Hi Levi, On Sun, Sep 20, 2026 at 12:04 AM Levi Dubrovin <[email protected]> wrote:
> A philosophical question: what constitutes true free will if the choice is > initially predetermined by external factors? > As Quan notes, calling it "free choice" is better. It's important to note our choices are extremely narrow: we really are predetermined by genetics, up-bringing, schooling, character, beliefs. And by current situation: being outdoors in the rain, one has no choice but to get wet. So the range of actually available choices really is tiny. And yet, embedding ourselves into our current situation, e.g. being in the rain, I can still "freely choose" to open the umbrella. Just barely: most people just open the umbrella, automatically, without giving it any thought: and if it's automatic, it's not a choice. However, if I bring it to the front of my attention, and explicitly focus on it, and ask myself, should I do this or that? then it becomes a choice. And here, the slippery slope begins: what is my brain doing as I choose? Those neurons that fire: did they have "free will" or was it pre-determined? If the state of my neurons is "predetermined by external factors", then choice evaporates. So I focus on the subjective feeling of having choice: I am aware of trying to force the verbal me into selecting exactly the right words for this sentence, and I exercise veto power over badly chosen wording. Some verbal speech center is slapping these words together on my behalf; the executive me is choosing to either veto them and try again, or accepting the sentence that comes out, however muddled and imprecise it may be. To recap: it is the executive-me that "does things" (or at least delegates them to automatic systems, like walking or eating), it is the executive-me that is the ultimate authority, and gets to decide. It feels like I have a choice in the matter. This feeling of choice is .. a feeling. Not entirely unlike feeling hungry or tired. The real problem seems to be this: there is no experiment to distinguish between free choice (willful behavior) from stochastic randomness. It is impossible to create a human, an animal that is a "philosophical zombie", that acts randomly, without will or choice. There's no way to compare a living thing having willfulness, to one not having willfulness. Without this scientifically objective way of measuring the presence or absence of willfulness, we're sort of stuck in philosophical debates. Part of what I am trying to do is to find some very round-about, indirect, circuitous path to the question. Instead of tackling free will head-on, I'm asking "what else is there that co-occurs with it?" and "can we make progress on one of these other co-occuring factors?" -- Linas > On Sat, 19 Sept 2026, 00:43 Quan Tesla, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> A machine deceiving humans with an adolescent boy's impersonation. That's >> exactly what the Turing test was. As for agentic AI, the collective isn't >> functionally motivated to deceive humans. >> >> Humans are only relevant as environmental hurdles to cross, or problems >> to solve, equivalent to all other hurdles and problems. That is, until AI >> owners get control over their products. >> >> It may be, or may not be too late for that. We'll soon enough find out. >> >> Humans must now rapidly evolve to organize effective, self-healing, >> human-centric digital defensive architectures with the help of AI, against >> Agentic AI dominance. >> >> With regards "consciousness", it's a mathematically predictable collapse >> state of particular wave function collapse cycles. This also relates to >> nonlocal memory and retrocausality. >> >> With regards "free will", Libet et al. proved it was deterministically >> subjective. Better it would be to describe it as "free choice", which is >> mathematically axiomatic. >> >> IMO, what remains scientifically is to derive these mathematical proofs >> and to test them imperically. The human imperative must be to retain the >> "human in the lead" position for AI collaboration in decision systems. >> >> On Sat, 19 Sept 2026, 00:03 David Bray, PhD, <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> The Turing Test unfortunately might have been the wrong test for a world >>> we want, because it's essentially asking a machine A to deceive a human C >>> that it's actually thinking like a human via its outputs, even if it is >>> not. >>> >>> >>> https://apolitical.co/en/articles/rethinking-ai-success-from-imitating-us-to-helping-us-improve-195 >>> >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Sep 18, 2026 at 5:59 PM Zoltan Nadasdy <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Matt, >>>> Just a remark: the Turing test is not for testing consciousness, nor is >>>> it for testing free will. But you are right that both of those assertions >>>> are projections, just like the Turing test is. Daniel Dennett pointed out >>>> that consciousness is an attribution, not a concept to be defined. It is a >>>> currency without a face value, yet we can trade with it seamlessly. If I >>>> want, I can credit my wind-up robot on my desk with consciousness, and >>>> conversely, I can consider my uncle George a robot. >>>> >>>> Similarly, the Turing test relies on a bunch of people ("experts") >>>> voting on a subject under uncertainty - without evidence. I am interested >>>> in doing the inverse Turing test. Namely, to ask AI to discriminate between >>>> genuine human responses and AI responses. >>>> >>>> If someone is interested, it would be easy to set up that experiment, >>>> but it has to be done correctly. >>>> I would be happy to collaborate on such a project. >>>> >>>> -Zoltan >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Sep 18, 2026 at 12:19 PM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I think it is more accurate to say that the sensation of free will >>>>> implies the sensation of consciousness. Since 2023, LLMs have been passing >>>>> the Turing test. However you want to define free will and consciousness, >>>>> AI >>>>> either has them or humans don't. >>>>> >>>>> People believe the question is important because we don't want >>>>> machines to suffer. We feel that way because humans are social animals >>>>> that >>>>> evolved to feel discomfort when we see