What's emerges as extraordinary is that people like you, presumably educated and smart, find this extraordinary.

Emergence of consciousness and life from inanimate matter is unremarkable then? Perhaps that's exactly what you would expect to get when you combine several types of particles with few simple properties?

Could it be that we are unknowingly creating god on earth?

Not bad, but what if we are to unknowingly become gods ourselves?

“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself"
-- Alan Watts

Yes, our purpose to create God on Earth.

Sweet, I always wanted to do that. Do we get to be part of it? Is it internet?

...I point out that given the volume of this planet almost entirely consists of conditions inimicable to life and, likewise, the volume of the observable universe is exponentially even more lifeless, it's patently unsound to conclude anything other than that the cosmos either is (A) "fine-tuned" for lifelessness or (B) not "fine-tuned" at all, but only appears "fine-tuned" due our self-serving/flattering cognitive biases (such as how we misrecognize that our scientific models...

It misses the point, which is that life, civilizations, internet, space travel... what you think, what I'm writing right now, all this is encoded and predestined in those few numbers. This is extraordinary regardless of how devoid of life the rest of universe may be. Just as a zip format for compression of information probably is already violating several of our physics, mathematics, and logic laws.

Yes. And, is anything accorded with the philosophy?

ID also has argument about chances required to mutate DNA while not breaking the code already in it. Something about random changes to MS Word software and monkeys typing on a typewriter.

But chemistry doesn't work randomly. Speaking about moderate Earth conditions, with H and O you will get H2O, not H3O5 nor H2O3. There is freedom, but there are also rules. And when water forms snowflakes, they are all "random", but nevertheless none fail to become a beautiful crystal pattern .

I will just quickly conclude now, maybe we should not be surprised if 'natural mutation' in more cases than not actually produces fully functional organism of some kind, not just birth defects and such. Although, what exactly is natural mutation, as opposed to other kinds of mutations, may not be clear or differentiated precisely at this time.

In that case any argument against that theory should work against this machine as well. What is the best criticism for computational theory of mind? And someone would need to argue that, I can't argue against myself. Or can I?

Being tied for first is not as good as being first on your own.

Being more is greater than being less. Two of those must be greater than just one. That they share the 1st place does not make any of them less great, just makes them equal.

Beings may want build a simulator to avoid illness and death. Not sure if the world we live can be justified with any such noble reason. It seems then if are in a simulation it's either a game or some test.

I think that working out a structure for AI in principle is meaningless.

It's not because there are arguments it can not be done in principle, on a PC.

The advanced use of language is - as far as we humans know - essential for intelligence, so any 'principle' that does not answer how it is to be achieved in practice is suspect.

I am not aware there are problems around AI learning to speak, are you referring to something specific?

I am talking about the machine I described. Your marchine needs not to understand, mine does.

Let me give an example to make my point.

1000 years ago there is already a world where you are possible, determinist would say even inevitable. To make a fair comparison you would need to address why would laws of physics even be 'possible', and perhaps also suggest why these particular values were in fact inevitable. And by doing so you would also imply that laws are/were not static, but changing, evolving. There is nothing wrong with it, just saying.

Natural selection holds that complex life-forms do not necessarily evolve from less complex forms by adding complexity to achieve a more sophisticated form of a particular mechanism-such as flagella for some bacteria.

So then how did flagella come to be if not from something less complex?

Definition is necessary so we know what exactly is it you are trying to say. Is there some argument I should address? I don't see it.

You have to explicitly tell the computer what to do at each step.

Execution of specific functions goes step by step. But what functions will run, with what parameters and when, can be triggered and varies relative not only to external events, but since the process is recursive, change of parameters and function branching may be triggered by the "thought" process itself.

How would you go about writing the actual instructions for feeling pain?

Is pain necessary for consciousness, self-awareness, or free will?

Would anyone suppose that this device understood the sentences it translated?

Great question. And again to answer it we must first talk about some definition, in this case what "to understand" means. Would you care to define it?

Is that what you have in mind?

I think it can be argued without it, but yes, little driver seat for consciousness, all with joystick and tiny little monitor so it can play itself as it likes. Isn't that exactly how it feels? It's interesting parallel in any case, and I do not see where the analogy breaks.

