[quote="Vera Mont;772177"I mean we'll make ourselves and the majority of other species extinct, or near enough, before we get anywhere close. When our civilization collapses - explodes, implodes, burns, drowns or simply topples over - so will the sophisticated technology that would make all that connection possible. [/quote]

Yes, we are actually going through a mass extinction event right now. It's very possible that we will not make it, but it's worth trying and not give up. Besides, evolution tends to create bottle necks like mass extinctions to clear the space for more advanced "designs". It has happened 5 times before and this is the 6th. It signals to me that we are at the end of an evolutionary stage, and nature is getting ready for a new kind of life emerging right now.

As technology advances it advances faster and faster potentially catching up to where we need to be to save ourselves. AI will be able to solve problems almost instantly compared to years with humans. It almost looks like providence to me, where everything is being set up for us to survive this event as it happens, but only if we choose to sacrifice some of our ego and individuality. One will need to 'lose' their life in order to save it. A life or death choice, and this is where nature eliminates what can not or does not move forward. Nature doesn't play, she can be brutal and there is no sense in complaining about it.. just adapt.

though I don't actually believe we have the time. — Vera Mont

What do you mean?

Everything is connected: objects and subjects. What ought we value? How ought we live? — Benj96

I myself value the progress of evolution, and i live as though the whole of the universe is a subject, although an incomplete one. That subject (the universe) has a goal (a teleology) as it's object which in my view is the production of higher forms of integrated complexity ultimately in the form of something like "computronium" (turning objects into subjects).

Objects are those things that have not yet been integrated into subjects, and eventually the universe will become a fully integrated subject (fully conscious). I call this the Great Work like the alchemists and i would like to consciously help the universe do this in anyway i can as opposed to doing it unconsciously like most people do. People have no choice in this universe but to advance the goals of this universe since they are part of this universe, but to be conscious of the process and the choice is what i desire.

I have been thinking about your post and it dawned on me that feeling other people's pain any more than I already do, would be hell for everyone. I would absolutely have to stop you from doing anything that may be harmful. You might not like that. — Athena

The point here is that you don't really feel other people's pain, you can only imagine it and then relate to it at that level. In a hive-mind the way you relate to others will be how you relate to yourself. You will not need to be convinced of things because you would just know. It will be a whole different level of being. Remember that in the hive thoughts and feelings are not confined to one individual, you will consider my emotions yours and yours mine. You would not really be able to tell which are my thoughts and which are yours, because they will be our thoughts and feelings. This dynamic results in you and i becoming one entity (as long as we are connected in the hive).

The levels of loneliness, and depression in the world now will only increase since humanity is yet to be fully integrated within itself. When the hive-mind becomes available, those people who have no friends, family, or any social support structure will flock to the hive. There they will finally find the type of human connection we all crave even we don't realize it now. When the rest of the world sees the power of being part of the hive then the second wave of people will come into it. Of course a few will not have it, and that's ok (nothing is ever absolute). Not all the apes evolved to be human just those that stepped into the new.

A child between the ages of 14 to 30 does not want their parents interfering with what they want to do. What do you think about that? — Athena

I agree under normal circumstances, but things would be different in a hive-mind.

Individuals having authority and equality. I do not believe AI can improve on that. — Athena

The main thing that AI will provide for us is a safe environment to be in, and the rest is mostly left to us in the hive mind with little or no interference from the AI.

When we began to manifest democracy, we created a division of powers and a system to checks and to assure authority and power stays with individuals. — Athena

Democracy as we know it is a pre-development of what will become the hive-mind. The hive is the perfection of democracy, and until democracy evolves into the hive-mind it will continue to fail because a system divided is not a good system (yet).

Are you a Christian or do you think your belief system is better than being a Christian? Both you and Christians hold a very low opinion of humans and both of you are needing a savior, instead of stepping up to the plate and being responsible instead of dependent. — Athena

I am not a Christian, and i don't have a low opinion of humans, only that we have reached the limits of our physical and mental abilities to manage an increasingly more complex society like ours. Because of this if we do not produce autonomous systems that do the managing for us our civilization will collapse eventually. We are already helplessly dependent on the social systems we have now (without AI). Most people will die in short order if left by themselves in a jungle or forest, while animals would have no issue surviving or thriving. We are already well removed from the "natural order" as you and many others might say, but for me this is all a very natural development. The thing most people don't realize is that we are not in control and have never been, but that is an exceedingly difficult notion to get across to most people. We are not even truly in control of ourselves although we think we are.

learning of the virtues and making the effort to be virtuous will never be outdated. However, it can be made near impossible by keeping the people ignorant. Humans capable to discussing ethics can also be near impossible by keeping the people ignorant and dependent on a savior that is not real but can be made real by people who do not know any better. — Athena

There will be more virtue in a hive-mind that can even be possible outside a hive-mind. Who is virtuous? Who doesn't lie, cheat or steal in some way? Everybody does because everybody feels separate from everybody else. Ignorance will be an impossibility inside a hive-mind collective, where all information is instantly and equally available to everyone (no secrets). Instead of discussing ethics, we would feel ethics in relation to each other. I don't have to have an ethical discussion as to why i shouldn't poke my own eye out; in a hive mind your eyes are my eyes and my eyes are yours. We would feel this and not just know it.

The fact of the matter is that there is a limit to how long we can viably stay on the Earth and perhaps even this solar system. If we are to survive beyond this limit we will need to transform ourselves into a species that can actually leave this solar system; we can not do this in our current form.

