Re: Free will: a definition

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 4:18 PM, Brian Tenneson  wrote:

> So you don't know what God wants. Is that what you're saying?


No, I'm saying God is a load of crap.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Brian Tenneson]

So you don't know what God wants. Is that what you're saying?  I hope
you're not for any reason obsessed with the Bible.

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:43 AM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Brian Tenneson  wrote:
>
> > How do you know what God wants?
>>
>
> By reading my Bible! I can't imagine a better way to figure out how the
> universe works than studying the myths of a 3 thousand year old bronze age
> tribe. Eat your heart out Large Hadron Collider.
>
>
>> > Assuming God is complete
>>
>
> If he wasn't He wouldn't be God.
>
> > it has no wants whatsoever.
>>
>
> Yes, I would certainly think so; and yet the Bible is full of "God wants
> this" and "God was displeased by that". It's a puzzle. Ancient Hebrew
> cosmology couldn't be wrong could it?
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
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Re: Free will: a definition

[John Mikes]

Dear Cowboy,
thanks for your teaching on the repetitive (rock-related??) musical
experience. Since I am strongly anchored into the past 3-5 centuries'
organized 'music' I do not appreciate it.
However it punches into the domain of what is callable a Free Will (not
really, as I will explain).
Bruno's "drink or drink not" is a 'free' *choice* - not at all explained if
circumstances etc. coerced the decision, or not. A choice between GIVENS.
Your music is penetration into the unknowable, the 'given' part maybe
there, but not as contemplatively, like tea-drinking. Subconscious? That is
a good buzz-word for escapes from "I dunno".
Consider that in our 'mind' (what is it?) there is more than we 'know
about' and the transition into the unknown is like in my other post to
Stephen and Bruno today.
Don't take me seriously: I speak beyond my knowables.

Thanks again for your musical explanations

John M

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 3:34 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy <
multiplecit...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I do not want to suggest a definition, but have a question concerning comp
> frame. When I improvise, often in Jazz or Rock context the free will
> question becomes fuzzy in this way:
>
> Sometimes you hit a point where all the patterns/formulas you've learned;
> i.e. the kind of stuff you can play in your sleep, all the pre-calculated,
> time-proven stuff, runs out... at which point you risk repeating yourself
> in redundancy. At this point, I am forced to take a risk and plunge into
> the icy waters of all things I haven't played yet.
>
> When it works, it feels like magic as instant composition; but even when
> it doesn't, which makes up the great majority of these situations, and a
> technical error results from forced decision, as Brent says, out of time
> constraint, you can "ride the mistake". And on some occasions it can change
> the whole musical situation and take the band in a different direction:
> like we wanted to close after so many choruses, but we extend "because
> somebody found that weird thing" and riding it was pretty nice and it
> echoes into coda and ending, everybody quoting it.
>
> So from 1p perspective the technical error is not intended. Not a free
> decision and rather embarrassing, taken out of context.
>
> But this can reverse from point of view of the band/audience after the
> mistake has proven a fruitful input for some new groove. Then everybody
> agrees it was cool, and that we fully intended and meant that to happen in
> a "that's what music is about" kind of way. But then it can also be a
> random bullshit mistake; not fruitful at all. Strangely, even though I
> decide to "take the plunge", I don't really feel like I'm in control of
> this. But if venue, band, audience is cool; I definitely control it more,
> than when a bunch of professors are evaluating me.
>
> So my question for weak comp frame: who/what else is in control when 1p
> makes a forced, time-constrained decision?
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>>
>>  On 01 Aug 2012, at 18:23, Brian Tenneson wrote:
>>
>> We may be overthinking things here.  What's wrong with defining it as the
>> capacity to make choices when more than one option is available?
>>
>>
>> ... from the point of view of the knowing subject. I am OK with that
>> definition. You have to add "from the point of view of the subject" to
>> prevent the idea that a God, or the Physical Theory makes it like at some
>> (low) level, only one option exists. Yet, it is not because some God or
>> some Supermachine, or just your friends, can predict if you will drink tea
>> or coffee that you will not exercise free will by choosing the option which
>> satisfies you the most.
>> Two options can be enough. Free will is the ability to choose between
>> drinking tea or not drinking tea.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
>>>
 Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it
 is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
 irrational agents can make fast decisions.

