On Aug 27, 2004, at 4:44 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
Erik Reuter wrote:Free Will means that your decisions are taken by a soul.
Free will, pretty well be definition, means that it is possible to make
Except you don't have a useful definition of free will, as you well know.
*Screech of tires*
...would you care to define "soul"?
A soul means that there is something in you that can't be explained by physics, chemistry, or biology.
Explained, or simply observed?
= or =
(Materialist definition) A soul means that the processes that happen
inside a brain are so complex that it's impossible [*] to build any machine
that exactly reproduces them.
[*] because such machine would be bigger than the Universe
But then there are people like me who reject *any* concept of "soul" and who don't even use the term because it's far too laden with baggage.
I also don't believe the processes in the brain are too complex to be reproduced or modeled; that's obviously false, as there are 6 billion human examples of brainic models right outside my yard.
It's a pretty grave mistake to take today's technology and, using it, try to determine what will be "impossible" in the next few decades. While miniaturization of microchips is probably close to its bottom limit now, there are other computer options out there, and we might eventually see a biological-mechanical hybrid, an engineered collection of neurons that functions like a computer, but organically.
Definitions are evil, why they must be eradicated: then an electron has
a soul, because by QM we can't predict the behaviour of one electron :-/
That doesn't say anything except that -- possibly -- QM is incomplete, though.
And maybe not even that. I can't predict better than 50% reliability how a balanced coin will toss. That doesn't mean the coin is volitional *or* ensouled. It means it can occupy one of two states; my assigning it a value for each toss -- either before *or* after the flip -- is, on some level, arbitrary. (It presupposes consciousness and will, yes, but not in the coin.)
-- WthmO
More fun than a bucket of live bait. But not as much fun as a trailerful of raccoons. --
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