On 15 Jun 2012, at 21:49, meekerdb wrote:
On 6/15/2012 11:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 15 Jun 2012, at 18:17, meekerdb wrote:
On 6/15/2012 8:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Jun 2012, at 18:21, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> I don't understand how we can change the judicial system if we
don't have free will. All we can do is exist and watch to see
whether we end up being compelled to change it or not by forces
outside of our control.
And so it goes, one group screams cries and jumps up and down
insisting that we do have free will and another group is just as
insistent that we do not. But neither group can stop yelling for
one second to ask what "free will" is supposed to mean. I
humbly suggest that we first decide what "free will" is, and
only then would it be fruitful to debate the question of whether
people have this interesting property or not; until then it's
just a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying
nothing.
OK. Perhaps we should always make at least precise if we talk
about compatibilist free will (c-free-will) or non comptatibilist
free will (nc-free-will). People defending nc-free-will should
say so.
In comp, c-free-will is rather easy to define, and even a variety
of ways, and computer science theorem justifies a role, and
plausibly a "darwinian selectable role" for some of the possible
definitions.
About nc-free-will, I have not any idea (yet?) about what it
could mean. I tend to agree with John on this.
It seems pretty clear. It's an ability to make decisions in a
spirit realm and have them implemented in the physical realm.
OK. In the spirit realm I get an headache, and decide to take an
aspirin.
That entails that physics is not closed, i.e. some physical events
happen for a purpose but without an antecedent physical cause.
How can you know that. It is like invoking the spirit each time we
were wrong on a level of complexity.
I think I see what you try to conceive, though. Nice try.
This not meaningless because with sufficient experimental
resolution it could be tested.
How? Machines cannot know their level of substitution. Spirits
might be arithmetical cyber pirates.
I don't think it's required that a brain be able to know itself;
only that other brains and machines be able to know it at the
required level.
I agree, except when you have to bet on the level, in case you accept
a digital brain;
If we could follow in detail the workings of a subject's brain and
we found that there were physically uncaused events that led to
actions and decisions and these events almost always contributed
to the realization of express plans, values, and desires of the
subject then we would have say that was evidence for nc-free-will.
I see your point, so you are right, in some sense. It is a bit far
stretched in the comp setting, but it makes sense. But at the meta-
level you need now to provide a theory of those spirits, and how
they manage to influence the physical happening, etc.
I don't think physics is causally open in this way, so, until there
is evidence it is, I see no reason to worry about formulating a
theory of the spirit realm. Others however have formed theories,
also know as religions, and some of those have even been
experimentally tested. So far the evidence has gone against them.
But it's good to keep an open mind and think about how theories
might be tested.
OK.
For a c-compatibilist, you will will have to explain how the spirit
itself is a c or not c free will entity, unless you use "spirit" as
a gap explanation meaning that we can't ask about that by definition.
Yes, I take it that's John point. Either the spirit actions are
determined by antecedent spirit states or they are not, and hence
random, and we're back to where we started. But first, we're not
quite back to where we started, we'd have evidence for a spirit
realm, which is why people like to believe in free-will; dualism
goes with various religious ideas of an afterlife. Second, the
spirit might be inherently purposeful the way QM is inherently
random. Metaphysically the question is whether events can be both
non-deterministic and non-random. Is there a third category of
"purposeful" or "teleological"; or are those just higher level
appearances.
It will depend on what you mean by "random", and "inherently
purposeful". You need some non-comp theory, and none exists today,
they are only pointing to non-comp, without explicit precision why
they make comp false.
Machines cannot distinguish 'spirit' for 'more complex than me'.
But does that prevent a machine from testing whether a different
machine which is not more complex is nomologically closed. Are you
saying that if a machine (brain) seemed to be nomologically open and
purposeful we should not regard it as evidence for a spirit realm
but instead say that our level of test resolution was not fine enough?
A defender of comp might well say that indeed. To bring spirit in
front of complexity would be like introducing a filling gap explanation.
Bruno
Brent
Bruno
Brent
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