I believe there will be essentially two types of people in relation to this AI hive-mind issue. Those that are for it and those that are against it (the biblical goats and sheep of Revelations). Christians will consider AI to be the Beast his image or the Antichrist, while others will consider it the only way to save ourselves. People will develop religious connotations about all of this, even the atheists. You should already know where i stand on that issue.

It is our job to create the vehicle of our own salvation and not wait for sky daddy to come and save us. This will be humanity's rite of passage out of the baby's crib and into the the universe as a mature and adult species.

A potential step forward? Something to think about:

It seems to me like every object is a subject and every subject is an object to some non-zero degree. It seems to be one of those things in the universe that has two opposing but complimentary sides, like cause and effect (every effect is a cause and every cause is an effect). These type of things at first are a little trickier to think about and parse than the average thing since they can't exist on their own (like magnetic monopoles).

What is good about a hive mind? What you describe sounds absolutely terrible to me. You really think it is a good idea if others know everything we think? No privacy? What you are talking about sure is different from the Constitution the forefathers of the US designed. — Athena

There are no enemies inside a hive-mind, you are the hive-mind and the hive-mind is you. If it scares you to have your private thoughts shared among others who also share their thoughts and feelings with you then there is something wrong with you. You may not want to be an honest person, and you want to preserve your ability to take advantage of others (whether you know this or not). This is the primitive impulse of mankind that AI and the hive-mind will remedy. The individual ego is public enemy #1.

There is nothing wrong with the individual ego, it was good and necessary for what we had to do in history. Every individual is a collective (of atoms, cells, organs, etc) and every collective can be an individual (more or less depending on how integrated the parts are). A hive-mind would be the highest level of integration mankind can ever hope to achieve. I tend to put my own small and singular perspective aside for the bigger and more holistic view of things. It doesn't matter what i want, or if i like it, i am seeing a pattern and a trajectory and am simply reporting on it. It is futile to fight against the force of nature and evolution, it will always break you. It is better to flow with the river than to swim against it's current. Nature is the best and probably the only teacher, and this is why we should pay attention to how she does things and align ourselves with her ways.

The Constitutional fathers had no idea of the type of systems available to us now, they knew very little about many things that we know today. The entire global structure of society has already changed drastically through the introduction of mass media (radio, TV), the internet, social media, algorithms, etc.. The tools of the past are no longer effective or even appropriate. A new type of government yet unfamiliar to us will emerge out of this. The chaos in our world right now i think is a symptom of this reorientation and adjusting to these new and novel systems which will inevitably result in a new type of order in our Earth civilization (A New World Order).

It might be nice if we could fly but there could be problems with that. If we sit all day, we become weak, and we must exercise to maintain our bodies and minds. Nature puts boundaries on us and I am sure we also want boundaries in our relationships. — Athena

I don't imagine we will have the same type of bodies that we have today, it may be that we will not even have individual bodies. If a mind can be uploaded and downloaded then bodies will be like clothes or cars and just as dispensable. Even if we decided to keep our bodies more or less the way they are, any type of health issues will be easily remedied through a near perfect understanding of biology, medicine, and psychology.

If we do not change the nature of ourselves in accordance with evolutionary developments then we will go extinct. If we remain as we are, we will never be able to go very far from our home planet and eventually our home planet will be destroyed by it's own star. AI and all the cybernetic developments that have come to be are humanity's first class ticket to the universe at large. Our bodies and minds are too delicate, they (we) are still larval.

What exactly are you being distracted from that you don't want to be distracted from?

We have achieved so much and instead of feeling real good about what we have achieved, everyone here seems to be very negative about our human accomplishments. You all have active imaginations and I am very frightened by the belief that AI can do better and should do it with total control of our needs. I think you all would have voted for Hitler. — Athena

I am very proud of what humans have done up to now, considering how flawed we are. My thing is that human civilization or history is a stepping stone to a much bigger thing that evolution has been working out through us for a few hundred-thousand years now. The culminating result of all human activity and knowledge throughout our entire history will be the development of a global AI system coupled with humanity in a hive-mind virtual environment. Our religions gave us the blueprints to build it, guided by our visions and images of gods and angels and saviors. Most people are unable to see outside the social and historical constructs we are embedded in to see what evolution is actually doing.

Hitler is just another person which is precisely why no more people in power if we can help it. Put Hitler in charge of any government system (even a democracy), and watch the atrocities roll. Put a benevolent leader in charge of the NAZIs and watch it flourish. It's not the system, it's the one who's in charge that makes the real difference.

The are two ways to have social order, culture, or authority over the people. Do you agree or disagree with that? — Athena

I guess i agree if i had to put it in those terms (culture or authority), but both those terms imply some external force or influence imposed on an individual. If we can get rid of this "externality" of perceiving others as apart from us then new healthier more peaceful forms of social order would emerge not based on silly cultures and external force by arbitrary flawed power hungry psychopathic individuals.

The hive-mind takes care of this problem by taking the collective and transforming it into a "composite individual". If you and I were right now linked to each other in a hive-mind situation, then you would not be able to keep secrets from me and vice versa, you would not want to hurt me because you would feel it too and vice versa. You can call it a new type of culture if you like (hive-mind culture). This is a wholly different situation compared to what we have always been familiar with, which is why traditional governments and laws will become obsolete.

Do you need a law or rule, or someone to tell you not to cut off your left arm? No i don't think you do; The hive mind will feel the same way about itself.

