On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: " It's simpler than that. Inanimate means it can't move" >
Is a redwood tree an inanimate object? " and it's not alive." > If it's alive then it's animate and if it's animate then it's alive and round and round to go. Biologist have tried to come up with a good definition of life for a long time but have largely given up on the task and use examples instead. Examples are better anyway. " I choose to disagree with your view. > And you disagree with me for reasons, reasons you are not shy in telling me all about. I think those reasons are very weak but it doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't even matter if your reasons are logically self contradictory; you believe the reasons are good and see no contradiction in your statements about them even if I do. Bad reasons work just as well as good reasons in making people do and believe in stuff. "I am not genetically bound to disagree" > Maybe, maybe not, it's very difficult to say. "nor does my environment completely dictate my opinion." > A high speed proton from a cosmic ray could have entered your brain causing you to have a thought you would not otherwise have had, or maybe the cause of the thought was a random quantum fluctuation inside just one neuron in your brain. " if some random quantum nothingness turned into somethingness in just > the right way, then you would agree with me and there is nothing you can > do to change it." > Yes. " Do you not see that it is impossible to care about what you write here if > those three options were truly the only options?" > No. "you've been saying that whatever isn't deterministic must be random." > Yes. "Neither of us disagree about randomness, so that leaves determinism vs > determinism + choice." > This isn't really that difficult. If you made a choice for a reason then its deterministic, if you made a choice for no reason then its random. " Choice is not deterministic and also not random." > Then the only alternative is gibberish. " A yellow traffic signal is not red and it is not green." > Yes, but you're saying a yellow traffic signal is not red AND not not red, and that my friend is gibberish. "It's you who are denying the obvious role of free will in our every > conscious moment." > The idea of "free will" would have to improve dramatically before I could deny it, until then denying "free will" would be like denying a burp. "It's like I'm watching Fox News or something." > That's the worst insult I've ever had in my life. " When I type now, I could say anything. I can say trampoline isotope, > or I can make up a word like cheesaholic. It's not random." > OK, if it's not random then there is a reason, so what was the reason for linking "trampoline" and "isotope" rather than say "squeamish" and "osprey"? If you can answer then there was a reason and thus the response was deterministic. If you can not answer then there are 2 possibilities: 1) There was a reason but it's deep in your subconscious and your conscious mind can not access it, then it was still deterministic. 2) There was no reason whatsoever for picking those words, and so despite your assertion the choice was indeed random. " There were other possibilities but I choose those words intentionally. > They appealed to me aesthetically. I like them." > Deterministic. " You can label that a reason" > I certainly will. " What does it mean to like something? " It means you tend to do or use that something as often as you can, and you endeavor to get more of it. " We are not just a bundle of effects, but we are able to yoke those > effects together as a cause of our choosing. That is free will." > A hurricane does exactly the same thing, so a hurricane has free will. "Conscious control is free will. They mean the same thing." > That's just "will" and I have no difficulty about what that means, we want some things and are repelled by others and our will is the result of that push and pull, our will causes our body to try to maximize the one and minimize the other. But apparently this "free will" thing is like plain ordinary "will" except that it doesn't happen for a reason and it doesn't not happen for a reason either, and that's what turns a perfectly legitimate concept into pure unadulterated gibberish. " consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming > majority of what goes on in the psyche and the brain is > not under our control or within our direct awareness." > So you may do things for reasons you don't know and can't understand. " The fact that we the experience of control of anything at all is actual evidence of free will." Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means. " Someone could sneak into your room while you are sleeping tonight and > poke your eyes out with nine inch nails and any thought of tracking that > person down and preventing them from hurting other would be gibberish?" > There are only 2 legitimate reasons to punish anybody for anything: 1) To make sure they don't continue with such crimes. 2) To deter others from committing similar crimes. I admit there is another reason that the reptilian parts of my brain can come up with, the fun of seeing somebody I hate suffer, but that is not a reason the more evolved parts of my brain are proud of so I will not defend it. And the ASCII string "free will" has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. " Neither computers nor hurricanes create new options." > Hurricanes exercise options not know to it or me or even the world's greatest experts on hurricanes; at a fundamental level how is that different from people who are also unpredictable? " You can tell whether a person is conscious or intelligent by looking > at them and talking to them." > In other words by applying the Turing Test and making the assumption that it works for consciousness too, making the assumption that intelligence implies consciousness. Oh and also using the self evident fact that intelligent behavior implies intelligence. " Perhaps it's true, perhaps people with a boiling water IQ are more >> conscious than average people, there is no way to know." >> > > > " Sophistry again." > Why sophistry? You know from direct experience that consciousness is not a all or nothing matter, it comes in degrees; so I don't know why you think it's inconceivable that something could be more conscious than you are, perhaps even one of your fellow human beings. In fact it could be that you are not really conscious at all when compared with others, what you think of as consciousness is just a pale weak imitation of the grand glorious thing that other people feel, it's the difference between a firefly and a supernova. "Why not just admit that I'm right for once?" > OK, but before I do so you must do something for me first, you must be right for once. " Watson is not truly intelligent. " > Not playing fair irritates me and that is not playing fair. If a person did what Watson did you would not hesitate for one second in saying that it was a act of intelligence, but a computer did it so it has nothing to do with intelligence. That is a clear case of metallic bigotry. And hiding your head in the sand like that will not bring you enlightenment because it's a fact that computers are starting to behave intelligently. " That's trivial intelligence if you like" > I don't think it would be wise to call it that because if a "trivial intelligence" like Watson can outsmart you, and it can, then what does that say about your intelligence? " Ants and bees seem like intelligent insects, yet they are small, > reproduce quickly and require little fuel. Beetles out-reproduce them > though." > A human weighs about 1.5 million times as much as a ant, but ants are so numerous that the total biomass of all the ants on the Earth and the biomass of all 7 billion human beings is about the same. There are 12,000 species of ants and they exist on every continents except Antarctica and on average just one acre in the Amazon rainforest has about 3.6 million ants. In fact, between 15 and 20% of the entire terrestrial animal biomass are ants, and if you add their close cousin the termites its close to 30%. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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