That's OK with me. I read Pinker for the science, not the philosophy. My worldview is compatible with Neo-Darwinian materialism, up to a point. Beyond that point, my Neo-Aristotelian Enformationism takes over. :smile:Pinker takes ‘neo-Darwinian materialism’ for granted, as if it’s the obvious truth about life, the universe and everything. When he narrows his scope to evolutionary psychology and the like, then it’s not so important, but as soon as he starts to wax philosophical, his underlying scientism shows. — Wayfarer
And the agent of Randomness is not a Soul, but the hypothetical Programmer, who metaphorically used a random number generator (algorithm) to produce a patternless distribution of forms, from which Natural Selection (another algorithm) can select those best fitting the Programmer's criteria for fitness. Again, these are not scientific statements, but poetic analogies, referring to questions that are beyond the reach of the Scientific Method, but not beyond philosophical imagination. :chin: — Gnomon
No. My "agent of randomness" is Randy, my invisible friend. :joke:Let me see if I understand your position. You propose an "agent of randomness", which acts as a "self-conscious link" within the determinist chain of causation, to actually interfere with that chain. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, you are confused. But No, my hypothetical Programmer is not an "agent within randomness". But, in a very real sense, the Programmer's intention (Will) is "immanent" in the program (EnFormAction = Energy + Laws). So, the Programmer, like a pool shooter, remains outside of the chain of causation, which carries-out He/r intentions (aims ; goals ; design). However, every creature (billiard ball) that emerges in the process of calculation (causation) is subject to the Determinism of the program.Now you really confuse me. Is the hypothetical Programmer within the agent of randomness, as in immanent? Otherwise, how could the agent be free from the chain of causation? — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem with your analysis, is that you forget that the Programmer is the Determiner of the program (the pool shooter). So in that sense, the program is deterministic. But, what if the Programmer intentionally included an sub-algorithm with a feedback loop. So it could figuratively "see itself" in context (their nakedness). That's what I mean by Self-Knowledge or Self-Consciousness.Do you see where the problem is? If the programmer is working within a determinist world, then no matter what is put into the program, there can be no real free choice. Then this whole issue of bottom-up causation is not true, it's all an illusion, there is no such thing, and all causation is really just following the chain. So if we want to make this idea of bottom-up causation into something real and truthful, we need to get rid of the external programmer, and opt for something like a soul instead. — Metaphysician Undercover
But, in a very real sense, the Programmer's intention (Will) is "immanent" in the program (EnFormAction = Energy + Laws). — Gnomon
So, the Programmer, like a pool shooter, remains outside of the chain of causation, which carries-out He/r intentions (aims ; goals ; design). However, every creature (billiard ball) that emerges in the process of calculation (causation) is subject to the Determinism of the program. — Gnomon
There may be one exception to that general "rule" (sorry), though. If one species of creatures develops the power of self-knowledge (like Adam & Eve) it will also have the power of self-determination (self-interested behavior). For another metaphorical analogy, think of Tron, who somehow becomes an agent inside a program inside a computer. Tron is not the Programmer, but an algorithm within the program. The emergence of such loose-cannon Freewill Agents would be a mistake though, unless the ultimate goal required some degree of god-like Will, directed by an inner Moral Sense. — Gnomon
“Determinism is a long chain of cause & effect, with no missing links. Freewill is when one of those links is smart enough to absorb a cause and modify it before passing it along. In other words, a self-conscious link is a causal agent---a transformer, not just a dumb transmitter. And each intentional causation changes the course of deterministic history to some small degree.” — Gnomon
The problem with your analysis, is that you forget that the Programmer is the Determiner of the program (the pool shooter). So in that sense, the program is deterministic. But, what if the Programmer intentionally included an sub-algorithm with a feedback loop. So it could figuratively "see itself" in context (their nakedness). That's what I mean by Self-Knowledge or Self-Consciousness. — Gnomon
By seeing itself Objectively in context, the sentient algorithm comes to a knowledge of Good & Evil. Then, like Adam & Eve and Tron, that knowledge makes them responsible for their actions, in a moral sense. They have limited freedom from Determinism (natural laws) to the extent that they can create Technology and Culture, and even artificial creatures. They become like little gods. In that sense, they possess a Soul, or as I prefer : a Self-Image. — Gnomon
