excreationist

So I guess this means that at the moment no chess computer can easily beat Kasparov. But many chess programs can easily beat less talented chess players, such as myself, and they would be deterministic.

excreationist

madmax2976:
I'll just ask what I asked before, again...

In A.I., they talk about decisions and the decision process a lot. This involves an initial set of options that are evaluated so that the optimal option is selected.

In the case of a chess computer, there are dozens of valid options that it can select from to make its move. It then selects an option that appears to be optimal, although if it is playing against Kasparov, it might actually have been a sub-optimal selection since it might result in it losing the game. (The goal is for it to win the game)

Anyway, selections between valid options are made to seek a longer term goal. Do you disagree that chess computers tend to win games (assuming the opponents aren't very talented)? Even if they always lost since they were playing against a good player, they are still making selections based on what seems to result in them winning the game.

So is a computer that selects the optimal option from a set of valid options, according to its goal making a decision or not? If not, what is it doing?

And if decisions are impossible in a deterministic universe, how can they become possible again? If randomness is introduced? How does subtle randomness and the resultant non-determinism suddenly result in people truly being able to make decisions or choose?

DRFseven

Some things we just weren't meant to understand. It's all a big mystery to Will Robinson. If the universe is deterministic there is no such thing as choice. Daisy, Dai-sy,.....give.....me.........your...........an..... .....swer,..................do.............

madmax2976

This is chaos theory which is interesting but irrelevant to the issue. Our inability to take measurements or perform the calculations wouldn't change the situation. If the extreme deterministic position were true, the laws of nature would force events to occur certain ways whether we have the ability to do predictions or not. Just like the rock, we would have no choice in the paths that we take even if we can't tell which ones we will take.

Of course there is a flip side to this. With quantum theory we could say that there is an element of randomness to the universe. However randomness wouldn't seem to allow for choice any more than extreme determinism would. The actions of your brains cells - your very thoughts would just be random events. Not much choice there. We'd just do what whatever for no particular reason.

madmax2976

<strong> It is not a matter of "knowing" anything. It is a matter of a reasonable conclusion if extreme determinism were true. This is a thought experiment. Ask yourself this question: Does a rock choose which way it falls down a hill? Does a planet choose which way it rotates or how fast it rotates? Does a galaxy choose how it will be formed?

If the laws of nature dictate those events and all other events as well, including the actions of your very brain cells, then choice would be an illusion.

If extreme determinism were true, you would only appear to be making a choice because of the vast array of factors involved.

This is all explained in one of the websites I posted. These are not new issues but have been debated by philosophers and scientists for decades.

<strong> Your talking about how we make choices and assuming a priori that we do. This misses the question of the thread.

The question would be: What causes us to take one path rather than another? If extreme determinism were true, the "causes" are the laws of nature. There would be no "us" involved.

<strong> First of all I have made my own opinion abundantly clear. I have even offered my own solution to the question. This is a thought experiment. If you understoood the issues of determinism as it relates to choice then you wouldn't be concentrating on the points that you are.

Please read the sites I posted and anything else you can find on determinism. There are many sources on the internet.

madmax2976

<strong> If it is entirely deterministic, it is acting according to the inputs it receives. It has no choice to deviate from its programming but must take the actions as dictated by its software and the inputs it receives. Given the arrangments of pieces on the board "A", it can do nothing other than action "Z".

It only appears to make a choice, because we impress our own abilities upon it in an athropomorphisizing manner. (We construct machines/devices as extensions of ourselves.)

By way of example, humans would not be able to deviate from the actions that are dictated by our "software" and the inputs we receive. Given a set of inputs "A", would would have no choice other than to perform action "Z". Thus for any given set of conditions, there would be an action that we must take.

[qb] I personally happen to think determinism is essential to making choices. Otherwise we wouldn't be able predict events based on our actions and any choices we make would be irrelevant. I could choose to shoot someone in the head or not and it wouldn't matter. The person might or might not be severly injured or killed in a non-deterministic universe.

The question, once again, is to explain how choice and determinism co-exist, and how we have choice when falling rocks, shining starts, rotating planets, and colliding galaxies don't.

Devilnaut

I read through your links and found the thinking a little bit confused.

First of all the distinctions between descriptive and prescriptive seem somewhat arbitrary, and at best unclear..


Second, I don't see how this changes things at all for a deterministic universe.


If I drop a rock, and it falls, what's the difference between calling its act of falling a description or a prescription of the event??

If descriptive laws allow for human choices, then why doesnt this apply to computers and rocks?


devilnaut

excreationist

But there are dozens of valid moves it can make. Though under a given set of circumstances, it will always select one particular move.

What about the word <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=select" target="_blank">"select"</a>?

It has some definitions that doesn't involve words "choose".

"Singled out in preference"
"Careful or refined in making selections; discriminating"

So there is a set of initially available "options" and a set of preferences or criteria, and an option is selected according to the criteria.

e.g. say the options are:
Your future salary:
1) $1000/yr
2) $10,000/yr
3) $100,000/yr

And the preferences or selection criteria could be:
[Sc &gt;= Sx]1...n

For each salary, the chosen value is greater or equal than it.

So the answer becomes
3) $100,000/yr.

The biggest volume:
1) 20 x 20 x 20
2) 30 x 30 x 9
3) 70 x 10 x 10
4) 10 x 60 x 12

Here the selection criteria is to maximize l x w x h.

I think you can talk about selections being made in a deterministic universe, do you agree?

Well we make selections based on abstract criteria.
e.g. we might select the largest salary because we believe that it will result in us having the most happiness in the future.
Falling rocks, etc, don't have abstract preferences - they react to their environment in very primitive ways.

DRFseven

You're talking about two sides of the same coin. Universal determinism describes the neural activity involved in choices. If materialism is true, the behavioral translation of that neural activity either is the decision or causes the decision (I think it IS the decision).

I'm assuming by "extreme determinism" you mean "hard determinism" in a Skinnerian sense. I don't think behavior can be described by hard determinism because I think mental events are as much a stimulus for behavior as external stimuli. I also don't think there is a specific brain state that equals a specific behavior (though that may turn out to be true); I think the evidence points to different people employing different constellations. I do, however, think that specific brain states determine whatever behavior follows.

Incidently, I asked my husband tonight if he were a hard determinist. He said "Not right now."

madmax2976

<strong> Will it? Or does it have no choice but to take a particular action given the inputs it receives? Choice would infer that it wouldn't have to take some particular action.

The hard determinist would argue that we are no different. Given a set of inputs, we must take a particular action. Any sense we made a choice would be illusory.

<strong> I've made my position clear; I agree, but the hard determinist won't. The determinist will say that all of our preferences can be traced back to the laws of nature that dictatewhat they will be. They would say that ontologically speaking we no more make choices than eco-systems make choices in how they will be operate.

<strong> The hard determinist will say your beliefs are the way the are because the neurons in your brain are they way they are. Everything, including our brain neurons/cells, is governed by the laws of nature which "forces" things to occur in certain ways and allow us to predict events. (Scientists use laws all the time to achieve repeatable experiments and tests.) They will say the variables in human actions are more complicated than most things; we may lack the ability to do the predicting, but the result is still the same: Events occur the way they do because they laws of nature dictate that they must.