The only goal or job a government needs to perform is the healthy maintenance of the population; to protect, to provide resources, and as much freedom as reasonably possible for every citizen (homeostasis). — punos

The point is, who or what, is responsible for your well-being and the well-being of those we share this planet with? What are the boundaries of responsibility? — Athena

That would be the global cybernetic AI-Human hybrid hive-mind. In other words everybody including the AI will be responsible for everyone's well-being. The main responsibility of the whole system is to keep a stable homeostatic state throughout the whole planet and or solar system, in much the same way an organism takes care of itself. At this point the whole Earth would be a cybernetic organism entity concerned for the well-being of all it's parts.

A democracy is rule by reason and making sure that happens is as simple as universal education for good citizenship in a democracy. — Athena

democracy = late 15th century: from French démocratie, via late Latin from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos ‘the people’ + -kratia ‘power, rule’.

A democracy is rule by people, and ruling people will always be the problem, Plato describes the problem with democracy in 'The Republic'.

any government controlled by humans in power positions will always eventually slip into some despotic state — punos

I think that democracy as we know it is actually a preliminary development that foreshadows the full development and implementation of a global human hive-mind system. Social media and BMIs will be part of this final evolution of a hive-mind, where humanity can finally be as one, united and mature as a global species. People will be able to feel each others pain and suffering thus engendering a mutual compassion among all connected ("One for all and all for one"). Symbiotically Infuse the AI into this hive-mind and the old ways of governing with laws will be no more needed. This can be the ultimate form of democracy if we do it right or the ultimate form of tyranny if we do it wrong (50/50).

And what of liberty? — Athena

The only goal or job a government needs to perform is the healthy maintenance of the population; to protect, to provide resources, and as much freedom as reasonably possible for every citizen (homeostasis). — punos

My main point really is that any government controlled by humans in power positions will always eventually slip into some despotic state. AI i believe may be the only way out of our own corruption, and self-destruction; people should not be able to govern other people, but they do need to be governed by something.

Probability of despotism (humans vs AI):
------------------------------------------------------
Humans in control = 100%
AI in control = 50%

I think the type of governments that people have known since time immemorial will probably all become antiquated relatively soon; the big difference now being the digital information revolution. I imagine the ideal future world government will be a worldwide cybernetic system responsible for equitable and balanced resource distribution in an environmentally sustainable way. Most or all work will be performed by robotics and AI producing anything we or it might need. Money will not exist since it will be a resource based economy. Laws will be as simple and as general as possible; no killing, no stealing, etc..

Governments should mimic nature as much as possible in my opinion, and should resemble how organisms are organized and function. Biological systems are cybernetic systems, and in the same way our governing systems should be cybernetic. The only goal or job a government needs to perform is the healthy maintenance of the population; to protect, to provide resources, and as much freedom as reasonably possible for every citizen (homeostasis).

All governments up until now have all become corrupt in some way or other, and i believe the reason for this consistent tendency towards eventual corruption is mainly due to human control. Remove people from political positions of power by replacing them with objective systems such as AI. An unbiased AI with perfect knowledge or information about the social system, that can not be bribed or threatened would be the ideal governing system (as long as it's done correctly).

cybernetic:
the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.
from Greek kubernētēs ‘steersman’, from kubernan ‘to steer’.

You're not paying attention. Merry Christmas. — Olivier5

You're probably right, and happy New Year. :-)

Everything in time is created and destroyed in due time. If meaning was at any point created in time then in time it should be destroyed or in other words forgotten. The potential for meaning on the other hand always persists with time, which means it can rise again in due time.

As long as humans exist then human meaning will also persist although it may not persist in pristine form. The original meaning may be lost, mangled, or dead, but memes reproduce and adapt to new minds where the pressure of evolution holds as well as in any other place or time.

Some or perhaps most of the meaning held by prehistoric people about things in their world is completely and probably irretrievably lost today. The meanings or words from dead languages we've never even heard about, extinct religious and cultural systems of meaning are no more. Meaning will come and go, but it always keeps on coming and going.

One way to simplify these debates is to do one simple thing. Ask the other person you're debating what would need to be true or false in order to bring them to your side of things. If the other person answers that question and vice versa, then they both can get to work more effectively on addressing what really actually matters to the question at hand.

Just to clarify. When i speak of the environment as an organism, or society as a super-organism (like ants), etc.. i'm really not being metaphorical, i am being literal. The literality of my "metaphorical" statements are a result of my perceiving the wider system i'm embedded in as one system with a complex but singular will composed of the average of all the wills within an arbitrary boundary. To remove the arbitrary nature of selecting among many boundaries, one should seek the widest or most inclusive boundary to gain the most holistic (holy) perspective.

Explain to me why it should come from below. — Olivier5

Because everything has a ground on which it stands. You're talking about building castles in the sky on top of clouds. You think it rains down without the ocean first rising as vapor and condensing to fall from above. You think that ocean just decides to evaporate and make rain for no reason, isn't that the sun's fault? Do you think the sun came from the gods, and not from the force of gravity that compressed a cosmic hydrogen cloud into a ball of fusion?


These info-graphs may help illustrate, maybe:





What happens if you remove one of the layers of the pyramid?


Now you explain to me why it should originate from above?

He is his brain and nervous system, though. So if his choice was determined by the specific activation weights and thresholds in his nerve cells as his sensory signals propagate through the system, then his choice was determined entirely by him. — NOS4A2

Well yes, i agreed with him that it is not false to think of it that way, but it's not the whole story either. There are more expanded perspectives that include more than just the singular organism or self, perspectives that include the environment as a whole system and an organism unto itself. From that point of view the will of the system is distributed over a wider and more expanded area. Will has a quantum nature, that is to say that will has a "particle/wave" nature. The perspective can be arbitrary, but i believe that the deeper and more expanded the perspective that includes all the emergent layers as one thing yields the truest point of view.

