Split from AI sentience

[Endy0816]

8 hours ago, Eise said:

What has randomisation to do with being free? Aren't you mixing up predictability and free will?

Free will probably requires a nondeterministic function. That's where randomization comes in.

Can't say if required for intelligence, but not hard to set up and would probably be easier in terms of hardware construction.

[dimreepr]

That's very random... 

[Eise]

18 minutes ago, Endy0816 said:

Free will probably requires a nondeterministic function. That's where randomization comes in.

Why? If I am sure I want to do something, and then I do it, then it is a free action. Being able to do free actions means you have free will. I do not see what a 'nondeterministic function' would have to do with it. Or do you think free actions are random actions? 

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Those all come from the same unconscious "machinery" within us, what I above simplified by calling chemistry. These decisions are made well before we ever became consciously aware of them, even when the "choice" involves handing over my wallet versus taking a bullet.

The problem with your thinking, is that you stick to the 'fundamental level'. It is a bit like "evolution does not exist, because the components of which organisms are built, cannot copy themselves, let alone introduce 'copy errors', so if there is no evolution on the basic level, there can't be at higher level". This is obviously wrong. 

Therefore I invited you to first look at your daily life, and see how you differentiate between free and coerced actions. Again, I am sure you do. You know when you are forced to do something against your will, by somebody or by circumstances, and when you did something from your free will. In case of penal laws, the difference can be to go into prison or not! However as soon as you dive into the chemical details, you will be lost.

[iNow]

2 hours ago, Eise said:

The problem with your thinking, is that you stick to the 'fundamental level'.

It's different from your approach, sure, but it's not justified calling it a problem IMO.

2 hours ago, Eise said:

You know when you are forced to do something against your will, by somebody or by circumstances, and when you did something from your free will.

Correction: I often have an awareness when external variables played a bigger role in my decision, and I often have an awareness of when some decision "seemed" to come from me. I can recognize those things as different, but even when being "forced" there is still a decision involved somewhere. I'm focused on the locus and origination of that decision, regardless if it was coerced or not.

Said another way, you seem to introduce the idea of an external actor or agent or stimulus as if these new variables in any way changes my core point. I disagree and find it irrelevant / extraneous to what I'm saying. A choice is present / decision is made whether coercion is involved or not, it's just that the consequences of the decision may differ when it's executed under duress or coercion.

The gun to my head, for example, changes the variables under consideration. There is still, however, a sort of "calculation" (or Fourier analysis, as it were) occurring and it's this which sways the response toward one of compliance versus noncompliance with the demands of the gun holder. This all also occurs outside of my conscious awareness. The decision is made before it even enters my mind's "I" for consideration. That mind's "I" mistakenly believes itself to be the tip of the spear, but is actually just the caboose of the train being pulled along for the ride (to use my previous analogy).

I agree that "I" did these things (if by "I" you mean the bag of chemicals and water that composes my physical being). In these posts, however, my words are introducing a demarcation within that bag of chemicals and water... one which separates the conscious aware self that perceives itself to be a driver behind my eyes from the more (to use your word) fundamental self underlying and driving the sum total of activity within my biological vehicle (the bacteria, ion gradients, action potentials, neural activity clusters, and the like).

On the topic of free will, my approach is generally informed by the idea that for "freedom" to apply correctly as a concept here, the "decisions" and "choices" we make need to be made by that higher self in the executive centers of our brain. My summarized stance is that freedom is NOT present when it's instead the underlying organisms and bacteria and chemical activity that's doing the deciding... We're slaves to those mechanisms, and slavery is much different than freedom.

We're essentially passengers on the plane of existence, even though we find it so easy to convince ourselves that the illusion is real and that we're the pilots at the controls.

[FreeWill]

We are predetermined physically, genetically, culturally, socially, educationally, which gives parts to Our intuition and subconscious, impacting every decision we make. Still, at the moment of decision in a scenario, every option for a possible outcome is available and the path of continuance will be determined by my decision. That is mind-boggling freedom. 

