Re: magic, morality, and mechanization

Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <lthlg5dm84orr149u2bf4eb29hr969g21e@xxxxxxx>,
no@xxxxxxxxxxxx says...
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But if we were to make a clockwork robot, and asked it if it were self-
aware, what would it say? And if it said "I think I am just as self-
aware as you humans", how could you dispute its case?

Dispute, or disprove? If it was actually sentient, it would probably
say that it really didn't know whether or not it was as self-aware as
humans.

Whatever. Anyway, how would you dispute it? What evidence would you
present to demonstrate that you operate in a different way?

I'm not sure why I'd care one way or the other, I'm not some
anti-sentience bigot as far as I am aware. If whatever it was wanted
to deal with me somehow, it would have an opportunity therein to prove
or disprove itself to me. How it would prove itself to the world at
large is not my concern other than as a matter of curiosity, and how
an inquisitor could disprove it is the inquisitor's problem (which
could probably be most expeditiously solved by burning it as a
religious abomination).


It seems very
probable that if we were to make a robot with intellectual capabilities
similar to ours, that is exactly what it would say.

Of course we have not yet made such a robot, and most likely any
attempt we make to construct intelligent entities will be based on
electronic or biological technologies, or a mixture of the two. In
principle, though, a clockwork brain is subject to the same laws of
physics as a biological one.

Here again you are assuming that the "laws of physics" are the only
laws affecting physical reality. That need not be (and I think it is
not) the case (and _that_ is the root of our discussion).

How could it be otherwise? Certainly things that we don't know about
may well affect physical reality, but if they do, presumably they are
also subject to some rules or regularities which constitute currently
unknown laws of physics.

It's my opinion that what scientific method really amounts to, once
you've looked at it and scraped away the procedural details, is the
de-conflation of false assumptions that are based (reasonably or
otherwise) on the obvious.

Men have made observations. What they have observed has been a
combination of objects and events. They have presumed that there is a
single set of "laws of the universe" that applies equally to objects
and events. I find that more and more I am of the opinion that we
(humans) have conflated two (or more) sets of "laws" into one, and
that is the reason we retain the need to shrug some things off into
the bucket called "random chance".


For example, these entities you hypothesise

I've never been as young as I used to be, but I do not recall
hypothesizing "entities" (by which I am assuming that you mean
"sentient entities", or minimally "living entities"). What I do
hypothesize is that instead of there being a single set of "laws of
the universe" that applies to everything in said universe, that there
are perhaps "properties of material objects" and separate "laws of
occurrence" that Men have conflated into these "laws of the universe".


do not seem to cause spontaeous nuclear explosions; if there are no
physical laws constraining them, why don't they?

You've never heard of an unexplained accident of any kind?


My essential point,
though, was that it doesn't matter. Soul or no soul, the argument is
the same. And that would also seem to apply if you add a hypothethical
entity called a "sapience" which is what you seem to be doing. If this
"sapience" has a memory and/or experiences events (such aa interactions
with your brain) then if it has free will, its actions must surely be
based on such memories and events, or on its pre-existing nature.

I disagree. I suspect that the reason I disagree is that I do not
consider this physical universe of matter to be all there is. Nor do
I accept the idea that an individual's essential-nature (soul if you
prefer) exists solely and entirely within this physical universe (in
fact I think that it does not and perhaps can not).

And my point is that none of this affects the argument! Wherever the
soul lives, it still must either make decisions based on its current
state, memories, natural inclinations etc., or based on factors that
are essentially random.

If said "soul" was no more than an automaton that would be true. If
however it was sufficiently alive to have a will of its own, that
would be indefinitely arguable. Certainly anything worth talking
about would take current-state and history into account as a matter of
"practical wisdom", but taking things into account is entirely
different from allowing them to make up your mind for you.


So the soul + body conbo is in the same
situation as the clockwork robot; either it is deterministic or it is
random, and if it has free will, it must lean toward the former.

It is interesting that you split the world between deterministic and
random. I suppose that given your view that is how it must be split.


I do not understand what you mean by free will since you have mooted
the issue of having any will whatsoever by presuming a robotic nature.

I posited a robot, but I don't know what you mean by a "robotic
nature". If we were to build an exact copy of a human being, atom by
atom, that would in some sense be a robot, would it not? Would it be
self-aware? I do not see why it would not be as self-aware as a
similar human which has been manufactured in the traditional fashion.

There's no way for me to know anything about replicants until one has
been produced. The possibilities have, and could still, serve as the
basis for dozens of books. The most obvious ones are (a) it's a lump
of atoms no more sentient than a carrot, (b) it's a new sentient being
the authorities cannot differentiate from the original, (c) its
creation entices the life-force of the original to move to it and the
original dies. It is not knowable until after it has happened.

In the first or third options you are positing an entity called a
'life-force' that has effects on matter,

Perhaps it has no effects on matter whatsoever, only on events.


causes electons to move for
example in such a way that an entity speaks intelligently. Supposing
it exists, what laws govern the behaviour of this 'life-force', and in
what way are they different from physical laws?

You seem very determined to "win" an argument. If I was to say
"Gerry, you win" would that satisfy you? Would it in any way affect
your ability to see things from a different point of view? I think it
would probably not. You don't "win" Gerry, and I suspect you willl
never win.


So decisions emanate from outside the physical universe?

I think that may well be the case.

But if they aren't based on the relevant facts, i.e. the current state
of the physical universe, how can they be considered other than random?
You don't seem to get this point.

Leave aside what I seem to "get" and recognize that basing a decision
on the relevant factual information, which could be called making an
informed decision, is entirely different from allowing your decision
to be made for you by the popular opinion regarding what the relevant
facts indicate.


But if so, on
what basis do you make these 'free' decisions? Do they take into
consideration experience and past events, or not?

Taking things into consideration is not the same as being inevitably
controlled by the things taken into consideration.

Suppose your experience and situation convince you that acting in a
morally "right" way will cause your death, and acting in another way
will save your life. Is there any reason for a robot to ever make the
choice that leads to death?

Why not? It depends on its programming. If it is programmed to absorb
the ethos of those around it and consider it in conjunction with its
innate programming, it may well behave morally in such cases.

Gerry, please feel free to believe whatever you choose, even though as
a robot whose every apparent decision is in fact dictated by your
history and your surroundings you are inevitably forced to believe
what you have been programmed to hold forth as truth.

--
arggh, is it priate day again?
.

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