No. My imaginary friend is Randy, who is the Programmer's unpredictable servant. The Programmer's name is not "Will", but "I am". Get it? :joke:Your Programmer friend's name is Will? — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. The Creator (I Am) is the Causer/Determiner, and all Creatures, including the little-gods, are the Effect/Determined. But Randy, the randomizer, serves as a weak link in the chain of causation. Absolute Determinism is rigidly organized, but relative Randomness inserts a degree of limp Uncertainty into the chain. Due to that soft link, even the Creator can't be sure of how He/r program will turn-out. S/he is still waiting expectantly. But stuck outside the system, S/he has relinquished control to the program.OK, I assume then that all creatures, and all human beings, are all subjects of determinism, and the only one outside the chain of causation is the Programmer, Will. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. In this creation story, there is no good God versus bad Satan. The Programmer is ultimately responsible for everything that happens inside the computer world, except for any free choices made by freewill agents. Like innocent babes in the garden, Adam & Eve, succumbed to the temptation of Freewill, to make their own decisions. But their sudden knowledge of good & evil (morality) also made them responsible for their own lives. They grew-up and left the nest. And ever after, had to look-out for themselves. No more paternal divine intervention.But I might ask, if the Programmer, Will, has programmed things to make it appear to the "self-interested" individuals as if they have freewill, when they really do not, then isn't the Programmer Will really the evil one? — Metaphysician Undercover
No. As I said before, Randy is dumb pointless patternless randomness. It's smart guys like you and me, who choose to take "the road less traveled" -- the strait and narrow path to the mountaintop. I think you got lost back at the last fork in the road. :wink:This is where you lost me. I thought the causal link which "is smart enough", is the Randy agent. — Metaphysician Undercover
It's the weak link in our Deterministic chains, Randomness, that allows us to escape the Fate that Destiny has in store for us. Quantum Indeterminacy is the exception to Classical Physical Determinism.This does not provide an exception to the premise, that the program is deterministic. How could something escape that determinism, in any real way? — Metaphysician Undercover
The only way that creatures in a deterministic world could "come to know" how to escape their bonds, is for the Programmer to have made provisions for that very exception to the Rule (sorry). In Theology, Freewill is a free gift of God. In my story, it's how the Programmer can come to know He/rself through He/r creatures. The program is a mirror to the lonely Programmer. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it . . . for now. But, without that intentional weak link in the chain, nobody would be smart enough, or good enough, to avoid their Predestination. So, thank "I Am" (and Randy) for your freedom, "should you choose to accept" your mission impossible. :cool:I don't understand how these agents could come to know good and evil. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. The Creator (I Am) is the Causer/Determiner, and all Creatures, including the little-gods, are the Effect/Determined. But Randy, the randomizer, serves as a weak link in the chain of causation. Absolute Determinism is rigidly organized, but relative Randomness inserts a degree of limp Uncertainty into the chain. Due to that soft link, even the Creator can't be sure of how He/r program will turn-out. S/he is still waiting expectantly. But stuck outside the system, S/he has relinquished control to the program. — Gnomon
But, without that intentional weak link in the chain, nobody would be smart enough, or good enough, to avoid their Predestination. — Gnomon
Yes, yes, yes! Yes Virginia, there is a Soft Determinism. Your "hard" either/or distinction may have made sense in Classical Physics, but since the discovery of Quantum Physics, there is no more "hard determinism". There also is no "true randomizer". Randomness exists within Determinism.No, no, no, I don't buy this. There is no such thing as a "soft link". Either Randy is atrue randomizer, or there is hard determinism. — Metaphysician Undercover
No. Randomness is not an intervention from "outside" Determinism. It is an integral aspect of the deterministic program. Due to the inherent uncertainties of a heuristic search, the Programmer is not able to accurately predict the output of the program because it is inherently indeterminate. The Programmer can steer the process in a certain direction, with criteria & initial conditions. But the solution will still be a surprise. If the Programmer knew the solution in advance, there would be no need to run the program. And if the destination was predictable, there would be no freedom to choose an alternate path.The only reason why "I am", the Programmer is not sure how the program will turn out, is that the program allows for an outside agent Tron, to enter the program and alter the soft link. — Metaphysician Undercover