[Endy0816]

15 hours ago, Eise said:

Why? If I am sure I want to do something, and then I do it, then it is a free action. Being able to do free actions means you have free will. I do not see what a 'nondeterministic function' would have to do with it. Or do you think free actions are random actions?

 

Partly random, as stored data will typically play a role as will. Might occasionally need only to make a snap decision, but something like choosing it's favorite color should be just as nondeterministic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_algorithm

With common deterministic ones you get the issue of always being able to know what a program will do ahead of time, based on initial programming and subsequent inputs.

[Eise]

19 hours ago, iNow said:

I agree that "I" did these things (if by "I" you mean the bag of chemicals and water that composes my physical being). In these posts, however, my words are introducing a demarcation within that bag of chemicals and water... one which separates the conscious aware self that perceives itself to be a driver behind my eyes from the more (to use your word) fundamental self underlying and driving the sum total of activity within my biological vehicle (the bacteria, ion gradients, action potentials, neural activity clusters, and the like).

Here is the methodological problem: the discourse about free will is only concerned with humans, not with their interiors. So the question if some action was free only applies to the bag of water and chemicals as a whole.

If I introduce you to Keith Jarrett, the great jazz pianist, would you say he is no piano player, because you do not find a 'piano playing capable neurons'? So if we are capable to act freely, i.e. according our own motives and world view, should you then look into the brain for a 'free will neurons'? You see the trees, but you do not see the forest.

Another way of seeing it: if you dive into the brain, you surely find no 'free neurons': but you do not find a none-free soul either. But when there is no 'soul' inside, there is also nothing to which free or none-free even applies. So on this level these concepts simply have no meaning.

Another point you should consider is that we, as conscious organisms, were somehow selected for in evolution. This is difficult to understand when consciousness has no impact on the survivability of organisms. That means that somehow consciousness must have causal impact, so it can't be as passive as you think.

6 hours ago, FreeWill said:

We are predetermined physically, genetically, culturally, socially, educationally, which gives parts to Our intuition and subconscious, impacting every decision we make. Still, at the moment of decision in a scenario, every option for a possible outcome is available and the path of continuance will be determined by my decision. That is mind-boggling freedom. 

Maybe not as mind-boggling as you think. It is a fact that you did not choose your genes, the parents and culture where you were born etc. All these made you to who you are. But that is not what free will is about. Free will is about your capability to act according to your motives, values, and world view, wherever they come from. It could be genetically determined that you do not like Brussels sprouts. But if you decide to eat them yourself (e.g. as demonstration that you have a strong will...), or are forced to eat them, is the difference between a free or forced action.

4 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

With common deterministic ones you get the issue of always being able to know what a program will do ahead of time, based on initial programming and subsequent inputs.

So you are doing exactly what I warned you for:

On 4/15/2019 at 7:31 AM, Eise said:

What has randomisation to do with being free? Aren't you mixing up predictability and free will? 

 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Eise

[FreeWill]

21 minutes ago, Eise said:

Free will is about your capability to act according to your motives, values, and world view, wherever they come from.

Somewhere we are forced to act upon those values (language, culture, experience, learned knowledge). We have the freedom of choice, built on this past experiences, to act upon on any way we physically can in any scenario. I think that is Freedom.

My choices are predetermined, but I have the possibility and potential to impact any moment of my life's timeline. The choice is mine and the result is depending on my knowledge, understanding, awareness and of course the most important: the physical circumstances. What it says that freedom of choice is real and it can be impacted. Can something be predetermined and free at the same time? Predetermined because of the past but free in the present moment? Any thought will be built on past experiences. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by FreeWill

[dimreepr]

4 minutes ago, FreeWill said:

We are forced to act upon that (language). We have the choice to act on any way we physically can (Freedom).

My choices are predetermined, but I have the possibility and potential to impact any moment of my life's timeline. The choice is mine and the result is depending on my knowledge, understanding, and awareness. 

