Your abstract description, that Russ asked you to clarify with an example, reminded me of my life:
Me - I have to file these papers, bring in the mail, call the pharmacy, put away the car, read Glen's email, chase the coyote out of the meadow, etc Grandson - Grandpa, has to login to the computer so I can play Garry's Mod, Grandma has to get me a soft drink, and I'm going to ask for a brownie, etc. Wife - Frank has to figure out why all the words in the emails I write have squiggly red lines under them, Matthew has to wash his hands, I have to clean all the face masks and disinfect the groceries, I have to start dinner after finding out what they want, etc. All these agendas are executed simultaneously. I have no free will. Frank --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 3:44 PM ∄ uǝlƃ <[email protected]> wrote: > Exactly! That's the point of the exercise. Marcus and Jon have pointed out > that discussions of free will get bogged down in all sorts of meandering > extra stuff. This is an attempt to have a discussion about it that doesn't > go that way. The objective is to build a machine that might *look* as if it > has free will. > > The system does not *decide* to produce A or B, it simply produces A or B. > The individual branch point (and the path taken) is *not* what I'm mapping > to free will. (Yes, I've already been WRONGLY accused of redefining the > term.) I'm saying that the aggregate phenomenon we mean when we say "free > will" *might* be generated/simulated by this mechanism. I'm not mapping > free will to one small part of the mechanism. I'm mapping it to the *whole* > mechanism, multiple processes, including individual branch points, the > composer, the memory, etc. > > To answer specifically, a process can take branch A or B purely > deterministically (with a rule like "always take path A"), pseudo-randomly > (where it will always take branch A if the seed is the same), or actual > randomly. Those are all options we can play with. But I'm not proposing any > of those (by themselves) map to what we call free will. The whole mechanism > is what I'm trying to map to free will, to simulate free will with. > > On 6/18/20 2:29 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: > > Variables taking on values isn't something I normally associate with > discussions of free will. > > > > Although since you mentioned it, how does the system decide whether to > process A or B? Isn't that what you want to explain? > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> > http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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