madmax2976

<strong> This would come down to how "select" is defined. If a rock is pushed down a slope, we believe there are a number of ways it could come down the hill. When it comes down one particular way, we could say that its path has been "selected". Of course the rock had no choice in the matter and I would presume the hill didn't either.

<strong> More precisely, the computer receives its input, puts that input into its algorithms, and spits out the programmed result. Given the set of inputs it received, it couldn't have made a different selection and would do the same thing again. There may be more variables involved, but its no different than the rock.

You could throw in a random number generator to make it look like it wasn't a preprogrammed response, but all you doing is adding more variables - another input. Given the original inputs and the input from the number generator it will do a particular move. It has no choice to do otherwise. The question posed by hard determinism would be whether we humans have any choice to do other than what all the various inputs mandate that we do.

Philosophically speaking I think they are asking, Where is the "person"?

<strong> From our viewpoint it was "better". I don't believe for second the computer has any sense of what "better" is. I don't believe the computer has any sense of the consequences or has any cares at all. It is not a conscious entity and won't be happy or sad when the game is finished.

<strong> We certainly like to think that there are, and from our vantage point we think its reasonable to believe so. But the hard determinist will say this is only an illusion because we are unable to do the predicting ourselves. Given a set of inputs, a particular course of action would be mandatory. There would be no "alternative" ontologically speaking.

<strong> You'll get no argument from me, but the hard determinist will say that the various molecules and cells that make up your taste buds and the various neurons that make up your brain, all which act in predictable ways through the laws of nature, are what caused the action to eat the chicken and not the fish. There was no decision, only the illusion of a decision due to the complextity of all the variables.

<strong> The hard determinist will disagree. "Alternatives" are an illusion and it only appears they exist because of human limitations. If we could run the calculations and make all the measurements we would see that the action had to occur. There were no "alternatives" ontologically speaking.

<strong> "I" would view them as options, but the hard determinist won't.

<strong> Lots of things are acceptable to me. But the hard determinist won't find any of those acceptable. They would say that ontologically speaking, there are no "options". The rock doesn't have an "option" but to fall down the hill a certain way, a star does not have an option but to shine, and humans don't have any options in doing the actions they do.

<strong> The hard determinist would say your "intentions" are the way they are because the laws of nature direct them to be that way.

John E.D.P. Malin

Madmax & NialScorva:

You quoted my words to the group. Madmax, mathematics is very bad at capturing phenomena of our universe or multiverse!

Partial Differential Equations do not cut it in ecology studies or biology or water turbulence studies! Cellular automata does! It is a more powerful tool for analyzing the parameters, exaptation and emergence events in Nature and Super-Nature [Celestial Mechanics, Cosmology & Astronomy]!

Write the four line Code for the inception, development and evolution of our Universe, sit back and run the program for 14 billion years! Computer Simulation is where we are 'at' in modern Science!

Lord Malin

Synaesthesia

Madmax, you indicated that you didn’t want this to really turn into a debate over the meaning and implications of choice and determinism. I’m going to throw in a few comments here but I have chosen to start a new thread if you determine that it would help focus the discussion.


Machines most certainly can make choices in different sense than can rocks- we are machines! A computational device can make it’s choices based upon an internal model of the world. Hence it’s behavior cannot be predicted solely by tracking external agencies acting upon the machine. This is the principle that underlies human’s notion of choice. It is not an illusion, deterministic systems can have a genuine capacity to make choices. When I am offered a cigarette I can turn it down because according to my world knowledge, it can induce cancerous mutations in my cells. This can be the case even if every previous time I’ve been offered one I have accepted. The choice can even be made if I have every intention of accepting it beforehand.

Attempts to forge a fundamental link between our notion of free will and the laws of physics are doomed to failure. Although it is nice to think we have some sort of metaphysical superpower, it simply doesn’t appear to be the case. The illusion of choice is the notion that our ability to make choices is a superpower not the notion that we can make choices.

Regarding “laws” in physics,

Laws of physics are generally thought of as such because a violation of such laws in almost invariably an indication that our interpretation of the event is in error rather than the law. It is a reflection of our state of knowledge AND it informs us about how the universe actually works.

madmax2976

So are rocks falling down hills. Just crude versions of wheels rolling down an incline plane.

<strong> Actually we count on machines acting predictably for us all the time. When they don't, we sometimes kick them and use various expletives.

But the question here is, assuming that machines (other than humans) do make selections of sorts, is this is the same thing as humans making choices? Obviously humans are conscious whereas machines are not. Humans are aware of themselves and of their world - machines are not. Humans create machines as extensions of themselves and when the machine does a selection of some sort we tend to call it a "choice". However I think this is our own prevalence to anthropomorphisize things around us. Obviously a machine couldn't care less whether the big beans go into the big hopper and the little beans go into the little hopper. WE do care.

<strong> I agree. I don't think we can speak of meaningful choice unless determinism is true. Otherwise we couldn't predict the outcome of actions. But the hard determinist will disagree with us of course.

<strong> According to the prescriptive view of laws your very thoughts, motives, cares and everything else about you is due to the laws of nature "forcing" you to be the way you are. The choice would only seem to be there because we are ignorant.

<strong> I agree that the theist idea of free will is incoherent. Obviously our decisions cannot be entirely "free" or else they would be random and thus meaningless.

I also agree that the attempt to forge a link between laws and the human ability to choose is doomed to failure. But the task is to convince the prescriptivists that this is the case.

<strong> That view seems reasonable - question the observation before you question the law. As long as we don't treat the laws we formulate as some kind of absolute guideline, it'll work. Laws - our descriptions of how things work - are supported by our observations - they're not inviolate mandates thrust upon us by... who knows what.