 

We all have a different past, who determined yours?

[FreeWill]

3 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

We all have a different past, who determined yours?

Everyone and everything I experienced had some level of impact on me. 

The understanding of this experience is mine. I think that is my personality. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by FreeWill

[dimreepr]

Ever thought of swapping?

[Eise]

22 minutes ago, FreeWill said:

My choices are predetermined,...

Why do you use 'predetermined'? Is determined not enough? Or what would be the difference according to you?

23 minutes ago, FreeWill said:

Can something be predetermined and free at the same time?

Well, without the 'pre': yes of course. 'Free' does not mean not-determined (or not predictable...). It means that you can act according your own motives and world view. When you are forced to act against them you are not free. If an organism or object has, cannot have, motives and a world view, then the concepts 'free' or 'not-free' simply do not apply.

 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Eise said:

the discourse about free will is only concerned with humans, not with their interiors. So the question if some action was free only applies to the bag of water and chemicals as a whole.

Thank you. I understand your point. We've had this same discussion before, more than once... and as I noted in my very first reply to you here... we're both using the term "free will" in ways that are importantly different.

I'm not convinced that your view is best one, and feel that using free will at such a broad and expansive level (the whole human, not the part of the human that actually drives our actions and decisions) is unhelpful. My view is informed less by philosophy and historical framing of this topic and is instead much more informed by the huge amounts we've learned about the mind during these past few decades in neuroscience.

That said, I respect that it's okay for us to disagree here and appreciate the clarity you bring with your replies.

1 hour ago, Eise said:

If I introduce you to Keith Jarrett, the great jazz pianist, would you say he is no piano player, because you do not find a 'piano playing capable neurons'? So if we are capable to act freely, i.e. according our own motives and world view, should you then look into the brain for a 'free will neurons'?

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. This is similar to my earlier point that you seem to be conflating the outcome or the label with the trigger of the action or decision. While I'm searching for a better word to describe it, I'm focused on the trigger.

Both of these things can be true in parallel. Keith can be a great pianist, we can agree he is best described as a piano player, AND also at the same time we can equally state that his playing, his abilities, and his desire to engage in these tasks is the result of an underlying chemistry and structure over which he has zero control. They're not mutually exclusive in the way you seem to suggest.

 

1 hour ago, Eise said:

Another point you should consider is that we, as conscious organisms, were somehow selected for in evolution. This is difficult to understand when consciousness has no impact on the survivability of organisms. That means that somehow consciousness must have causal impact, so it can't be as passive as you think.

Just because a trait evolved does not by definition mean it was itself selected for. Many traits and functions are simply byproducts of other traits that were selected, and it's wrong to suggest that because a trait exists it must have survival value. This is a common mistake people make when thinking about evolution, but it is very much a mistake all the same. Perhaps consciousness does enhance the potential of survival, but we cannot validly assert that just because consciousness exists.

More broadly, I disagree with your assertion that consciousness must have "causal impact," and personally tend to see consciousness much more as an emergent phenomenon... a bit like aurora lights in the atmosphere above. It just happens due to other physics involved, physics we can describe, test, and explain... and focusing on the physics is a far better use of our time than postulating angels dances on pin heads to describe it. I have no doubt that you agree that understanding these phenomena clearly in no way reduces their beauty or the sense of reverence and awe we feel about them.

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.” ~Sagan

[dimreepr]

13 minutes ago, iNow said:

Both of these things can be true in parallel. Keith can be a great pianist, we can agree he is best described as a piano player, AND also at the same time we can equally state that his playing, his abilities, and his desire to engage in these tasks is the result of an underlying chemistry and structure over which he has zero control. They're not mutually exclusive in the way you seem to suggest.

2

Keith can decide not to play.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Keith can decide not to play.

The bag of water and chemicals we describe as Keith may not play, but I challenge the assertion that this was decided with any intention or will.