Again, how would you every know that a program incorporated qualia?

Maybe you mean it is fake if computer's inner representation of qualia is, say some list of pie-charts? I'd say no, because your electro-chemical representation of qualia hardly can be expected to make any more sense. And, actual meaning may not be embedded directly in the lower level representation of the concept definition, but calculated relative in connection to all other stored concepts.

This "relative" meaning then may be the same kind of 'feeling' about the same qualia as that of human, even though extracted from different hardware using different symbolization. But I don't think any of it matters if the machine can draw from those concepts, however internally represented, exactly the same conclusions as we do.

Ah. I was misled by the title.

With title I wanted to suggest this particular arrangement of hardware components is important to achieve all that.

Yet how could you know that the system had such an experience?

We can code it into the program and so we can be certain it has it. Can we not? It also has that inner screen, so I can say there it is qualia right there even we can see, unlike my qualia which you can not.

It's like you read that nubered list as arguments, but that's just a list of hardware components. I'm just saying a PC can be programmed to be conscious, self-aware and free willing. I'm not trying to explain anything until someone points to something that needs explaining.

To rephrase, those are labels not explanations. You may question whether the label is appropriate or not.

However you want to define consciousness, im asking how would you know. The reason why Im asking is because it would be very difficult to do, considering how very little we actually know about consciousness. How do you know you will have replicated it in this computer when you would have no way of accounting for missing aspects/basis (because you do not even know what they are)?

You can't just say Newton's laws are not quite complete description of celestial motion for no reason at all, you have to point at something even vaguely, like there is something wrong with Mercury orbit.

You are basing your opinion on some definition of 'consciousness' where there is something unknown about it. What is it? This computer talks, sings, writes poems, knows all the internet and can answer any of your questions on any language at least at the level of Wikipedia standard. It can tell you what it wants, about its personality, its habits, likes, dislikes, wishes, dreams... we can even watch what it dreams. Damn, if it's not more conscious than me, but how much more conscious can it even be?

It's just description of the functions. It can still be questioned can ordinary computer host such program, or is there something fundamental about those functions symbols can not capture.

Proper definition will be the judge. Agreed?

And by proper I mean the one most of us agree on. But in any case, all arguments put forward here should basically be about some definition or another because we are talking in general terms, limits and possibilities, rather than anything specific. Although examples and comparisons can go into particular details in any of those emergent levels of existence I mentioned.

Since my job here is to show this computer "being" indeed satisfies all the necessary definitions for my claim to be true, then maybe you would like to present the definition of 'consciousness' so we can start?

How would you achieve that though? If your program is run on a common computer, it will boil down to a deterministic set of instructions.

The question of free will, but more generally it's the question of top-down or downward causality. Let me expand this a bit so we have wider range to pick examples from.

Layers of existence - atom - molecule - cell - organ - organism - consciousness - ecosystem - planet - solar system... and there are two important and mysterious boundaries. First, where molecules become 'alive' as a collective in a cell, and second, where organs become 'conscious' as a collective in an organism. But our question stands before any of the layers, and the question is whether these collective entities from higher levels could be something more than just a sum of their parts - is there a point where what actually happens is no longer determined by the dynamics of the lower level elements, but instead by new emergent properties of the higher level?

Its audio output will entirely be determined by its initial code and visual input history. The person who codes and interacts with it can have 100% control over its output. Could you call that free will?

It all depends on the definition of 'free will'. So I can't answer your question before we settle the definition and the rest of semantics. However, I can claim it is as free as human intention can be, which means determined by such things as personality and goals, if you would agree with this?

For the purposes of the intended discussion do you care about how A and B work?

Only if there is an argument such programs could not be made in principle. And I should probably mention both programs are able to modify and expand themselves & each other.

I think that the qualia sense of experience is crucial. Without it there can be no consciousness nor free will.

I would argue program can be made to incorporate 'qualia' properties in a sufficiently robust way that enables those concepts to interact with other concepts in the thought function of the consciousness program.

Perhaps computer's inner representation of qualia would be in terms of pie-charts or whatever, but does it really matter if at the end it can still make all the same conclusions and express them with the same kind of semantics as humans do?