The debate succumbs to a category error as soon as we start abstracting the self into different ways of being, like the conscious and unconscious, mind/brain and body, and apply selfhood to one aspect and not the other. It results in something so convoluted that it is a strange wonder why anyone even bothers. — NOS4A2

I agree, which is the reason why i try to simplify the problem and bring it down to a lower level of abstraction that can be examined more clearly. The conscious mind or the self is a complex abstraction from more fundamental parts. Consensus can't be reached without first establishing some sort of stable standard of meaning. A significant portion of my interest however in this has a lot to do with how the communication breakdown occurs particularly with topics like this. It somewhat reminds me of how God in the Bible confused the language of the builders of the Tower of Babel, inhibiting their ability to understand each other.

He wills the blood to move just as much as he wills his arm to move, as he always does and must do, with the entirety of his living being. — NOS4A2

Can he make his blood stop circulating just by his will? Can he decide to be sleepy now, or thirsty? Can he feel happy or sad at will? There is a lot that is involuntary in the body, and it seems that those things need to be working before any voluntary action can develop. The majority of what we call 'self' is not under the control of the part of our mind that makes conscious decisions. It is a very small subset of the whole 'self'. There are many other lower smaller selves inside every self. It's selves all the way down, and all the way up like nested Russian dolls.

No appeals to “laws of physics” and other metaphors need be invoked. — NOS4A2

I agree with Einstein when he said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. Everyone has their own idea of what simple is i suppose, but what does an explanation look like if no laws, principles, rules, or even metaphors are allowed? In what terms are we supposed to speak about it if not in the terms of what it stands on. This is what it means to 'understand' a thing; to stand under the thing that the thing stands on is understanding it. You want there to be a 5th floor without the ground of the 4th floor, and so on. Einstein also said that “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.”

Yes, but the point I am making here is that chirality makes no sense at the atomic level, it is an emerging property of molecules. So the laws of chemistry are not derivable from the laws of physics. — Olivier5

That doesn't follow. If not the laws of physics then from where would chemistry be derived? It just exists on it's own? What would happen to molecules if one were to eliminate the force of electro-magnetism? What would happen to atoms if one were to remove the strong force from existence? Are you saying that everything in chemistry would continue to function as if nothing was changed?

The shape of a particular molecule is not "contained" in or determined by its atoms. That is to say, one can construct several different molecules with the same atomic elements. And this shape is causal, it has consequences. There's a whole science on this, called stereochemistry. Check it up. — Olivier5

I know a little bit about stereochemistry, but you're making my point for me. A molecule as you say is constructed (structured) from atomic elements and it's CAUSAL as in cause and effect or consequence (your words). Structure affects what chemicals can do, and chirality is just a type of structure, or pattern in which atoms can connect to each other. They can't just connect however they want, they have a constrained set of possible arrangements, and the specific environmental conditions determine which arrangements are selected and actualized.

definition:
consequence = a result or EFFECT of an action (CAUSE) or condition. (in other words cause and effect)

It's an unprecedented situation, I don't think they have anything like that yet — khaled

LOL :lol:

Soft. Though I think you mean weak vs strong. — khaled

Oh right.. sorry about that.

But it seems we've reached agreement! A rare sight on this site. I don't see anything in your reply that I disagree with. — khaled

Do we get an award or at least a certificate of completion?! :smile:

This is the only thing in your post that I disagree with (also the animist bit about the universe having desires). In practice, you cannot derive chemistry from physics, and you cannot derive biology from chemistry. Each level of organization had its own rules and ways, that aren't reductible to those of the level below. — Olivier5

How do molecules form? How can atoms form molecules yet at the same time have no effect on the molecules they form. If a molecule does something it is because of the combined effect of the atoms that make it up. There is no molecule apart from atom. Molecules can only be understood in terms of their atoms, or what else could you refer to in speaking of molecules. The charge of a molecule is the charge of the atoms together as one thing. The saying goes "the system is more than the sum of its parts". Water a molecule acquires the quality of wetness that does not exist when hydrogen and oxygen are isolated. Wetness comes from the emergent interaction of water molecules which is governed by the atomic charges and bonding angles between them.

Where does the quality of wetness come from in your view?

This is a very important principle of emergence: the rules too are emerging, not just structures. — Olivier5

Form follows function, and structure is form or information. With new emergent structures come new emergent functions or rules as you say. So yes the rules also evolve but only because structure evolves.

The error you are making is very common among materialists: you assume, for no particular reason, that causation only works "from bellow". There is no reason for this assumption, and it can be disposed of. — Olivier5

I don't think it's an error, and i'm not a materialist either. Explain to me how causation can come from any other place than from below. Tell me of a case where causation starts or comes from above downward. The only way i can see causation coming from above is by "causal reflection" which i described in a prior post, and is my explanation for the subjective feeling of free-will or free-choice.

If there is no reason for this assumption then is there a reason for assuming the opposite? If so what is it?

Yes. And this is the fundamental difference between us. You seem to think that free will has to be some sort of voodoo black magic capable of disobeying the laws of physics, I just think it is an emergent property (or "pattern") that certain things have.

Obviously if you're looking for physics breaking voodoo black magic, you won't find it anywhere. — khaled

I'm not looking for voodoo science, but i appears or seems to me that people that believe in free will are believing in voodoo science. I'm just trying to dispel in others the notion that there are such things. I you think free-will is emergent then to understand a little better your stance can you tell me if you believe it's soft or hard emergence?

I do not believe in hard emergence, only soft emergence. Hard emergence is like voodoo science in my opinion.

