Re: Strong AI Thesis (No Chinese room, I promise)

JGCASEY wrote:


Michael Olea wrote:
JGCASEY wrote:

Allan C Cybulskie wrote:
"JGCASEY" <jgkjcasey@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message


So if the "soul" caused the choice as long as the "soul"
wasn't determined we'd be okay.


Essentially we are at an impasse here because I cannot
imagine something as "uncaused". If it happens for a
reason (which is a cause) then it is determined. I don't
have examples of things that "just happen" that I can
then show really did "just happen" without anything from
which it could happen.

Quantum mechanics. An example is radioactive decay. In this
realm stuff happens, on average, with a probability equal to
the square of the amplitude of some wave function. Within
that envelope exactly what happens, one event or another,
happens "without cause", though at a statistically predictable
rate. There is no emperical basis for recourse to "hidden
causes" that "really" determine what happens - quite the
opposite, in fact. The gist of the Bell inequality, John
Bell's theorem, is that there are testable differences in the
outcomes of "quantum entanglement" experiments that depend on
whether or not there can be "hidden variables" at work that
"cause" what emperically seem to be fundamentally random
events. Those experiments have been done (the most decisive
being the Aspect epxperiments). The results, most physicists
agree, are unmistakeable - no hidden variables. Some things
are just fundamentally random, fundamentally uncaused.

Of course there are always elaborate alternatives - e.g.
pilot waves with "non-local hidden variables", but these all
abandon causality at some level, and have the look and feel
of epicycles constructed only to preserve some vestige of
causality where the evidence does not seem to support it.
Even if one of these is correct causality still takes a hit
- in the quantum realm.

None of which should be construed as giving any support to
dualist ectoplasmic goo - but ever since QM modern science
has had to reckon with things that at some level "just happen".

I was aware of the crazy quantum world where things apparently
do "just happen" despite Einsteins belief that God didn't play
dice with the Universe.

But it is statistically determinate and at the macro level
things seem to be very determinate.

Things should be as they seem, else be none, eh?

We have experience, much of it supporting determinism, (I'm not disagreeing
with you here, just taking a break from a longish rant on "learning" vis a
vi "training") but none of it conclusive. It can most certainly happen that
quantum weirdness bubbles up into macro weirdness, though it cannot happen
often in our world or our intuition would be different and we would not
call it weird. Kate E, a former housemate of mine, who studied "dusty
ellipticals" (galaxies) - she was quantum weird. For one, she had a crush
on me - very weird (I was with a marine biologist at the time). Kate was -
nah, I cannot even tell you - too weird. Cute, though.

Still I don't think "things just happen" is what is meant by
"free will" otherwise "free will" would not be put up as a
reason to assign responsibility for peoples actions.

Yeah. I do not think there is any cogent notion of "free will". First, why
the qualifier "free"? If "Will" were somehow an object of inquiry (and I do
not mean Will Pearson, who might object to the hightened scrutiny) then
free will would be just one variety - an extremum. There would be utterly
abject will, more or less dejected will, semi moderate will, strong will,
weak will, formal, informal, and legaly binding will. Goats and monkeys.

"With her, on her, what you will" (honest, honest Iago).

What I was meaning was "thing just happen" as a result
of "free will" without the possibility that in fact they were
determined but we were unable to figure out how.

Will is of course an "explanatory fiction" - a superfluous mediating
variable, circular from the get go. It is not possible, as far as I know,
to reify will in any non-paradoxical way. What could it mean? Forget
evidence for or against it - just, what could it mean?

But behavioral things "just happening" in proveably acausal fashion? That
might be evidence, if "provebly acausal" was not just a phrase, but a
definite possibility, might be evidence for what? Certainly not shades of
will, which would contradict acausality. By definition it could not be
evidence at all. I'm going to bed now, and dreaming of dusty ellipticals.

-- Michael


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