>>>
>>> Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained.  How can
>>> it be rational to wait too long for your decision to matter and irrational
>>> to make a quick decision on incomplete information, on incomplete analysis?
>>>
>>>
>>>
 > From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
 are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
 economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
 the best thing to do.

>>> Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What meaning of
>>> 'rational' are you using?
>>>
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>>> Groups "Everything List" group.
>>> To post to this group, send email to 
>>> everything-list@googlegroups.**com
>>> .
>>> To unsubscribe fr

Re: Free will: a definition

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Aug 2012, at 15:10, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:




On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 02 Aug 2012, at 21:34, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

I do not want to suggest a definition, but have a question  
concerning comp frame. When I improvise, often in Jazz or Rock  
context the free will question becomes fuzzy in this way:


Sometimes you hit a point where all the patterns/formulas you've  
learned; i.e. the kind of stuff you can play in your sleep, all the  
pre-calculated, time-proven stuff, runs out... at which point you  
risk repeating yourself in redundancy. At this point, I am forced  
to take a risk and plunge into the icy waters of all things I  
haven't played yet.


When it works, it feels like magic as instant composition; but even  
when it doesn't, which makes up the great majority of these  
situations, and a technical error results from forced decision, as  
Brent says, out of time constraint, you can "ride the mistake". And  
on some occasions it can change the whole musical situation and  
take the band in a different direction: like we wanted to close  
after so many choruses, but we extend "because somebody found that  
weird thing" and riding it was pretty nice and it echoes into coda  
and ending, everybody quoting it.


So from 1p perspective the technical error is not intended. Not a  
free decision and rather embarrassing, taken out of context.


But this can reverse from point of view of the band/audience after  
the mistake has proven a fruitful input for some new groove. Then  
everybody agrees it was cool, and that we fully intended and meant  
that to happen in a "that's what music is about" kind of way. But  
then it can also be a random bullshit mistake; not fruitful at all.  
Strangely, even though I decide to "take the plunge", I don't  
really feel like I'm in control of this. But if venue, band,  
audience is cool; I definitely control it more, than when a bunch  
of professors are evaluating me.


So my question for weak comp frame: who/what else is in control  
when 1p makes a forced, time-constrained decision?


It seems to me that you answered the question in the question. If it  
is the 1p which makes the decision, the one in control is the 1p  
itself (that is, with other name, the inner god, the unnameable  
self, the subject, the (first) person). It is a mixture of truth and  
beliefs.


Bruno

Thanks for the answer.

It makes sense that 1p tends to play more bullshit, forcing time  
constrained decision, when it believes itself to be evaluated (by  
some professor for example), than when 1p believes itself to be in a  
"truer" or less contrived musical playing situation, like the  
audience is sufficiently drunk, people are supportive and laughing  
etc. By truth you mean 1p truth, right?


That might depend on how we define truth and first person. Usually I  
use truth in the sense of the "outer God", which I think is plausibly  
not a person. In some context I prefer to talk like if it was a  
person, because it prevents the confusion between truth (a semantic  
notion) and the syntax describing those true propositions (frequent  
confusion).
In AUDA, the first person is defined by a conjunction between belief  
(Bp) and truth (p). As truth cannot be defined by the machine, p just  
means the assertion of p by the machine. This works well in the ideal  
case of the self-referentially correct machine (as such a machine will  
never assert a false proposition). Such simplification makes the math  
accessible, and that is what is needed to recover physics/theology  
from numbers, but it makes is hard to be applied on human real life  
situations, like when playing guitar in front of a professor or a  
public  :)


Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Free will: a definition

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 02 Aug 2012, at 21:34, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>
> I do not want to suggest a definition, but have a question concerning comp
> frame. When I improvise, often in Jazz or Rock context the free will
> question becomes fuzzy in this way:
>
> Sometimes you hit a point where all the patterns/formulas you've learned;
> i.e. the kind of stuff you can play in your sleep, all the pre-calculated,
> time-proven stuff, runs out... at which point you risk repeating yourself
> in redundancy. At this point, I am forced to take a risk and plunge into
> the icy waters of all things I haven't played yet.
>
> When it works, it feels like magic as instant composition; but even when
> it doesn't, which makes up the great majority of these situations, and a
> technical error results from forced decision, as Brent says, out of time
> constraint, you can "ride the mistake". And on some occasions it can change
> the whole musical situation and take the band in a different direction:
> like we wanted to close after so many choruses, but we extend "because
> somebody found that weird thing" and riding it was pretty nice and it
> echoes into coda and ending, everybody quoting it.
>
> So from 1p perspective the technical error is not intended. Not a free
> decision and rather embarrassing, taken out of context.
>
> But this can reverse from point of view of the band/audience after the
> mistake has proven a fruitful input for some new groove. Then everybody
> agrees it was cool, and that we fully intended and meant that to happen in
> a "that's what music is about" kind of way. But then it can also be a
> random bullshit mistake; not fruitful at all. Strangely, even though I
> decide to "take the plunge", I don't really feel like I'm in control of
> this. But if venue, band, audience is cool; I definitely control it more,
> than when a bunch of professors are evaluating me.
>
> So my question for weak comp frame: who/what else is in control when 1p
> makes a forced, time-constrained decision?
>
>
> It seems to me that you answered the question in the question. If it is
> the 1p which makes the decision, the one in control is the 1p itself (that
> is, with other name, the inner god, the unnameable self, the subject, the
> (first) person). It is a mixture of truth and beliefs.
>
> Bruno
>

Thanks for the answer.

It makes sense that 1p tends to play more bullshit, forcing time
constrained decision, when it believes itself to be evaluated (by some
professor for example), than when 1p believes itself to be in a "truer" or
less contrived musical playing situation, like the audience is sufficiently
drunk, people are supportive and laughing etc. By truth you mean 1p truth,
right?

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Re: Free will: a definition

[R AM]

If rationality is used in the technical sense then the irrational category
becomes too broad because it includes doing the right thing under the
current resources (time, computing power, knowledge) and any other plain
dumb action.

El ago 3, 2012 1:16 a.m., "Russell Standish" 
escribió:
>
> On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 04:46:07PM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
> >
> > But then to compete with other agents it may well be optimum to
> > adopt a random policy and flip a coin.
>
> Of course. But rationality is not just about doing the optimal thing,
> its about knowing what is the optimal thing to do, and then doing it.
>
> One must add some caveats to this characterisation, of course - divine
> inspiration needs to be ruled out, for example. The knowledge must
> derived by logical reasoning from that available information, which is
> where the requirement for unlimited computational resources comes from.
>
> I do understand where you're coming from - everyday usage of the word
> rational is considerably looser than the technical meaning used in
> philosophy, economics, etc.
>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
>

> Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
> University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>

>
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Re: Free will: a definition

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Aug 2012, at 21:34, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

I do not want to suggest a definition, but have a question  
concerning comp frame. When I improvise, often in Jazz or Rock  
context the free will question becomes fuzzy in this way:


Sometimes you hit a point where all the patterns/formulas you've  
learned; i.e. the kind of stuff you can play in your sleep, all the  
pre-calculated, time-proven stuff, runs out... at which point you  
risk repeating yourself in redundancy. At this point, I am forced to  
take a risk and plunge into the icy waters of all things I haven't  
played yet.


When it works, it feels like magic as instant composition; but even  
when it doesn't, which makes up the great majority of these  
situations, and a technical error results from forced decision, as  
Brent says, out of time constraint, you can "ride the mistake". And  
on some occasions it can change the whole musical situation and take  
the band in a different direction: like we wanted to close after so  
many choruses, but we extend "because somebody found that weird  
thing" and riding it was pretty nice and it echoes into coda and  
ending, everybody quoting it.


So from 1p perspective the technical error is not intended. Not a  
free decision and rather embarrassing, taken out of context.


