Why do you call ChatGPT George? I must have missed it. Or who was George? We
have a bar named George R in Berlin by the way, in the quarter where I live. It
is named after George Remus, an American bootlegger during the Prohibition
erahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Remus-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Marcus Daniels <[email protected]>
Date: 6/9/25 8:19 PM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the
machine or just clever wiring? As long as you admit Geroge has free will, then
I won’t push back. From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of
Jochen FrommSent: Monday, June 9, 2025 11:05 AMTo: The Friday Morning Applied
Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free will—ghost
in the machine or just clever wiring? The question of free will is interesting
because there are so many aspects and dimensions. Past experiences and current
environment, internal wiring and external forces, etc. Is the system
deterministic or not? Robert Sapolsky says no, it is all hard-wired and
(pre-)determined. Ergo no free will. Is there a ghost in the machine? Ghost
buster Gilbert Ryle says no. Ergo no ghost in the machine which could have a
free will. And yet the question of free will still pops up. It probably helps
to look at the internal and external forces which control our decisions and how
much room they leave us to make decisions. + when are we free to do what we
want? If Maslow's hierarchy of needs is not fulfilled than there is no free
will. A homeless person in San Francisco thinks only where he can sleep and
what he can eat, while a billionaire can do whatever he wants. He can even use
champagner for the shower on his superyacht, as Gregory Salle describes in his
book "Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and
Ecocide")https://earthbound.report/2024/01/15/superyachts-by-gregory-salle/ +
what are the hidden forces which try to influence our decisions (thereby
reducing our free will) and how can we resist? Advertising and marketing play
an important role here as explained in "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind"
by Al Ries and Jack Trout or "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by
Robert Cialdini or "Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion" by Michael Schudson and
many other books Thus the question should be "who has free will?" Obviously the
rich and those who are free of manipulation by marketing, advertising and
propaganda have much more free will than the rest. -J. -------- Original
message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp <[email protected]> Date:
6/9/25 7:38 AM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group <[email protected]> Subject: [FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the machine or
just clever wiring? Seth Lloyd’s Turing test for free will
(https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/lloyd/Turing_Test.pdf)
is to consciousness what EPR was to quantum physics: a challenge to the
theory's completeness. EPR said quantum weirdness must hide something deeper;
Bell said “let's test that”—and nature replied, “nope, it’s weird all the way
down.” Nobel Prize, case closed.Lloyd asks: can we prove the mind is just
machinery? His test says: build a machine that behaves indistinguishably from a
human and believes it has free will. If you succeed—great. But failure proves
nothing.Unlike Bell’s inequality, this test can only confirm, never deny. No
ghost-busting here.Until then? It’s speculation. The Standard Model explains
almost everything—except the quantum gremlins and how observation messes things
up. So maybe the mind still has an ace up its sleeve. Or a soul. Or a bug in
the code.
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