tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post633577237219972162..comments2023-12-15T03:43:21.347-05:00Comments on Somewhat Abnormal: Level With MeRobert Oerterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09708981993708509662noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-74085388580022205562022-02-11T20:58:40.019-05:002022-02-11T20:58:40.019-05:00I can't believe people are still having a hard...I can't believe people are still having a hard time with this. Einstein had if figured out 100 years ago, and he explained it easily enough. It wasn't even his idea. Mammalian nervous systems are effective deterministic. They are robust to noise, in particular. Sure, technically the de Broglie hypothesis holds true- all matter has wave-like nature. However, there is nothing random going on there, except for the odd x-ray that comes in an produces a bit of oxidative stress here and there. (Among other EM frequencies.) In such cases- you might get cancer,but you won't get 'consciousness'. (Which in my opinion, is effectively a nonsense word. There is qualia, neural processing, modeling the world around us- planning, projection, wakefulness, etc. But consciousness is a catch-all similar to the word 'soul', and isn't well defined enough to be useful.) I find it comical that people continue looking for strange quantum effects in the brain, with the idea that somehow that randomness, if found, would allow for alternative possible futures.<br /><br />I find it likely that our *desire* to have choice / "free-will" has perverted our understanding of causality in general. To me; there is nothing that has shown the equivalence of past, present, and future- namely, there being only one of each. Not "multiple possible" futures.<br /><br />There is no reason to believe that human brains have some magic ability to "create different universes" in a fashion that other primates lack. And the slippery slope eventually reduces our ability to "choose" our future in the sense that we could have made some other decision at the same level a protist does. Or a rock. Maybe that rock is under pressure, and due to its internal bond patterns force carrier particles interacting with it- it splits in two. <br /><br />Einstein mentioned "In living through this "great epoch," it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will! In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!" in a letter to Paul Ehrenfest. I feel the same way.<br />Also, "I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he desires, but he cannot will what he desires,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper."<br /><br />People who think they get to decide what they believe baffle me. No matter how much money you gave me, or how much I *wanted* to believe it- I couldn't convince myself that 2+2 equals anything other than 4. Unless we are talking velocities, in which case.. sure. Its a little less than 4, depending on our units. <br /><br />It feels like we have choice. That should be good enough for anyone.Yes Huahuahua! Yes YESSS!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14870937584174071430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-85529451812722542692010-05-25T10:33:30.853-04:002010-05-25T10:33:30.853-04:00Why would I call you a philistine when you're ...Why would I call you a philistine when you're agreeing with me? ; )<br /><br />The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Hofstadter, Dennett, and co. are right, and people like Ekstrom are indeed chasing phantoms.Robert Oerterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09708981993708509662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-87400113302385012702010-05-24T22:24:09.703-04:002010-05-24T22:24:09.703-04:00Call me a philistine but I think your last paragra...Call me a philistine but I think your last paragraph explains exactly why free will is a pseudoproblem. When we or a machine make decisions, the particles that make us up behave in ways which we have reason to describe as "making a decision". For instance, being part of a computational circuit whose causal structure makes the answer dependent on something that at the higher level can be described as a complex analysis of the situation.<br /><br />And yes, it is because the particles are arranged in a way that (at the higher level) can be seen a computation that the action (at the lower level) is controlled in such a fine way. If not, it would be a rock and not a circuit or brain. This is actually what Hofstadter argues in I Am A Strange Loop so this explanation in some good company.<br /><br />But with that, it seems this explains the entirety of a system. In which case the other aspects discussed by those embedded in the free will debate are phantoms.a Nadderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06945133706520377518noreply@blogger.com