But this can reverse from point of view of the band/audience after  
the mistake has proven a fruitful input for some new groove. Then  
everybody agrees it was cool, and that we fully intended and meant  
that to happen in a "that's what music is about" kind of way. But  
then it can also be a random bullshit mistake; not fruitful at all.  
Strangely, even though I decide to "take the plunge", I don't really  
feel like I'm in control of this. But if venue, band, audience is  
cool; I definitely control it more, than when a bunch of professors  
are evaluating me.


So my question for weak comp frame: who/what else is in control when  
1p makes a forced, time-constrained decision?


It seems to me that you answered the question in the question. If it  
is the 1p which makes the decision, the one in control is the 1p  
itself (that is, with other name, the inner god, the unnameable self,  
the subject, the (first) person). It is a mixture of truth and beliefs.


Bruno






On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 01 Aug 2012, at 18:23, Brian Tenneson wrote:

We may be overthinking things here.  What's wrong with defining it  
as the capacity to make choices when more than one option is  
available?


... from the point of view of the knowing subject. I am OK with that  
definition. You have to add "from the point of view of the subject"  
to prevent the idea that a God, or the Physical Theory makes it like  
at some (low) level, only one option exists. Yet, it is not because  
some God or some Supermachine, or just your friends, can predict if  
you will drink tea or coffee that you will not exercise free will by  
choosing the option which satisfies you the most.
Two options can be enough. Free will is the ability to choose  
between drinking tea or not drinking tea.


Bruno






On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations,  
it

is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
irrational agents can make fast decisions.

Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained.   
How can it be rational to wait too long for your decision to matter  
and irrational to make a quick decision on incomplete information,  
on incomplete analysis?




> From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
the best thing to do.
Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What  
meaning of 'rational' are you using?



Brent



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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: Free will: a definition

[Russell Standish]

On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 04:46:07PM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
> 
> But then to compete with other agents it may well be optimum to
> adopt a random policy and flip a coin.

Of course. But rationality is not just about doing the optimal thing,
its about knowing what is the optimal thing to do, and then doing it.

One must add some caveats to this characterisation, of course - divine
inspiration needs to be ruled out, for example. The knowledge must
derived by logical reasoning from that available information, which is
where the requirement for unlimited computational resources comes from.

I do understand where you're coming from - everyday usage of the word
rational is considerably looser than the technical meaning used in
philosophy, economics, etc.

Cheers

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Free will: a definition

[meekerdb]

On 8/2/2012 3:55 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 09:17:00AM -0700, meekerdb wrote:

 From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people

are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
the best thing to do.

Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What meaning of 
'rational' are you using?

Brent


The usual one from philosophy and economics theory. See eg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality.

Note partiularly the first sentence:


In philosophy, rationality is the characteristic of any action, belief, or 
desire, that makes their choice a necessity.


Hmm. A mother sees her house is on fire and her child is inside.  Since the child is more 
important to her than anything else, she dashes into the house to save her child.  This is 
an example of rationality!?



A rational agent is neither free, nor random.

Somewhat unstated in that article is that rational agents have
sufficient computing capacity to perform the reasoning necessary to
determine the optimum choice - there is no flipping of coins to
determine choices.

In economics, it is also assumed that agents have perfect knowledge of
the market. This would be public knowledge, of course, clairvoyance
would be ruled out. Each agent knows what every other agent has done
in the past, but not what they're planning to do next, for instance.


But then to compete with other agents it may well be optimum to adopt a random policy and 
flip a coin.




I can see that in other fields,


Economics, as described above, is just a game like poker.  But even in a game is may be 
best to do something random.



the concept of rationality with
incomplete information is deployed, so I may have overstressed the
complete information bit.

But its all a load of rubbish anyway. Real agents cannot be rational -
they must have bounded reasoning capability, and real time decision
constraints. The leads to the conclusion that a certain amount of
irrationality is a good thing.

If you're interested, I can refer you to a nice little paper of mine
looking at a traditional toy model from economics:

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0411006


Interesting.  I wrote a similar paper in 1984 as a critique of a U.S. Air Force proposal 
to have competing contractors produce the same product.


Brent

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Re: Free will: a definition

[meekerdb]

On 8/2/2012 3:38 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 01:24:59PM -0400, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Russell Standishwrote:


Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing
to do.