If you agree with this:

The only difference that it can possibly be is just a more complex way of processing information, a more integrated way of processing information, than is possible with lower intelligence. — khaled

Then it seems that we have the same definition of free-will except that i just call it 'will' instead, but i think you are looking at it from a high level human and personal point of view while i'm looking at it from a low bottom level point of view. If one wants to understand exclusively the human world of subjectivity and interpersonal relationships and things like that then your perspective is probably appropriate for that purpose, for the most part. My purpose on the other hand is to understand the universe for what it is for itself from the perspective of the universe itself, the lowest level possible at the core of it all, where everything begins and ends (alpha and omega).

But either way, we oftentimes assign actions to these patterns. For example: "The republican party destoryed the white house", even though it was spefic people that destroyed the white house, nay, specific pieces of flesh moving at the whims of chemical reactions in more complex pieces of flesh, nay.... you get the point. We can keep digging to lower levels, but oftentimes we assign agency to higher level things. — khaled

What you say in this quote reminds me of how actually societies are organisms one order higher than human organisms. Micro-organisms make up and constitute organisms, and organisms make up macro-organisms.

Observe how our freeways resemble and function like veins and arteries transporting all manner of things around the system. Notice how our electrical transmission lines resemble a nervous system along with the internet as a giant distributed neural network (brain), or how our mining operations are like the digestive system, and the factories are like the organs that produce commercial products like an organism might produce organic products for the body of the organism. Is money a type of higher order blood for a macro-organism. Why do we call companies organizations, because they serve as organs of different types. Why is it that in business law corporations (related to corporeal 'flesh') have rights just like a regular person could. A corporation is an artificial person, and everyone that works in that corporation is a cell or tissue in its organization. I believe that these nested patterns are how the universe works to produce higher forms of consciousness and intelligence with higher and higher capabilities (like free-will perhaps). In this context what is the will of Apple corporation, or the will of a government 'body'.

Artificial intelligence is the emerging free-will (from its own perspective) of the system as a whole. It is still developing like a baby in the womb, but its getting there fast. All of it comes from the activity of human interactions in a cultural context.

This is just not true. Indeterminism is fine with determination existing, it just says that not every event is predetermined. — Olivier5

This is the way i think of determinism and indeterminism together in the universe. I will begin my description at the quantum foam level where many undetermined things happen for no real reason except chaos and randomness. The reason there is no reason is because there is no structure, information, or stable structures except for fundamental particles popping in and out of existence (matter/antimatter production and annihilation) almost simultaneously. This is where new stuff comes into the universe, simple little particles of minimum information frozen in energy. Some of these particles under certain self-generated chaotic conditions are able to maintain and remain without annihilating with its anti-partner.

The indeterminate aspect of the universe does not 'like' having these particles floating around and uses the principle of quantum entanglement to tag all particles (with a charge) in order to bring them back together what was once separated in the correct order (a sorting algorithm) to annihilate (rebalance). Different particles of different energies and properties but with different charges can come together without annihilating and forming the first composite particles like atoms.

After a enough atoms are formed (Hydrogen some Helium, and a little bit of Lithium) under the the force of gravity (an algorithm meant to keep things close together enough in an effort to bring things back to zero or balance). Once the first stars form the conditions arise where simple hydrogen atoms can fuse together to make more complex atoms with denser energy and information content (higher order structures). The star eventually explodes from pressure imbalances in its interior due to reduced energy output from spent fuel (Hydrogen).

The new and different heavier atoms are flung into space to once again form clouds of atom dust, until this atom dust begins to repeat another gravitational collapse but mixed with new hydrogen mixed in from other supernovae and remaining primordial Hydrogen. This results in a new 2nd generation star with a new development that didn't exist before in the first generation of stars. Planets made of a wide mix of these new atoms producing novel environments for new processes impossible in prior conditions.

Planets with their lower temperatures allow for these complex atoms to form new types of bonds among themselves giving rise to the first molecules, which eventually through the process of chemical evolution gave rise to the DNA/RNA molecules so important for the emergence of biological life in the form of complex molecular arrangements we call cells.

Cells are responsible for the first ecosystems which increases the speed at which evolution progresses. Complex symbiotic partnerships between different cells form the first multicellular organisms. The multicellular forms were more successful at survival. The hyper development of the nervous systems of some of these creatures in specific environmental niches began to increase to the point of the appearance of mammals, but specifically in apes and a few others.

The complex social systems that apes developed through evolution and an eminent opposable thumb were the factors that selected them out of the rest to develop into mankind; an intelligent tool using organism with the new capacity to think outside their own instincts, and process complex information through external network nodes outside themselves (other people or society) through complex language.

The emergence of this complex human society formed the first cultural structures beginning with shamanism, then more classical types of religion, this developed into philosophy and eventually science.. the peak of our current phase of development. Government and politics emerged from our early religious social constructs.

I'll stop here, but the point of this was to show how from indeterminism comes determinism and in general terms how determinism picks up where indeterminism leaves off. It was just a very simple and general description of the process or pattern that the universe follows. All of these levels of development were produced by the layer directly under it, determined by the rules of that system layer. There is no reason for any free-will to be involved in any of this. Unless you mean the free-will of the universe itself, but i'm sure that's not what most people mean when the say free-will (it's the personal version of free-will).