No. The freewill agent not outside the parameters. But yes, S/he adds an intended element of uncertainty to the otherwise formulaic program. The element of randomness scrambles the deterministic algorithm just enough to add a degree of unpredictability to the plan. And that touch of whimsey is the creative feature that adds the "magic" to the mix. So yes, humans are highly predictable in general ways, but unpredictable in the ways that make them unique. :nerd:Either way the agent is outside the parameters of the program, it is an unknown in relation to the Programmer. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, yes, yes! Yes Virginia, there is a Soft Determinism. Your "hard" either/or distinction may have made sense in Classical Physics, but since the discovery of Quantum Physics, there is no more "hard determinism". There also is no "true randomizer". Randomness exists within Determinism. — Gnomon
Instead Randomness exists as a hidden defect within Determinism. — Gnomon
No. Randomness is not an intervention from "outside" Determinism. It is an integral aspect of the deterministic program. — Gnomon
Due to the inherent uncertainties of a heuristic search, the Programmer is not able to accurately predict the output of the program because it is inherently indeterminate. — Gnomon
That's OK. If you are not a scientist, the fuzzy logic of Quantum Physics won't make much difference in your life. Philosophers, especially, have extolled the virtues of black vs white Logic for millennia. And, for all practical purposes, on the macro scale mathematical Logic still holds. But, on the micro scale (foundation) of reality, Logic has a statistical element, which makes it unpredictable. Fortunately, for humans, the uncertainties of Quantum Probabilities tend to average-out to predictable logical physics on the macro level (human scale) of the universe. You seem to be thinking in terms of ideal two-value (true/false) Logic, but in reality, Logic can be multi-valued (maybe). :nerd:Sorry, I will not dismiss logic for something that is illogical. And your appeal to quantum physics doesn't help, they can't even distinguish between one universe and an infinite number of universes. — Metaphysician Undercover
My reference to a "defect" was tongue-in-cheek. That's because I think the random & fuzzy element of reality is actually an intentional positive "feature", that allows for FreeWill. If the world functioned according to absolute cause & effect Logic (Determinism), there would be no allowance for deviations from the road to Destiny. Of course, some people have assumed that we are all subject to inevitable Fate, hence their fatalistic cynicism. But I am able to remain optimistic, because I see some maneuvering room within the range of possibilities offered by statistical Probability. :blush:Instead Randomness exists as a hidden defect within Determinism. — Gnomon
OK, so there is a defect in the program. — Metaphysician Undercover
In a world of Fuzzy Logic and Quantum Uncertainty, it can be both. Hence, my BothAnd philosophy. You are using two-value (either/or) Logic, while I am using multi-valued (statistical) Logic. Reality is relative, not absolute. :cool:This contradicts what you said above. Either randomness is a defect in the program, or it is an integral part of the program. It can't be both. — Metaphysician Undercover
You forget that I characterized the "program" as offering FreeWill-within-Determinism. Hence, while the overall general path of evolution is predictable (foreordained), local specific elements (you & me) are free to deviate from the program, due to the inherent randomness of the Darwinian process. The actual path is a result of both Randomness (variation) and Selection (choice). Presumably, the evolutionary Programmer intended to allow local divergent paths within the universal deterministic program. Where you see Contradictions, I see Opportunity. Where you see Crisis, I see Choice : a fork in the road. :yum:Now you've contradicted your original premise that the program is deterministic, to say now that it is "inherently indeterminate". — Metaphysician Undercover
As I said before, the Programmer, in my scenario, intentionally -- with full knowledge of the unpredictable consequences -- included a degree of Freedom within He/r otherwise Predestined world program. The empirical evidence for that conclusion can be found in the dualities of the Real World, and the dialectic of History. Some Christians believe in Predestination, because they don't think their rigid absolute God can do anything halfway. It's all or nothing. But for my flexible relative LOGOS, all things are possible (but not everything is actual) : positive & negative ; yes & no ; light & dark ; life & death, good & evil ; either & or . :brow:You didn't answer my question. Either the programmer knows about the indeterminateness, in which case the programmer knows that the system is not deterministic, or the programmer does not know this, in which case the program itself is in error because the programmer thinks the system is deterministic when it is not. Which do you think is the case? — Metaphysician Undercover
der to be meaningful to n — Gnomon
Now is the machine 'free' to make decisions on its own without its origin, or programmers, or other physical baggage getting in the way? Well no, its a physical object in the physical world, governed by the laws of nature... So its not free to do any computation it wants, just the ones confined to the universe we live in. That might seem like no restriction, but it IS a restriction. — Mick Wright