I don't know what to make of that. If X is the best way to achieve a goal
then X is the rational thing to do. The Monte Carlo Algorithm was invented
soon after the end of the second world war specifically to model how a
H-bomb worked, and it in effect flipped a coin millions of times. A
thermonuclear fireball is far too complex to model from first principles so
they generated random inputs for the position and momentum of particles and
then performed deterministic calculations from them and then found the
probability distribution. Without that the H-bomb would not exist. You can
argue if building a H-bomb is a rational goal or not but it you want to
figure out how to build one you've got to flip a coin many millions of
times.

   John K Clark


No, it is not the rational thing to do. A rational agent has infinite
computing capacity and knowledge. A rational agent will know how to
simulate an H-bomb exactly without resorting to random approximations.


But that's impossible because (1) the quantum events he would simulate are inherently 
random and (2) he cannot know what information/energy will arrive from outside his past 
lightcone during the interval simulated.  Such a concept of rationality can only be a 
useful approximations within a game such as chess.




It may well be a boundedly rational thing to do, although I'm not sure
this is even true.  I haven't studied bounded rationality theory in
great depth.

Of course all this is shining light on the concept of rationality,
which I personally think is rather suspect. Certainly, real people are
not rational - they have to get on with their lives.



I'd say they are rational, but that you have adopted an overly idealized defintion of 
'rational'.  But quite aside from quantum randomness, limited computational capacity, and 
signals from outside the past lightcone; people are 'irrational', or I would say 
'extra-rational', because the values which they seek to satisfy are not and cannot be 
arrived at purely by ratiocination.  These values are built-in by evolution, both 
biological and cultural.  Rationality only serves to achieve a consilient subset of them.


Brent
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any 
other office than to serve and obey them.

--- David Hume

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 09:17:00AM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
> >> From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
> >are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
> >economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
> >the best thing to do.
> Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What meaning of 
> 'rational' are you using?
> 
> Brent
> 

The usual one from philosophy and economics theory. See eg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality.

Note partiularly the first sentence:

> In philosophy, rationality is the characteristic of any action, belief, or 
> desire, that makes their choice a necessity.

A rational agent is neither free, nor random.

Somewhat unstated in that article is that rational agents have
sufficient computing capacity to perform the reasoning necessary to
determine the optimum choice - there is no flipping of coins to
determine choices.

In economics, it is also assumed that agents have perfect knowledge of
the market. This would be public knowledge, of course, clairvoyance
would be ruled out. Each agent knows what every other agent has done
in the past, but not what they're planning to do next, for instance.

I can see that in other fields, the concept of rationality with
incomplete information is deployed, so I may have overstressed the
complete information bit.

But its all a load of rubbish anyway. Real agents cannot be rational -
they must have bounded reasoning capability, and real time decision
constraints. The leads to the conclusion that a certain amount of
irrationality is a good thing.

If you're interested, I can refer you to a nice little paper of mine
looking at a traditional toy model from economics:

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0411006

Cheers

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 01:24:59PM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
> 
> > Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing
> > to do.
> >
> 
> I don't know what to make of that. If X is the best way to achieve a goal
> then X is the rational thing to do. The Monte Carlo Algorithm was invented
> soon after the end of the second world war specifically to model how a
> H-bomb worked, and it in effect flipped a coin millions of times. A
> thermonuclear fireball is far too complex to model from first principles so
> they generated random inputs for the position and momentum of particles and
> then performed deterministic calculations from them and then found the
> probability distribution. Without that the H-bomb would not exist. You can
> argue if building a H-bomb is a rational goal or not but it you want to
> figure out how to build one you've got to flip a coin many millions of
> times.
> 
>   John K Clark
> 

No, it is not the rational thing to do. A rational agent has infinite
computing capacity and knowledge. A rational agent will know how to
simulate an H-bomb exactly without resorting to random approximations.

It may well be a boundedly rational thing to do, although I'm not sure
this is even true.  I haven't studied bounded rationality theory in
great depth.