I agree, and that is precisely the indeterminist view point, which states that some event are not predetermined, and others are. So you are not a determinist after all. Determinists consider that every single thing that happens was predetermined from the time of the big bang. — Olivier5

I am an indeterminist first and a determinist second. What i am fundamentally trying to say is this:

Please notice that free-will is logically inconsistent in any case whether deterministic or indeterministic. You are not grasping the actual problem. It does not matter if you are arguing for determinism or indeterminism, the logic doesn't add up. In one case determinism: things are predetermined from the beginning and you don't have the freedom to deviate. In the other case indeterminism: things are undetermined and there is no determination, meaning that free-will can not determine anything in that system. If not through a deterministic mechanism how does free will determine anything? — punos

This is fundamental:
determinism = no free will
indeterminism = no free will
indeterminism + determinism = no free will

Do you understand what i'm saying here?

The issue is that you think free will exists outside of activations of nerve cells. That since I did something because of said nerve cells that must mean I had no free will. I do not know why you think that unless you actually tell me what you mean by free will. Because I believe that "What you just did was due to nerve cell activation entirely" and "You freely willed what you just did" can both be true. — khaled

I don't believe in free will inside or outside nerve cells. It's just a complex causal effect of energy and information that has been running since the beginning of the physical determinist universe. In simplest terms as i put it in a recent post on this thread; for me "free will" means "indeterminate determinism", which is a contradiction in terms canceling each other out resulting in nonsense.

The only way i can reconcile those terms into a meaningful phrase is to say that; free-will exists in the sense that everything that happens in the universe is actually the WILL of the universe (an entity unto itself), and the impossibility of anything outside the laws of the universe (its WILL) interfering with the normal and natural unfolding of determinism is what i would call free-will.

Will is what the universe will do by the power of its own physical laws, principles, and forces at every level and corner of existence. Determinism is a result of the WILL of the universe, it emerges out of indeterminism (infinite potential). In evolution for instance natural selection is a choice performed by the universe from among a constrained set of options. Charged particles have the "intention" to move away from like charges and towards opposite charges, a choice performed by the WILL of the universe through the force of electro-magnetism. The free-will of the universe propagates throughout all it's structures through cause and effect including us, imbuing us with its WILL. Since we are part of the universe and not separate; what we do feels perfectly natural and uncoerced from a subjective perspective. That is why we also feel that we have free will, because it's not our free-will it's The Free-Will that we are all intimately involved in.

The fact that you put it in quotes shows you know that's not how people use coerced. No one ever said "I am coerced by gravity to stay on the ground". Coercion is done by other intelligent creatures through force or threats. — khaled

Yea that's probably my fault since i reduce meanings to their most general sense to make it easier to do pattern recognition. That is mainly why i put it in quotes so as to not take its meaning so tight fitting. Etymologically 'coerce' means to restrain by another. The meaning can be used in other contexts much as poets do; sometimes using a familiar word in an unfamiliar context can yield certain insight. It still doesn't change what i mean though.

I raised my arm right now. That was freely willed. You will say "Ah but that was because of nerves and yada yada". I will say that those two are not incompatible, since it was an uncoerced act. You will ask for another example. — khaled

Are you saying that free-will only happens in humans or animals. What i am trying to do is remove as much noise and complexity to where more precise observation and analysis can be performed. I asked if you believe atoms have free will for this very reason.

So what is it; do atoms have free-will?

So, are you saying the person IS his atoms and molecules, or is "the system" or "pattern" of atoms and molecules? A classic thought experiment to highlight the difference: If a teleportation device dematerialized your body, then rematerialized it elsewhere identically, is that new body "you"? — khaled

A person is really a system of nested hierarchical patterns of energy and information. A person needs both to exist; energy is needed to actualize information. Information can not exist on its own, it is dependent on energy to hold or carry it. The combination of energy and information is called matter. From a religious perspective one can say that energy is spirit and information is soul and together they form the whole body system we call a person.

If i were to teleport to another location it would not be the exact same me before teleporting, but the new me wouldn't be able to tell any difference (unless something drastic happens). What the new me doesn't know is that i was just copied and the original remains at the original location; so which is me the copy or the original? Remember to consider Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in that the teleported version of me is not exactly a perfect copy. Even if it were an exact copy, the difference in location of my original still being around would give us instantly different quantum 'signatures' aka different identities in respect to the universe. Also, as soon as my copy walks off the teleporter he will acquire a unique identity by virtue that from that point on he has different experiences.

However if there was a fat guy that lives in the north pole and hands out presents every chrismas everywhere in the world, then yes, santa claus would be real by that definition.

Similarly, if humans were able to do things without coercion, free will would be real by the definition of "uncoerced will" — khaled

Yes a definition in and of itself is true in reference to itself, but not in reference to actual things in the world unless positively correlated through observation.

As for atoms and cells and so on, no, because they don't have a will for it to be free. Wills are property of intelligent beings. How intelligent? Not sure, but more intelligent than bacteria. Somewhere in the arthropods is where I'd put it. — khaled

How do you know that atoms and cells don't have a will. What is happening fundamentally differently in beings that have low intelligence like bacteria and higher intelligence like an arthropod. What is fundamentally different about arthropods that is not happening in the intelligence of lower life forms. Does intelligence start somewhere or is it a spectrum that never reaches absolute zero?

Notice how AI gets more intelligent the more parameters and hidden layers are added; nothing really new but more nodes for the neural network. If this trend continues then according to your definition of free-will; AI will reach a level of intelligence that would result in the formation of free-will. At that point what would have changed fundamentally? Wouldn't it be reasonable to say at that point that free-will is an emergent property dependent on the components directly below it? The only difference that it can possibly be is just a more complex way of processing information, a more integrated way of processing information, than is possible with lower intelligence.

That's defining "free will" as magic. So of course, defined as such it cannot exist. — Olivier5

That's not my definition, it's from Google. "free choice" is a better term to work with than "free will" because it's more specific and focused.