So this argument of our hypothetical programmer holds up until around 2008 and then it doesn't any more. It didn't before obviously but you'd need to understand how technology that would arrive in the future was going to work to argue anything else. Add if we top this with quantum computation and no programmers where are we? Its still a 'machine' and likely now freer in scope than a human brain. As far as we know we do not use quantum computation as a primary source of thought. The latest from neuroscience is that the brain is simply a machine where the combined output and system of the agents within it is greater than the sum of those agents. (A complex adaptive system CAS, as opposed to an MAS or multi agent system, like umm... a car or bicycle) — Mick Wright
However a machine that was maxed out even a few decades from now would be operating many times faster with much higher capacity than any human brain, or likely our entire population and then some. It might not be infinitely free in terms of compute.... but it would be freer than any human is. — Mick Wright
And the programmer now, who built this system, has a lower compute capacity, lower knowledge, lower everything than the fruits of his/her labour. It wouldn't matter now how they determined anything or their capacity for doing so.... such a machine would beat them every time and operate at greater levels of freedom. But unless the universe is infinite it can not operate at infinite degrees of freedom. So says the math.... there will always be a limit in a finite universe... hence the word 'finite'. — Mick Wright
Sorry. I couldn't locate the context of your truncated quote. So I may not understand what "this assumption" refers to. But I'll comment on your notion of eliminating the Programmer from the program running on the "hypothetical computer". The "computer" I was referring to is the universe we live in, and study from an inside-the-system perspective. Hence, we don't know the systemizer or programmer directly. However, we can still infer the logical necessity for a First Cause of the subsequent chain of causation, that began with a Cosmic Bang.Well, this of course assumes we narrow down the discussion of computed answers or solutions our hypothetical computer is capable of to machines that rely on a programmer right? — Mick Wright
I doubt that you really believe that Artificial Intelligence computers require no programmers. Instead, I assume you are referring to their "self-learning" algorithms. But I'm not aware of any AI, that wrote its own core code. Likewise, 21st century physicists can no longer assume that the universe is self-existent. Instead, they accept, as an axiom, that Natural Laws, and the Energy to apply them, were pre-existent. Of course, they deny the need for a Programmer by assuming, without evidence, that the Energy & Laws, that run on our space-time machine, are eternal --- running endlessly in a beginning-less series of multiverses.Reading your post its fairly obvious you aren't aware of this, but relax, you aren't alone. Most people out there have no clue how a modern AI works and they too think it was 'programmed' using instructions. Its not. — Mick Wright
Of course. The difference between information and meaning. No message provides the complete background necessary to make the information in the message meaningful. All messages assume the intended receiver already has at least a certain level of understanding of one or more topics. The sender need not explain what rain is, that the Sahara is a desert, or what a desert is.Then why is it surprising that it rained in the Sahara and not that it rained in Oxford?
— TheMadFool
As I pointed out, the surprisingness is only related to external information concerning the frequency of rain in these places, it has nothing to do with any supposed information within the message. — Metaphysician Undercover
Can someone explain this to me? Because it seems to me he's trying to apply (what little i know of) Shannon's work (and big thank you to for your posts in this thread) in ways he shouldn't. Maybe everyone does, and I'm only beginning to learn about all this. It seems to me I could communicate that i had an experience of pure redness in this way. But that's not the same as this being the nature of the experience. What if I had never seen the colors blue or green? My experience of pure red could not be the way it is because it is not colors i have never seen. It could only be because of the intrinsic property of "redness."In this view, the “what-it-is-like-ness” of any specific conscious experience is defined not so much by what it is, but by all the unrealized but possible things that it is not. An experience of pure redness is the way that it is, not because of any intrinsic property of “redness,” but because red is not blue, green, or any other color, or any smell, or a thought or a feeling of regret or indeed any other form of mental content whatsoever. Redness is redness because of all the things it isn’t, and the same goes for all other conscious experiences. — Seth
Perhaps you agree?About Shannon's theory - I can't help but feel too much is being read into it. Shannon was a communications engineer, first and foremost, and the problem he set out to solve had some very specific boundary conditions. It was a theory about converting words and images into binary digits - as the article notes, Shannon might have coined the term 'bit' for 'binary digit' - and transmitting them through a medium. Why it is now taken to have a profound meaning about the nature of reality baffles me a little. — Wayfarer
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