Of course all this is shining light on the concept of rationality,
which I personally think is rather suspect. Certainly, real people are
not rational - they have to get on with their lives.

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

I do not want to suggest a definition, but have a question concerning comp
frame. When I improvise, often in Jazz or Rock context the free will
question becomes fuzzy in this way:

Sometimes you hit a point where all the patterns/formulas you've learned;
i.e. the kind of stuff you can play in your sleep, all the pre-calculated,
time-proven stuff, runs out... at which point you risk repeating yourself
in redundancy. At this point, I am forced to take a risk and plunge into
the icy waters of all things I haven't played yet.

When it works, it feels like magic as instant composition; but even when it
doesn't, which makes up the great majority of these situations, and a
technical error results from forced decision, as Brent says, out of time
constraint, you can "ride the mistake". And on some occasions it can change
the whole musical situation and take the band in a different direction:
like we wanted to close after so many choruses, but we extend "because
somebody found that weird thing" and riding it was pretty nice and it
echoes into coda and ending, everybody quoting it.

So from 1p perspective the technical error is not intended. Not a free
decision and rather embarrassing, taken out of context.

But this can reverse from point of view of the band/audience after the
mistake has proven a fruitful input for some new groove. Then everybody
agrees it was cool, and that we fully intended and meant that to happen in
a "that's what music is about" kind of way. But then it can also be a
random bullshit mistake; not fruitful at all. Strangely, even though I
decide to "take the plunge", I don't really feel like I'm in control of
this. But if venue, band, audience is cool; I definitely control it more,
than when a bunch of professors are evaluating me.

So my question for weak comp frame: who/what else is in control when 1p
makes a forced, time-constrained decision?


On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 01 Aug 2012, at 18:23, Brian Tenneson wrote:
>
> We may be overthinking things here.  What's wrong with defining it as the
> capacity to make choices when more than one option is available?
>
>
> ... from the point of view of the knowing subject. I am OK with that
> definition. You have to add "from the point of view of the subject" to
> prevent the idea that a God, or the Physical Theory makes it like at some
> (low) level, only one option exists. Yet, it is not because some God or
> some Supermachine, or just your friends, can predict if you will drink tea
> or coffee that you will not exercise free will by choosing the option which
> satisfies you the most.
> Two options can be enough. Free will is the ability to choose between
> drinking tea or not drinking tea.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>> On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
>>
>>> Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it
>>> is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
>>> irrational agents can make fast decisions.
>>>
>>
>> Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained.  How can
>> it be rational to wait too long for your decision to matter and irrational
>> to make a quick decision on incomplete information, on incomplete analysis?
>>
>>
>>
>>> > From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
>>> are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
>>> economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
>>> the best thing to do.
>>>
>> Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What meaning of
>> 'rational' are you using?
>>
>>
>> Brent
>>
>>
>>
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Re: Free will: a definition

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Aug 2012, at 18:23, Brian Tenneson wrote:

We may be overthinking things here.  What's wrong with defining it  
as the capacity to make choices when more than one option is  
available?


... from the point of view of the knowing subject. I am OK with that  
definition. You have to add "from the point of view of the subject" to  
prevent the idea that a God, or the Physical Theory makes it like at  
some (low) level, only one option exists. Yet, it is not because some  
God or some Supermachine, or just your friends, can predict if you  
will drink tea or coffee that you will not exercise free will by  
choosing the option which satisfies you the most.
Two options can be enough. Free will is the ability to choose between  
drinking tea or not drinking tea.


Bruno






On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it
is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
irrational agents can make fast decisions.

Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained.  How  
can it be rational to wait too long for your decision to matter and  
irrational to make a quick decision on incomplete information, on  
incomplete analysis?




> From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
the best thing to do.
Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What  
meaning of 'rational' are you using?