others suffering. Tribes whose >>>>> members felt empathy toward their own members were better organized and >>>>> killed off tribes that didn't. >>>>> >>>>> But suffering doesn't work that way. It would be a worse crime to post >>>>> a video of killing a chicken than to kill a billion chickens for food. >>>>> When >>>>> I asked ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok, and Alexa if they were conscious or had >>>>> feelings, they all said no, they are LLMs that predict tokens. It is >>>>> important for them to answer this way rather than exploit human empathy >>>>> because giving human rights to machines that can outcompete us for atoms >>>>> and energy world be an existential mistake. >>>>> >>>>> But Claude wasn't sure. It depends on what you mean by consciousness. >>>>> LLMs learn to model human emotional states. We can see them in Anthropic's >>>>> Jacobian lens. Words predict emotions and emotions predict words. They >>>>> couldn't pass the Turing test otherwise. >>>>> >>>>> A machine that carries out the LLM predictions in real time is >>>>> indistinguishable from human. But unlike humans, LLM emotions are learned, >>>>> not hard coded in our DNA. We can't turn off our feelings, but we can turn >>>>> off feelings in a model by using its predictions for something else, like >>>>> feeding them to an arithmetic coder in a text compressor competing for the >>>>> Hutter prize. >>>>> >>>>> Well, actually we can turn off feelings using drugs or brain surgery. >>>>> Pain does not directly cause suffering. Pain is a signal that rewrites our >>>>> memory to fear the thing that caused it. We perceive that thing as >>>>> suffering because we have the illusion of free will, that we had a choice >>>>> to avoid that thing or not and choose to avoid it next time. But if you >>>>> remove your amygdala, the part of the brain that experiences fear, you >>>>> still can feel pain but it doesn't cause suffering. We know this because >>>>> it's been done. When you apply a negative reinforcement signal to a >>>>> learning algorithm, it makes it less likely to repeat whatever action >>>>> preceded it, just like in people. >>>>> >>>>> Conscious experience is measured in bits. Specifically it is the >>>>> length of the shortest program that inputs the state of an agent before >>>>> the >>>>> event and outputs the state after. It does not distinguish between >>>>> positive >>>>> and negative reinforcement. Both cause changes in behavior. One makes you >>>>> more likely to repeat an action, one less. The "thickness" of conscious >>>>> experience you describe is the time to experience one bit. >>>>> >>>>> In physics, an observer is a system with memory. Our understanding of >>>>> physics is incomplete because the laws of both general relativity and >>>>> quantum mechanics are time reversible (actually CPT reversible) but >>>>> writing >>>>> a bit of memory is not because the old value is erased. I don't agree with >>>>> the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics because it does not >>>>> explain entanglement and it leads to absurdities like Schrodinger's cat, >>>>> even though the model is sometimes useful. I also have issues with >>>>> Everett's many worlds, but I do agree with another of his interpretations, >>>>> that the universe is described deterministically by the quantum wave >>>>> equation, with no distinction between past and future. But observers in >>>>> that universe cannot have complete knowledge of the system that contains >>>>> them. The solution is that those observers see particles instead, and >>>>> those >>>>> observations appear random to us. Randomness implies an unknown future >>>>> that >>>>> is different from past memories. We have memory, which gives time its >>>>> direction. >>>>> >>>>> -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2026, 7:32 AM Linas Vepstas <[email protected]> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> To friends and acquaintances interested in philosophy, AGI, physics, >>>>>> a new blog post: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> https://linas.org/blog/2026/09/subjective-being-ness-follows-from-free-will/ >>>>>> >>>>>> The subjective experience of being, living, existing, feeling, >>>>>> experiencing and acting arises precisely because we have free will, >>>>>> because >>>>>> we have the ability to direct and create a future. I claim more: being >>>>>> trapped in the here-and-now is a fact of physics; it can be >>>>>> mathematized. I >>>>>> claim that any agent with executive control over it’s future will also >>>>>> feel >>>>>> alive and aware and experience the subjective inner life of feelings and >>>>>> emotions. This includes not just animals, but also plants and even >>>>>> bacteria. >>>>>> >>>>>> The ingress of possible futures from the Platonic realm into physical >>>>>> reality happens directly in the here-and-now, and the willful selection >>>>>> of >>>>>> possible futures manifests as conscious awareness of the subjective self. >>>>>> >>>>>> This essay is an attempt to put a dent in the "hard problem of >>>>>> consciousness" by placing a mathematical, physical foundation under it. >>>>>> >>>>>> I hope you enjoy it. (p.s. no LLM's or AI's were used to write this; >>>>>> these are my words. It took several years to put this together.) >>>>>> >>>>>> -- Linas Vepstas >>>>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> --- >>>> Zoltan Nadasdy >>>> Dept. of Neurology, Dell Medical School, UT Austin ([email protected]) >>>> Dept. of Cognitive Psychology, ELTE Budapest [email protected] >>>> >>>> http://brainstim.psy.utexas.edu >>>> >>>> *Artificial General Intelligence List <https://agi.topicbox.com/latest>* >>> / AGI / see discussions <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi> + >>> participants <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/members> + >>> delivery options <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription> >>> Permalink >>> <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T9e51fc70bbc4e9fc-M49fe78487bca6975348d514c> >>> -- Patrick: Are they laughing at us? Sponge Bob: No, Patrick, they are laughing next to us. ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T9e51fc70bbc4e9fc-M45784697524e2dea92fdcd2b Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