[Endy0816]

11 hours ago, Eise said:

Here is the methodological problem: the discourse about free will is only concerned with humans, not with their interiors. So the question if some action was free only applies to the bag of water and chemicals as a whole.

If I introduce you to Keith Jarrett, the great jazz pianist, would you say he is no piano player, because you do not find a 'piano playing capable neurons'? So if we are capable to act freely, i.e. according our own motives and world view, should you then look into the brain for a 'free will neurons'? You see the trees, but you do not see the forest.

Another way of seeing it: if you dive into the brain, you surely find no 'free neurons': but you do not find a none-free soul either. But when there is no 'soul' inside, there is also nothing to which free or none-free even applies. So on this level these concepts simply have no meaning.

Another point you should consider is that we, as conscious organisms, were somehow selected for in evolution. This is difficult to understand when consciousness has no impact on the survivability of organisms. That means that somehow consciousness must have causal impact, so it can't be as passive as you think.

Maybe not as mind-boggling as you think. It is a fact that you did not choose your genes, the parents and culture where you were born etc. All these made you to who you are. But that is not what free will is about. Free will is about your capability to act according to your motives, values, and world view, wherever they come from. It could be genetically determined that you do not like Brussels sprouts. But if you decide to eat them yourself (e.g. as demonstration that you have a strong will...), or are forced to eat them, is the difference between a free or forced action.

So you are doing exactly what I warned you for:

 

 

Can you imagine something not actually having the options to choose from that it might seem to?

If you use any programs that have seed values you enter, can see this most clearly there.

 

 

[Eise]

16 hours ago, iNow said:

Thank you. I understand your point. We've had this same discussion before, more than once... and as I noted in my very first reply to you here... we're both using the term "free will" in ways that are importantly different.

Yep. But as you said some postings above, the kind of free 'free will' you are referring to is one that does not fit to a causally closed universe:

On 4/13/2019 at 3:10 PM, iNow said:

The kind that implies a type of ghost in the machine; some supraconscious self or soul beyond / untethered to the underlying neural substrate and activity.

(...)

The kind that convinces itself that it’s the tip of the spear driving the decisions, as opposed to the kind that recognizes it is instead more like the caboose of the train being pulled along to those decisions and “choices” unfree.

 

16 hours ago, iNow said:

using free will at such a broad and expansive level (the whole human, not the part of the human that actually drives our actions and decisions) is unhelpful

This is a nice rhetorical trick, especially this 'expansive'. Is it also 'expansive' that e.g. the colour of objects only apply at molecular (or even higher) level, but not to electrons? But still, these electrons are still responsible for the colour of the objects where they are part of: but it is the relationship with their environment (nucleus, other electrons...) that makes that objects have colours.

16 hours ago, iNow said:

My view is informed less by philosophy and historical framing of this topic and is instead much more informed by the huge amounts we've learned about the mind during these past few decades in neuroscience.

If you have a naturalistic world view, e.g. that you think that the universe is causally closed, then none of the discoveries of neuroscience is a surprise in this respect. Science, which includes of course neuroscience, has as one of the big assumptions, that more or less everything is determined, i.e. develops according to laws of nature. So not finding a soul, or a non-causally determined subsystem in the brain, is a no-brainer (). (Of course, I am convinced that the non-determinism of QM has nothing to do with free will.) Neuroscience discovers how determinism works its way through the brain, but not that it works its way through the brain: that is the presumption behind any science, otherwise science would be impossible.

16 hours ago, iNow said:

This is similar to my earlier point that you seem to be conflating the outcome or the label with the trigger of the action or decision.

Well, if I understand you correctly, when this 'labeling' is done consistently by somebody who acts, and by his social environment, and even more, when the label itself has causal impact ('He did it voluntary, so he is guilty'), then the causality of the labeling is given, even when it is implemented in a 'deterministic machine'. One cannot understand a chess-playing computer, when one studies the quantum physics of the semiconductors in the computer.