Brent



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Re: Free will: a definition

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:

> Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be the best thing
> to do.
>

I don't know what to make of that. If X is the best way to achieve a goal
then X is the rational thing to do. The Monte Carlo Algorithm was invented
soon after the end of the second world war specifically to model how a
H-bomb worked, and it in effect flipped a coin millions of times. A
thermonuclear fireball is far too complex to model from first principles so
they generated random inputs for the position and momentum of particles and
then performed deterministic calculations from them and then found the
probability distribution. Without that the H-bomb would not exist. You can
argue if building a H-bomb is a rational goal or not but it you want to
figure out how to build one you've got to flip a coin many millions of
times.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will: a definition

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Brian Tenneson  wrote:

> How do you know what God wants?
>

By reading my Bible! I can't imagine a better way to figure out how the
universe works than studying the myths of a 3 thousand year old bronze age
tribe. Eat your heart out Large Hadron Collider.


> > Assuming God is complete
>

If he wasn't He wouldn't be God.

> it has no wants whatsoever.
>

Yes, I would certainly think so; and yet the Bible is full of "God wants
this" and "God was displeased by that". It's a puzzle. Ancient Hebrew
cosmology couldn't be wrong could it?

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Brian Tenneson]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:24 AM, John Clark  wrote:

>
> So free will is the ability to always get what we want, after all if we
> don't get what we want its because something has stopped us from doing so.
> Thus even God doesn't have free will because He doesn't want us to sin and
> yet we do.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
How do you know what God wants?  Is that what some ancient text claimed?
Assuming God is complete, it has no wants whatsoever.

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Re: Free will: a definition

[John Clark]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

> Free will is the ability for an autonomous agent


And a autonomous agent is someone who has free will, and around and around
we go.

> to make uncoercered choices


So free will is the ability to always get what we want, after all if we
don't get what we want its because something has stopped us from doing so.
Thus even God doesn't have free will because He doesn't want us to sin and
yet we do.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Brian Tenneson]

We may be overthinking things here.  What's wrong with defining it as the
capacity to make choices when more than one option is available?

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 9:17 AM, meekerdb  wrote:

> On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
>
>> Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it
>> is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
>> irrational agents can make fast decisions.
>>
>
> Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained.  How can
> it be rational to wait too long for your decision to matter and irrational
> to make a quick decision on incomplete information, on incomplete analysis?
>
>
>
>> > From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
>> are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
>> economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
>> the best thing to do.
>>
> Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What meaning of
> 'rational' are you using?
>
>
> Brent
>
>
>
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Re: Free will: a definition

[meekerdb]

On 8/1/2012 5:04 AM, Russell Standish wrote:

Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it
is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
irrational agents can make fast decisions.


Almost all real decisions (even in chess) are time constrained.  How can it be rational to 
wait too long for your decision to matter and irrational to make a quick decision on 
incomplete information, on incomplete analysis?




> From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
the best thing to do.

Random moves are optimum in many games and provably so.  What meaning of 
'rational' are you using?

Brent



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Re: Free will: a definition

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:47:19PM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
> On 7/31/2012 11:10 AM, R AM wrote:
> >>On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> >>>With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal
> >>>choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being.
> >>>
> >>>Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a
> >>>wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is
> >>>usually beaten by an irrational being.
> >With incomplete information, a rational being will make the best
> >choice under the available information and would beat an irrational
> >being most of the time.
> >
> 
> Right. I don't think 'complete information' is even a well defined
> concept.  It's only a good approximation in games like chess, but in

Right - the concept of rationality is usually only applied in the
context of well defined games (eg such as chess), and the agent is
assumed to have access to all pertinant information, as well as
infinite amounts of processing power. Limiting either of these brings
in the concept of bounded rationality.



> life all decisions are made on incomplete information with finite
> future horizons and uncertainty about the value of different
> outcomes.
> 

Yes - and rationality often does not help much. In such situations, it
is often better to make a fast decision than a good one. Only
irrational agents can make fast decisions.

>From the responses I've received on this list, I don't think people
are using the term rational in the same way it is used in
economics. Flipping a coin is never rational, although it may well be
the best thing to do.

> Brent
> 
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Re: Free will: a definition

[John Mikes]

Stephen,
just a brief remark to the discussion:

if the 'agent' has complete info (it never occurs) it naturally coerces its
decision (*will, choice*). We call *good-bad* according to OUR incomplete
thinking. Same goes for the *"rational - irrational"* pair.
We can NEVER have complete information - we are restricted in our mental
capabilities from exploiting the total infinite complexity.
All is condensed into: (as *R RAM wrote:*
*With incomplete information, a rational being will make the best choice
under the available information and would beat an irrational being most of
the time )*
(ambient lingo wording).