John E.D.P. Malin

Synaethesia & Madmax:

Laws of Physics? Machines that exercise choice? Free will vs. determinism! Laws of the Universe?

By definition, Laws of Nature [Jus naturale], are immutable, or, they are not universal Laws! Shall we find an error in the Second Law of Thermodynamics? To talk, thusly, is to talk nonsensically!

These inviolable Laws are mathematical equations with constants; it is these mathematical objects that comprise yesterday's Science!

We now use computer simulation as a technique and tool to creativity explore our universe (or, multiverse); that is, we use the computer for conducting scientific experiments. Write the cellular automata code, push the start button, and kick back and watch to see what you have made over ten million to fourteen billion years of Time!

Even our own brain, our most defective bodily organ, is undergoing an analysis to reprogram its major deficiencies. Mother Nature was an old lazy whore and quite careless in our evolutionary design!

To exercise 'free will' requires wealth and power; the poor and middle class are impotent in the exercise of their will or voluntary desires! Free will is a cruel hoax foisted on common humanity by sadistic theologians parading as philosophers [See Aurelius Augustinus, or St. Augustine's treatise on this matter]!

Lord Malin

crocodile deathroll

If the title to the thread was mere the human brain then I would probably never mention the word "universe" let alone "parallel universes". But since the topic is titled "The Human Brain and The Laws of The Universe", the human brain and its place in the universe must be given serious consideration.
Hugh Everett back in the fifties did through a lifeline to the Shrodinger Cat problem. He suggested the cat was both alive and dead as we are only observing as an observer in our neck of the universe as he suggested that the cat may well be still alive in another universe even if we observe it in this one it be dead, so the parallel universe theory is nothing new it has stuck for around nearly fifty years. It was coined as that point of time the Many Worlds Interpretation, a very outrageous claim of the time, but no one has found credible evidence to prove him wrong. In fact many imminent physicists such as Paul Davies and Steven Hawkings, find it highly plausible.

crocodile deathroll

John E.D.P. Malin

Crocodile Deathroll:

You are discussing the phenomenon of 'entanglement' in Quantum Mechanics. It has been confirmed!

Also, you allude to 'Supervention': the cat is both dead/alive above the state in which it is either dead or alive at Time 't' in event 'x' !

Welcome to the queer world of sub-atomic particle theory in physics! However, do not generalize these notions into macroscopic space! Microscopic space of 10^-23 to 10^-40 meter yes!


Lord Malin

Devilnaut

If you don't want this thread to turn into a debate, I suggest you stop arguing every post


Anyway, to say that the laws of nature are descriptive rather than prescriptive is to say that these laws are not transcendant to reality, and it acknowledges that any laws that we formulate are always only analogies of human conception, and not necessarily what is actually occuring in nature.

I agree that the laws of nature are descriptive. I don't, however, see how this lends anything whatsoever to the debate over determinism.

This thread has gotten somewhat confusing. I can't seem to not misrepresent your view. This is obviously because I don't understand it, and I'm not sure you do either (no offense).


what does that mean?


According to the descriptive view of the laws of nature, this is also the case. The laws of nature are inviolable.

devilnaut


Edit to add:

My question would basically be, how does conceiving of the laws of nature as descriptive rather than prescriptive change the fact that these laws are inviolable and therefore can be used to predict outcomes?? Whether the laws are descriptive or prescriptive doesn't seem to change the fact that should a rock roll down a hill, it is possible, in theory, to predict exactly where it will land.

[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

crocodile deathroll

Here is a nice little experiment you may like to try if you have a spare moment. <a href="http://www.swin.edu.au/bsee/mazzo/suitcase/kits/lop/lop1.htm" target="_blank">http://www.swin.edu.au/bsee/mazzo/suitcase/kits/lop/lop1.htm</a>
download this Benham's disk and print it up on your printer.
Glue it to a stiff sheet of card then cut out the disk.
Punch a drawing pin through the center of it, stick to the end of a wooden pencil then spin it.
What was just a plain black an white disk when spinning is a whole lot of concentric circles of color. An illusion of course, but an illusion caused by the unconscious visual impulses in the from you eye to the visual cortex of you brain.
It does imply the color is not out their in the external world but the manner in which the brain reacts the varying wavelength of light in the form of neural impulses. The same impluses a triggered when you spin that Benham's Disk

I sure in the future when neural science learns enough about the human brain and consciousness then it will be reduced down to a mere configuration of chemicals and the perceived world around it. If that subjective reality is emulated elswhere in the inflationary cosmos - which I strongly suspect it is - then the differences may be only evident at the sub atomic level. I feel it is far more plausible to switch from one subjective reality to another that for the mind to invoke what in effect would be phychokenesis or something rather mysterious in the brain which can cause massive objects like atoms to move around in it, or the thought of moving your arm causing the action of moving your arm.

The parallel brain in its identical parallel universe will be paralleling near identical perceptions. So most so that millions of these parallel brains will be perceived its owners as one, and thus all owners feeling as one. It is only QM subtleties go a little bit too much astray there is a split.

I can never be absolutely certain of this theory, certainty is not what I am all about, but I do find it highly plausible.

crocodile deathroll

John E.D.P. Malin

Devilnaut:

Hold your claims! They reflect a 'clean & neat' mind uncontaminated with verbal mumbo-jumbo. What was the Wittgensteinian revolution all about? Was it not to purge philosophical discussion of language games?

Determinism as well as free will are philosophical fictions in the mind. Causality is meaningful as long as one can impose scalability and granularity on its arena of operation.

The notions of self-organization programming code, exaptation and emergence are more powerful mental metaphors to explain our universe or multiverse. Computer simulation as a serious tool and technique in doing scientific experiments is leading these higher thoughts now.

I thought I might give you the inside loop!


Lord Malin