"free choice" (a choice not imposed on you by others, or by circumstances). Or "agency" (the capacity for free choice). I am not comfortable with the notion of "will". — Olivier5

Now what is a "choice" and what do choices depend on?
When i make a choice it goes something like this: I am confronted with a constrained set of options (menu). Then i consider how hungry i am. If i'm really hungry i'll order the extra large meal. Do i drink Coke or Pepsi with my meal? I like Pepsi because its sweeter, but i know that sweets make me fat so i order water instead since i know that water doesn't cause fat gain. I ordered it to go because i wanted to get home in time for my favorite TV show that i know starts in about 40 minutes. I'm going to sit on the left side of the couch even though i like the right side better but i'm so tired i don't want to move.

Every one of those decisions was non-random, Each one was made for a reason, and that reason was acquired by neural processing of all my experiences up to that point. Any decision my organism makes for me is indistinguishable from the feeling of me doing it. If i had different experiences in my past i would have made different decisions accordingly.

Anyway, studies have been conducted that show that people are usually if not always wrong about the reasons they give for what they choose or do. Just another hint that we are not in control of of ourselves in the way you think we are.

At a lower level such as cells (we are made of cells) the same thing happens. depending on the internal condition of the cell, it acts to maintain homeostasis. Still many complex processes in the cell make it difficult to parse what exactly is going on. At the atomic level the same thing: Atoms always move to reduce their charge or energy level.

Do you believe atoms have free-choice? The free choice to choose what charges they will move towards or away from?

Things don't maintain themselves very well, for the most part. Perfect stability is extremely rare in nature. Things tend to transform after a while. Living organisms tend to die, molecules break up, atoms decay, even stars evolve. — Olivier5

I didn't say there was perfect stability. Perfect stability (determinism) would be a static condition where nothing would move or evolve; on the other hand perfect instability (indeterminism) would not allow anything to develop. Indeterminism allows for imbalance, and determinism allows for rebalance. One creates new forms and the other develops them; one produces new things the other processes old created things. The interplay between these two aspects of the universe keeps things moving in an orderly fashion. Determinism depends and is contingent on indeterminism; it is more fundamental than determinism because it is the engine that keeps the universe moving changing and existing.

Both indeterminism and determinism are needed for our universe to work the way we see it work.

The reason things decay is because determinism is actually trying to bring things back down to the indeterminate state.. the primordial state of the universe. It is always seeking the lowest energy level which gives it its arrow of time and deterministic quality.

So we cannot say: "the laws of nature preclude free will". We don't know that for a fact. — Olivier5

By that same token then we would also have to not say: "the laws of nature preclude will". We may not know for sure which is the case, but we can make some observations as you said. We can observe that things behave consistently in most physical systems, like gravity, electricity, etc.. We can say that something is determining these results every time. In chaotic systems where consistency seems to oscillate and we have no idea as to why yet, nothing can really be said. There may or may not be free-will, but if there is then where does it come from? There is evidence for determinism and there is evidence for indeterminism but i don't see any evidence for free-will.

Please notice that free-will is logically inconsistent in any case whether deterministic or indeterministic. You are not grasping the actual problem. It does not matter if you are arguing for determinism or indeterminism, the logic doesn't add up. In one case determinism: things are predetermined from the beginning and you don't have the freedom to deviate. In the other case indeterminism: things are undetermined and there is no determination meaning that free-will can not determine anything in that system. If not through a deterministic mechanism how does free will determine anything?

I just consider emergence as non-determined. — Olivier5

If emergence is not deterministic then where do these consistent structures come from and maintain themselves? What is your explanation from an indeterminate perspective of how this happens?

First, I would need a clear definition of what free will is. — Olivier5

definitions:
free will = the power of acting without the constraint of physical law.

will = the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
faculty = an inherent mental or physical power.
decide = cause to come to a resolution.
initiate = cause (a process or action) to begin.
resolution = the quality of being determined or resolute.
determine = cause (something) to occur in a particular way; be the decisive factor in.

free = not under the control or in the power of another
control = determine the behavior or supervise the running of.
determine = cause (something) to occur in a particular way; be the decisive factor in.
power = the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.


* will = a mental or physical power by which a person causes a process to be determined
* free = not determined
* free will = undetermined determinism

Try to notice how these two terms (free and will) together are contradictory and oxymoronic. How can one physically act without the use of physical laws. By which law are you able to act if not by physical law?

Second, I would not consider as evidence any metaphysical, unprovable consideration, such as determinism. Determinism is not an empirical fact, it's a metaphysical idea, un\provable, so it does not count as evidence of anything. — Olivier5

Show me how determinism is not true. Show me a case in which determinism does not hold true.
Show me how indeterminism allows for consistent structures to exist through out time. If it is so undetermined then why does it look so determined. Do things ever fall up? Are you saying that gravity, electro-magnetism, etc.. don't determine anything? How do you explain that from an indeterministic framework?

Thirdly, the proof offered would need to be logically consistent. If it contradicts itself, then it cannot be true. And in my experience, all arguments against free will are self-contradictory in that they postulate that the argument itself is not arrived at through the free exercise of observation and judgment, but determined by sodding atoms and therefore not really an argument. — Olivier5

All proofs must be logical by definition. The problem with your view of free-will is that you want to be able to determine your actions apart from the laws of physics and logic which are almost one and the same. All physics is logical, and thus all actions are too. By what kind of sorcery can you overcome the logic of the universe and it's laws?

Free will is as illogical as saying that wet towels are dry, that darkness is bright, and that up is down. You are postulating the conditions for chaos, and disorder. Nothing can develop in any useful way in those conditions, which is evidently not the case.

