madmax2976

From this question it appears you believe we are fated to do the actions we do (just like the bean counter). This fatalistic concept would seem to preclude any sense that we actually make choices. Fate and choice mix like water and oil.

Of course humans tend to anthromorphisize many things, including machines like bean counters. We like to say the machine made a choice - but in reality the machine didn't make any choice at all, it just did what we built it to do and was unable to deviate from that path. We simply use machines to get the results that we want as an extension our choice making ability.

But if you don't believe your much different than a bean counter, thats just fine with me. I would hazard a guess that you are at least sentient.

someone

For an interesting take on the implications of quantum mechanics relating to the human mind and free will, see the work of Stuart Hameroff:
<a href="http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/" target="_blank">http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/</a>
or the book:
Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, Henry P. Stapp, Springer-Verlag: 1993.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387562893/qid=1007756056/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_7_1/002-4619912-7756801" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387562893/qid=1007756056/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_7_1/002-4619912-7756801</a>

DRFseven

Well, so long as you don't say I think we are identical to bean counters, yes. I don't think we were created by John Deere, but neither do I think we invented ourselves before we were here to do the inventing.

But, then, who was it this morning who decided to run my husband's shirts by the cleaners before running several other errands instead of on the way home? I thought *I* decided that it would be best to get the pile of rumpled shirts out of the way first. The only other person around was my granddaughter, who was sitting in a carseat in the backseat, licking a sucker and happily singing the same two lines of "Jingle Bells" over and over. She really had no opinion on the shirts, but did suggest going to visit Santa Claus at the mall again. I'm sure a decision got made, and I'm sure I made it. I'm also sure that I did not freely choose to think dropping the shirts off first made sense. I think when I saw the pile of shirts lying on the seat, the associated neurons began to fire automatically, pros and cons remembered from other laundry experiences were calculated, and the answer floated up to me, like the message on a Magic 8-ball, "Turn on the right blinker and go to the cleaners first." So I did not freely choose; nevertheless, I made a decision born of my own unique experiences.

I think that is folklore along the lines of "You have to have faith." Maybe you don't HAVE to have faith at all, and maybe fate and choice mix like water and algae.

OK, so was I able to deviate from deciding to go to the cleaners first? No; I consulted my memory and did what it said, what I was "built" by my experiences to do. The only way I could have deviated would have been for my experiences to have been different. If one of the times I had taken my cleaning later, they had said, "Congratulations; every fortieth customer gets their laundry done free.", I might have come up with a different inclination.

And I'm sure you realize that this has nothing to do with the fact a decision cannot be free of the process that determines it.

[ December 11, 2001: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

Devilnaut

Madmax, this thread will go on forever unless you realize that the problem here lies in your conception of the word choice.

To make a choice is to decide between two or more alternatives. That is *IT*. If you have something more to submit, go right ahead, but you are creating this whole problem for yourself, and quite frankly it's nonsense.

devilnaut

excreationist

I think that we are just decades away. The thing is that the A.I. community went about A.I. the wrong way for a while. They had been too focused on the Turing Test. They were very pleased with ELIZA, which they made in the 60's (or 50's?) and they thought that they were very close to making computers with full human intelligence.
There was another approach that involved tiny neural networks, also called "perceptrons"(?) Marvin Minsky said how they had some severe limitations and so they were abandoned. Then research into neural networks only really began again in the late 80's or early 90's. If it didn't ever get abandoned then research into neural networks would probably have been more developed than it is.
I think the "developmental approach" is where real intelligence comes from - humans have hardly any instincts - we just learn how to do everything - even how to walk! (Some other animals can know how to walk from birth)

Ok... it only really learns the relationships between words - it can't actually see the objects they refer to or manipulate them. So it doesn't have real physical experiences with the outside world - only with a symbolic world. But at least it is an improvement on programmed AI like Eliza. The actual program for HAL is very simple - so it is closer to how people learn.