16 hours ago, iNow said:

Just because a trait evolved does not by definition mean it was itself selected for. Many traits and functions are simply byproducts of other traits that were selected, and it's wrong to suggest that because a trait exists it must have survival value.

That is true, but I do not think consciousness is a byproduct, but an essential factor in evolution. The capability to picture your environment, see possible futures dependent on how you will act (which then of course includes the capability to distinguish between yourself, as actor, and your environment) also based on previous experiences seems a terrible evolutionary advantage to me. And I have great difficulty not to call these capabilities 'consciousness'.

16 hours ago, iNow said:

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.” ~Sagan

I fully agree. But I am not driven by romanticism to my viewpoint, but by the drive to understand the world around, and in me.

6 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Can you imagine something not actually having the options to choose from that it might seem to?

If you use any programs that have seed values you enter, can see this most clearly there.

Can you elaborate more? I do not get your points.

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, iNow said:

The bag of water and chemicals we describe as Keith may not play, but I challenge the assertion that this was decided with any intention or will.

 

only Keith can decide with any intention or will.

otherwise, we're an anthill and not even intelligent.

 neither an ant nor the hill can decide to die.

[iNow]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

only Keith can decide with any intention or will.

If by "Keith" you mean the biological bag of water and chemicals, then we agree. If instead by Keith you mean a conscious mind or self, then we diverge from our consensus.

8 hours ago, Eise said:

That is true, but I do not think consciousness is a byproduct, but an essential factor in evolution.

And yet evolution occurs even absent what we're calling consciousness. Trees, plants, microbes all evolve and it'd be a stretch to call them conscious. Perhaps I'm getting hung up on semantics, but this suggests it is absolutely NOT essential.

I notice another thread recently opened on free will. Will try to avoid replies to each from bleeding into one another.

Edited April 17, 2019 by iNow

[dimreepr]

when is Keith not Keith?

[iNow]

22 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

when is Keith not Keith?

What about my previous explanations was unclear?

[peterwlocke]

here is a thought 

a computer needs a person to code it give it orders to do something and it cannot refuse. we can refuse orders even ingrained biological one.

off topic i think you mean bags

Edited April 17, 2019 by peterwlocke

[Eise]

45 minutes ago, iNow said:

And yet evolution occurs even absent what we're calling consciousness. Trees, plants, microbes all evolve and it'd be a stretch to call them conscious. Perhaps I'm getting hung up on semantics, but this suggests it is absolutely NOT essential.

You should know me better, that I would defend that all organisms are conscious.  And I think it should be clear from my followup sentences:

8 hours ago, Eise said:

The capability to picture your environment, see possible futures dependent on how you will act (which then of course includes the capability to distinguish between yourself, as actor, and your environment) also based on previous experiences seems a terrible evolutionary advantage to me. And I have great difficulty not to call these capabilities 'consciousness'.

So consciousness is an evolutionary advantage, just as the trunk of the elephant, eukaryotes, the ever growing of new teeth of sharks etc. In short, I would say that consciousness is the capability of an animal to anticipate possible futures dependent on what it will do. 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Eise said:

consciousness is an evolutionary advantage, just as the trunk of the elephant, eukaryotes, the ever growing of new teeth of sharks etc.

We agree here. I was previously pushing back a bit on the suggestion that because it evolved it must be advantageous. That was a flawed conclusion. Many things evolve which confer no benefit (as do things which are detrimental), often as a random byproduct of other traits which were themselves selected. That was the clarification I offered.

Edited April 17, 2019 by iNow

[Eise]

12 hours ago, iNow said:

We agree here.

Are your sure? I agree that we agree that not every trait organisms have is (or was) evolutionary advantageous. BUT: this is what I said:

13 hours ago, Eise said:

consciousness is an evolutionary advantage, just as the trunk of the elephant, eukaryotes, the ever growing of new teeth of sharks etc.

Do you then also agree that consciousness is evolutionary advantageous? If so, how does this work when consciousness is just a byproduct? Or why shouldn't we call it an 'epiphenomenon'?