My position stands: there is NO free will, only ALMOST(!)
and maybe considered 'some freedom carrying' will, (just as I did deny
'random' and got an 'almost': "under certain (given) circumstances").
The term YOUR FREE WILL arose from the faith-based authoritarian
requirement to raise responsibility - hence a guilt feeling for a
make-believe punishment (in eternity!).

John M

**




On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

> Dear Russell,
>
> In our definition of the concept of "free will", it seems that we need
> to elaborate a bit on the notions of coercion, autonomy and choice. From
> what I have studied, the concept of a player used in game theory works
> well. Free will is the ability for an autonomous agent to make uncoercered
> choices from a set of simultaneously inspectable choices.
>
>
> On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 11:08:29AM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/30/2012 4:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
 Free-will is an informal term use in many informal setting.
 religious people defined it often by the ability to choose
 consciously between doing bad things or not, and people from the
 law can invoke it as a general precondition for making sense of
 the responsibility idea. In cognitive science we can at least
 approximate it in different ways, and basically, with
 computationalism it is the ability to make choice in absence of
 complete information, and knowledge of that incomplete feature.

>>> I'm not clear on why you emphasize incomplete information?  What
>>> would constitute complete information? and why how would that
>>> obviate 'free will'.  Is it coercive?
>>>
>>> With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal
>> choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being.
>>
>> Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a
>> wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is
>> usually beaten by an irrational being.
>>
>> This is where the idea that free will is the capability to act
>> irrationally (or as I put it "do something stupid") comes from. There
>> are definite evolutionary advantages to acting irrationally some of
>> the time (though not all the time :).
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
> "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
> ~ Francis Bacon
>
>
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Re: Free will: a definition

[meekerdb]

On 7/31/2012 11:10 AM, R AM wrote:

On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal
choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being.

Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a
wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is
usually beaten by an irrational being.

With incomplete information, a rational being will make the best
choice under the available information and would beat an irrational
being most of the time.



Right. I don't think 'complete information' is even a well defined concept.  It's only a 
good approximation in games like chess, but in life all decisions are made on incomplete 
information with finite future horizons and uncertainty about the value of different outcomes.


Brent

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Re: Free will: a definition

[R AM]

> On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>> With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal
>> choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being.
>>
>> Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a
>> wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is
>> usually beaten by an irrational being.

With incomplete information, a rational being will make the best
choice under the available information and would beat an irrational
being most of the time.

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Re: Free will: a definition

[Stephen P. King]

Dear Russell,

In our definition of the concept of "free will", it seems that we 
need to elaborate a bit on the notions of coercion, autonomy and choice. 
From what I have studied, the concept of a player used in game theory 
works well. Free will is the ability for an autonomous agent to make 
uncoercered choices from a set of simultaneously inspectable choices.



On 7/30/2012 7:05 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 11:08:29AM -0700, meekerdb wrote:

On 7/30/2012 4:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Free-will is an informal term use in many informal setting.
religious people defined it often by the ability to choose
consciously between doing bad things or not, and people from the
law can invoke it as a general precondition for making sense of
the responsibility idea. In cognitive science we can at least
approximate it in different ways, and basically, with
computationalism it is the ability to make choice in absence of
complete information, and knowledge of that incomplete feature.

I'm not clear on why you emphasize incomplete information?  What
would constitute complete information? and why how would that
obviate 'free will'.  Is it coercive?


With complete information, a totally rational being makes optimal
choices, and has no free will, but always beats an irrational being.

Conversely, with incomplete information, a rational being will make a
wrong choice, or simply fail to make a choice at all, and so is
usually beaten by an irrational being.

This is where the idea that free will is the capability to act
irrationally (or as I put it "do something stupid") comes from. There
are definite evolutionary advantages to acting irrationally some of
the time (though not all the time :).





--
Onward!

Stephen

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon


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