Well as I said, I think we haven't come very far with neural networks yet - we can create virtual insects... and maybe we're at about the stage of reptiles or birds now. Hal is cheating really. I think Lucy (by Steve Grand) is actually more on the right track. At the moment you can have a few million neurons in a neural net. The amount we can afford to have would double about every 18 - 24 months. So than means in about 20 years you could have over a billion neurons in an artificial brain.
Maybe in the next 10 or 15 years there will be robots with the language skills of apes (which is pretty bad)... that is also like very young toddlers. Then maybe in 20 or 25 years it would be more like toddlers.
There is a bit temptation for AI people to just take shortcuts though... if you just program language in then it doesn't make many mistakes and it doesn't have to begin being like a baby.

malpensante

madmax, here's an excellent online article on how determinism doesn't threat free will once you reconsider what the nature of the concepts of "cause" and "posibility":
<a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/kitdraft.htm" target="_blank">http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/kitdraft.htm</a>

excreationist

It looks like he's into Penrose's idea of microtubules... well I don't think quantum physics plays a major role in our consciousness and behaviour - and neither do many other consciousness researchers.
And as far as quantum physics and free will goes, it might just allow for genuine randomness so that decisions are slightly non-deterministic.

madmax2976

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately your definition of choice is circular and therefore doesn't help me much. To make a choice is to "decide". Well, what does that mean? No doubt, many would say it means we make a choice....round and round we go.

I'm all for a definition of choice that serves as a solution to the question. I just haven't seen one that makes any real sense or any support for the definition even if I did.

I'm not sure you really understand the question or you wouldn't be so ready to dismiss the issue out of hand. It delves into areas that have been debated very heatedly for many decades. For instance, whats your view on the laws of nature? Are they prescriptive or descriptive? Are you a Necessitarian or a Regulatarian?

This thread can go "on" as long as people are willing to offer their solutions to the question of choice in a deterministic universe. I've given my answer to it, but I'm still curious what other people think.

Devilnaut

If you want a solution you're going to have to define the problem. You state that the problem is that we don't really seem to have choice in a deterministic universe, yet you fail to mention exactly WHY you think that is. You don't have a clear definition of choice, so how can you state that we haven't got it?

Further, how is my definition of choice circular? The definition of choice is to decide between two or more alternatives. I don't see how it is circular at all.

When I have to pick out what clothes to wear in the morning, this is a choice, regardless of whether or not my choice was determined. If you're asking if our choices (which we doubtlessly have and make every day, based on the definition of the word) are indeed determined, at least in principle, this is a different issue. It might raise problems with accountability (personally I don't think it does) or theistic claims of free will, but it in no way throws into question whether or not we actually make choices, for clearly we do.

devilnaut

madmax2976

DFRSeven: But, then, who was it this morning who decided to run my husband's shirts by the cleaners before running several other errands instead of on the way home? I thought *I* decided that it would be best to get the pile of rumpled shirts out of the way first.

If the laws of the universe "force" you to what you do, then you didn't make a decision. You just did what the laws of nature forced you to do. You no more made a decision to do laundry than a rock makes a decision to roll down a hill or the wind makes a decision to blow.

I'm sure a decision got made, and I'm sure I made it. I'm also sure that I did not freely choose to think dropping the shirts off first made sense.

If everything is governed by the laws of nature, your "surety" is only an illusion.

So I did not freely choose; nevertheless, I made a decision born of my own unique experiences.


If you didn't have freedom to make a choice then the action was forced upon you. That would seem to be the opposite of choice.

OK, so was I able to deviate from deciding to go to the cleaners first? No; I consulted my memory and did what it said, what I was "built" by my experiences to do.

You talk as though your memory is not part of you. If you don't believe you were able to deviate from your going to the laundry then it follows that you were forced to go to the laundry.

Of course I don't believe you were forced to go to the laundry. You could have done a great many things, but simply decided not to.

[b]The only way I could have deviated would have been for my experiences to have been different. [\b]

That is incoherent. At some point all of your experiences are "different" from the ones you've already had. Otherwise you'd have to have already experienced every experience your going to have.

[ December 11, 2001: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>