On 14 Mar 2010, at 03:35, m.a. wrote:
Please see questions below (in bold).
On 13 Mar 2010, at 16:00, m.a. wrote:
Bruno,
Thanks to your lucid explanation I begin to glimpse the
beauty of comp. Please check my reasoning here. If materialism is
correct, the brain can be compared to a computer which
contains the programming for higher order languages (e.g. word
processors, spreadsheets, paintbrush etc.) but requires anexternal
input to implement the creative potential of those languages.
Locally, yes. You can run the UD though. But this is of no use
relatively to you. It is a program without input, and without ouput.
From outside it is like the empty function, also computed by the
program "do nothing".
For a computer the input is man; for the brain the input might be
God, chance, spirits or what have you.
Both for the computer and man, the inputs are given by their most
probable universal neighbor, emerging from a competition among all
universal computer below their substitution level.
Could you please clarify this?
Well, it is really the consequence of the UD Argument. If my relevant
(at the right substitution level, or below) computational state is S,
my next first person state, (my next OM) is given by a measure on all
computations, executed (in arithmetic) going through that state S. But
the UD generates all universal machines, and all executions of each of
those universal machine, so it generates the state S infinitely many
often, as S is generated by any universal machines (themselves
generating S an infinity of times).
Here I am not sure to follow you. The comp indeterminacy on all our
"incarnations" in arithmetic, or in the universal dovetailing may
on the contrary restrict that freedom, by making us live
consequences of act we don't do.
How does this "restrict freedom"? The ability to imagine many
alternatives and therefore make an informed choice among them seems
to me the essence of free will. I thought that was what you were
saying below:
Exactly. That is why adding randomness limit my free-will, because it
entails that some alternatives will be realized independently of my
will.
If I hesitate between going to Moscow and going to Washington, the
fact that both alternatives are realized (in the same proportion, say)
makes my "happening to be in one of those places" a random event, not
the result of my informed choice among the alternatives.
No need for duplication: if I decide to go to W or to M by throwing a
coin, my choice is less free than if I make a choice resulting from
information I get on W and M.
So it is really determinism which allows us to develop at least a
partial control on the universal neighborhood we bet on.
What is partial determinism?
A mixture of determinism and indeterminism. Like freely choosing
between being duplicated in Washington and Moscow instead of being
duplicated in Sidney and Beijing.
Or like being duplicated in W and M, but being able to insure that I
will have coffee in both places.
Quantum mechanics, and statistical physics are always mixing
indeterminacy and determinacy. Free will relies on the (self)-
determinacy part. Indeterminacy adds unexpected events capable of
preventing my will to be accomplished.
Pure, total indeterminacy, gives total randomness, and I am no more
able to predict anything, or to evaluate any form of likelihood,
except for some global quasi-uniform "white noise".
Bruno
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