think that I do not believe in your conception of free will.
> In "Conscience et Mécanisme" I even use it to explain that free
will has nothing to do with absolute determinacy or indeterminacy.
In other words free will has nothing to do with things that happen
for a reason and free will has nothing to do with things that do not
happen for a reason. I agree, and that means that free will is
something that doesn't do anything, so free will does have one
property, infinite dullness.
The absolute was bearing on the or. Free-will can be said to have
anything to do with determinacy. Without determinacy, even the notion
of machine (and thus person, with comp) stops doing sense.
> In the human fundamental sense, most of the time we don't have
definition,
That is very true. Except for mathematics and formal logic precise
definitions are usually not very important because we have something
better, examples. If you can't provide a definition then give me a
set containing examples of things that have free will and a set
containing examples of things that don't have free will; and be
consistent about it, explain why elements like Bruno Marchal and
John K Clark belong in the same set but elements like Cuckoo Clocks
and Roulette Wheels belong in the other set.
Well thanks for answering for me. I give you another example. Pebble
and butterflies. Pebble have plausibly no (free) will, as they obey to
simple computable laws. Butterflies have plausibly free will, because
they obey high level complex computable laws making them possible to
hesitate, between different nectars, flowers, etc.
Of course we can never be sure for another creature than oneself. It
can only be a personal feeling after observations of many pebbles and
butterflies.
> Free-will, or will, is acknowledged *relative* self-indeterminacy.
Now that's better, much better. I have said many times there are
only 2 definitions of free will that are not gibberish:
1) Free Will is a noise made by the mouth.
2) Free Will is the inability to always predict ones actions even in
a unchanging environment.
I thought you did. So "free-will" is not just noise.
> We can't define consciousness, but
We all have a EXCELLENT example of such a thing.
Glad you agree. To believe in consciousness has been a reason to
present many young researchers as crackpot in many universities for a
long time.
> You cannot say "I don't know what is free-will, yet I do
criticize the definition you give".
There are only 2 reasons for criticizing a definition about anything:
1) It is unclear.
2) It is inconsistent.
Every definition of "Free Will" I have ever heard in my life, except
for the two mentioned previously, fail for one or both of these
reasons.
OK. So why do you continue to fight against the whole notion of free-
will? Why not defend your definition (similar to mine) against
senseless definitions?
> You come back on the inconsistent definition of free will, that we
both agree make no sense. So why do you reject the one I gave
Oh no not again! I'd sure like to know what this marvelous
definition of free will that you keep saying you made sometime ago
could be! You keep talking about "it" but I don't know what "it" is,
"it" is starting to take on mythic qualities, like Unicorns or
Hobbits.
> I gave a definition.
Maybe you did during the age of Middle Earth but I think its time to
repeat it.
I just did. You even just said "excellent".
> you reject it
As long as its clear and self consistent only a idiot rejects
definitions. I am not a idiot. The fact that I can always draw
conclusions from your many definitions that you find emotionally
unappealing does not make them illogical.
? (I gave one, and many times recently to you). It is just above, and
I agree with your formulation too.
I was just saying that I am not applying the excluded middle outside
comp and arithmetic. [...] I don't believe in the law of the
excluded middle when applied on arbitrary set notions
So if I tell you the perfectly true statement "I was hit by
lightning at noon" and you believe me completely you could
nevertheless deduce that I might not have been hit by lightning at
noon because X being true does not imply that ~X is false. I really
don't think that's a good way to figure out how the world works.
it's hard enough already.
1) that would contradict the principle of contradiction, not the
excluded middle.
2) OK, those two principle (middle and contradiction) are equivalent
in classical logic, and I said I use it in classical arithmetic (I
need that either a machine stop or that it does not stop.
Wth comp your lightning story admits easy arithmetical
representations, and it is highly plausible we are living locally
classical boolean stories, so if you tell me that a lightning hit you,
I will believe it, and I will not believe the contrary as I try to
remain consistent in my beliefs.
All what I said, I repeat, is that I am not willing to apply blindly
the excluded middle principle in set theories, or in any theory
allowing terms to refer to big infinite objects.
You certainly give the impression that a lightning hits you, in some
post :)
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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