You need some externally derived driver for pain and pleasure. Without their stimuli the concept of 'will' is impossible to actualise.

I can imagine all my sensory inputs stop working and all I can do is speak. But I would still be able to say I'd rather have a cup of milk than punch in the face.

So-called free will has to choose between criteria for a decision. Ultimately, the way it decides is by weighing the pain/pleasure the different choices will entail.

Is it not sufficient to have goals? If offered choices that are not relevant to those goals, it can then choose at random, which is the only one absolutely free kind of choice. Right?

How does your AI learn language?

Oh, I see now where are coming from. I am talking about it in more abstract terms - what can and can not be done in principle. So in this example computer has already learned or has been programmed, and I don't want to go into those detail unless there is an argument it can not be done in principle.

Yeah, sounds good to me.

I'm searching for new definition of 'free will' since I realized "ability to choose otherwise" doesn't really cut it. The more I think about "setting future goals" the more certain I am to not have heard it before in the context of 'free will', and to me it feels very much like it.

Ability to set future goals, is this not free will in itself?

When we look at the outside world, we organize it so that all future states are fully consistent with all past states. This is necessary for us to make predictions, which we need in order to be able to act. When we do act, though, we consider that action to be guided by the future goal, not the past state of our mind. This is also necessary to be able to act.

...guided by the future goal, not the past state of our mind.

What a fantastic definition for 'free will', I thought at first. Then I realized it's not excluded those future goals be in fact determined by the past state of mind. The circle closes and we conclude no free will.

But what other possibility is there? If the future goals are determined by anything but the past state of mind, the freedom of intention is that much more restricted.

Speaking of "collective", it is interesting "the greatest conceivable being" does not forbid existence of more than one such thing. They could then form a symbiosis, some kind of collective entity like cells of our body organize themselves to form a collective known as 'human body'.

This meta-god then, made of many tiny little greatest conceivable beings, is the greatest conceivable meta-being. I think it's this guy who holds all the answers, and if not, he could probably google it on his meta-internet among the collective wisdom of these meta-gods. So at the end, internet wins.

IF, THEN in computer language - what goes after 'then' is independent function, sentence on its own. Thus truth value is taken twice, separately for each statement.

Consider Matrix type simulation in a detrrministic universe. Could it be made in principle, such that entities in there would have free will, given laws of physics could be defined any way desired?

It sounds impossible in principle, but I think it's very much an open question can a deterministic system of elements give rise to emergent units consisting of those deterministic elements, and yet still be enough autonomous and independent from the environment to deserve the name of 'free acting agent'.

Reminds me of n-body problem and how we were surprised to find out even 3-body problem is already unsolvable to us. Can be simulated, though. So do you think there is some logic or math with which we can indeed reject such possibility?

I made shit up, it's called hypothesis. You say its practical application is unknown and yet you insist it has no value. You keep failing to address anything directly, leaving me with no way to help you understand. I'm sorry, but is there any sane reason why I should not simply ignore you?

Before moving on (i still haven't been able to decipher your position, at least we know you aren't an event-casual-libertarianist now) to an objection, what do you mean by the state of mind -Why did you even bring up the mechanism then? being a "determiner"? Are you saying that it is a substance of it's own independent of causation?

Looks like I made a mistake to separate this topic from my original thread. What we are talking about now fits better there and is already fully explained. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6931/has-anyone-equated-free-will-with-identity-like-this

I do believe I went through all that at some point in time, more or less, otherwise I would not think there is something different here and worth talking about.

Actually, that isn’t classical compatibilism at all is it?

Based on how much compatibilism didn't make any sense to me before, I'd say there is something quite different, if not "more", implied in that statement.

I’m not aware of anyone proposing this, but wouldn’t this be an argument for free will rather than against it?

I see it as argument for neither, but rather as a paradox asking for redefinition of 'free will'.

But what are you abstracting from? Scientists abstract from observations or from more fine-grained models. What is the basis for your proposal?

Logic. So the only valid objection is to take something I actually said, a whole concept or a sentence and address it directly. Anything else you say just speaks to me you do not understand, like that question below.

How is this an example of downward causation?

As is explained in the opening post. Are you asking me to rephrase without you even addressing what I said the first time? Or you are just asking me to repeat myself for no reason at all?