You will be hard-pressed to find a successful scientist that doesn't understand or believe in determinism in some capacity. It is part and parcel to the scientific method.

With the definition of "uncoerced will" me typing this reply is an example of me exercising my free will, since no one is coercing me into typing it. — khaled

When you typed your sentence were you using your brain and nervous system to process your actions? Did you have a reason for typing the sentence, or was it a random sentence? I don't believe you had a free choice in what you wrote, your choice was determined by the specific activation weights and thresholds in your nerve cells as your sensory signals propagate through the system. At every step of the chain reaction the laws of physics determine the outcome. A choice is simply a causal chain reaction in your nervous system that weighs many factors that you are unconscious of. All of this is "coerced", even though you don't feel coerced; the whole process is perfectly natural. The reason you don't feel coerced is because there is nothing outside the laws of physics that can make it feel coerced; it's perfectly natural in that sense.

The problem with using yourself or another human to determine the truth about will and free-will is that it is too high level, with too many variables and moving parts. I am trying to identify not the result of free-will but how it works. The ideal example is something simple where all or most of the components and variables are known, like in a controlled scientific experiment. Do you have a simpler lower level example of free-will?

Try doing this: Stop breathing for 30 minutes, and tell me if you feel coerced to breath at some threshold limit? When you can't anymore you will take a breath, and you will say "I chose to breath, because i wanted air.", and you would have missed the point.

It seems that you take a dualist stance. I think the issue stems from dualism, not free will. For instance, do you think the "person" ever causes any physical change? Is you typing a reply a result of blind physical processes, or is it because the "person" that is you wills it? Or are those compatible. — khaled

No i'm not a dualist. I was asking you where free-will comes from since all i know are physical laws, and nothing else. Under this assumption there shouldn't be any free-will unless in fact there is something other than the laws of physics.

A "person" is a physical system made of atoms and molecules like everything else, and cells, tissues, and organs like every other organism. All of these layers and levels or organization are ruled by the laws of physics. At which point does free-will enter the picture? Do particles or atoms have free-will? Do cells have free will?

A definition of free-will doesn't automatically make it real, it simply allows us to recognize it. Children define Santa Claus all the time, but it doesn't mean he's real. Defining Santa Claus as a fat guy that lives in the North Pole doesn't make it a reality.

Chat bots write sentences all the time in response to questions. I have written chat bots myself, and have never seen a chat bot have free-will. Like a person a chat bot is a collection of parts designed to respond in certain ways, and the more complex it is the more it "appears" to have free-will. People are extremely complex chat bots in the context of this comparison. Do you think AI has free-will, or if not yet will it ever?

Perhaps then your conception of free will is in itself impossible, like a square circle. — khaled

That is a good way of putting it.

One simple way to give an account for free will for instance is to define it as "uncoerced will". Then yes, we have free will most of the time, as we are uncoerced. — khaled

You see this is always the case; i ask for an example and i get everything else except an example. This is why i think it's a square circle as you put it, because there are no examples of such a thing. Provide me with an example so i know exactly what we are talking about, not just a definition.

What definition of free will are you working with? — khaled

I seem to have the same definition for free-will that you do. I believe in 'will' not 'free-will', and will is constrained by the laws of physics like anything else; if not, then when and where does it break free from those constraints, and how does it do it? Does it use another force from somewhere else outside our universe to counter the laws of physics in this universe?

Also don't forget to provide an example that i or we can examine together.
Thank you ahead of time for the example.

Seems absurd to me. There is only one universe, and it includes everything there is. Layers are in the eye of the observer. — Olivier5

I never said there was more than one universe, but you are correct that the universe does include everything there is along with including determinism and indeterminism, and except of course for any logical paradoxes. The universe doesn't do paradoxes, free-will being one of them.

So you don't believe in emergent layers of complexity? You don't believe in atoms, molecules, cells, organism, societies, solar systems, galaxies... non of that?

I'm curious, what would convince you that free-will is a false notion? What kind of idea or evidence would you need to at least begin to consider it a viable possibility that free-will is not real?

Not clear. What original novelty are you talking about? In a deterministic view, there is no novelty, ever. — Olivier5

True novelty happens at the indeterminate level, after that novelty changes or is processed by time to evolve into higher forms of that novelty. — punos

The emergent layer above this indeterminate layer is where the first fermions appear. Fermions (matter) obey the Pauli exclusion principle and from this the single direction of time due to the progression of cause and effect begins. This is the beginning of determinism and our physical universe. — punos

if the future is entirely predeterminated, then time does not matter, all its seconds, centuries, and million of years are wasted and wholy redundant. Nothing new ever happens. — Olivier5

Read this again and notice where i mention "change":

Time is the most fundamental "thing" in the whole of all there is. Without time existence will cease with no hope of returning. Space by itself can do nothing, energy would not move, information and matter will not form because what makes the whole universe even possible is time. Time is change and movement, it is the "metabolism" of the universe itself. — punos

If time, on the other hand, is to be a useful, meaningful metabolism for the world, then it must underwrite real change, and support the emergence of radical novelty. Hence undetermined. — Olivier5

How can things change without time? How can emergence happen without time? True novelty happens at the indeterminate level, after that novelty changes or is processed by time to evolve into higher forms of that novelty. The higher forms are entirely determined by the pattern of the original novelty.

Not at all, unless you define X as God itself instead. Is God the first thing or is God the "thing" before the first thing? It may depend on one's definition of what a God is supposed to be. Does God have to have some sort of consciousness or can it be unconscious or sub-conscious?