Free will
in [Lisp]
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From: Don Geddis on 20 May 2010 00:41 Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote on Tue, 18 May 2010: > If determinism is true, then one's feeling of free choice is an > illusion because all of one's choices, along with every other event > that ever occurred or will occur, were decided already by these same > laws of physics when the universe came into being. "Free choice" is not necessarily incompatible with determinism. It is only your lack of understanding of the bigger picture, which has caused you to believe that, in a deterministic world, any "free choice" must necessarily be only an illusion. That belief is wrong, but you have clearly never stopped to consider it. _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ don(a)geddis.org Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate ideas at a faster rate. -- Omni
From: Don Geddis on 20 May 2010 00:46 Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote on Tue, 18 May 2010: > This dualist view and the concomitant subjective sense of free choice is the > foundation of our legal and moral systems. So proving experimentally that it > is an illusion has significant implications. "Free choice" is important for our legal and moral systems. And you are correct, that historically this arose out of a dualist assumption. But discrediting dualism, does not eliminate free choice. Hence there is no danger to our legal and momral systems. Free choice remains, even without dualism. > I just discussed this with two highly educated people - both with law degrees > from one of the top 2 law schools in the US, one a professor of law, the > other a judge. Both were surprised to hear these experimental results, and > reflexively recoiled at the notion that our perception of free choice is a > post hoc illusion. That notion, which you no doubt fed to them, is wrong. We actually do have free choice. It doesn't require dualism, and it's even compatible with determinism. It is YOU who are claiming that "our perception of free choice is [only] a post hoc illusion". That's a false interpretation of the experimental results. > So though it may be a "trivial fact" to you that magnetic fields can > drastically change what people nevertheless feel to be free will > choices, or that our perception of free will is a post hoc illusion, I > can assure you that this knowledge is not widespread in the legal > community. It is fortunate that the legal community has not adopted your misinformation. -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ don(a)geddis.org I wish I could help, but I don't want to. -- Phoebe (on "Friends")
From: RG on 20 May 2010 02:06 In article <87wruzqj5w.fsf(a)mail.geddis.org>, Don Geddis <don(a)geddis.org> wrote: > "Free choice" is not necessarily incompatible with determinism. That's news to me. How is that possible? rg
From: Pascal Costanza on 20 May 2010 03:36 On 20/05/2010 08:06, RG wrote: > In article<87wruzqj5w.fsf(a)mail.geddis.org>, > Don Geddis<don(a)geddis.org> wrote: > >> "Free choice" is not necessarily incompatible with determinism. > > That's news to me. How is that possible? Just because something is determined at one level doesn't mean it's determined at the higher levels as well. For example, Google's search algorithm is most certainly a deterministic algorithm, but that doesn't mean that the search results will be deterministic as well. Same with "free will": Just because the neurons in your brain act according to deterministic principles doesn't mean that the decisions you make are deterministic. Hofstadter had a good example: If you have to make the decision to choose between a Pizza Margherita and a Pizza Hawaii doesn't mean that your neurons are oscillating between Margherita-ness and Hawaii-ness. They just act independent of what's going on at that level decision making. "Free will" can be seen as an emergent property of your body functions. Pascal -- My website: http://p-cos.net Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
From: RG on 20 May 2010 07:22
In article <85k743Fal6U1(a)mid.individual.net>, Pascal Costanza <pc(a)p-cos.net> wrote: > On 20/05/2010 08:06, RG wrote: > > In article<87wruzqj5w.fsf(a)mail.geddis.org>, > > Don Geddis<don(a)geddis.org> wrote: > > > >> "Free choice" is not necessarily incompatible with determinism. > > > > That's news to me. How is that possible? > > Just because something is determined at one level doesn't mean it's > determined at the higher levels as well. For example, Google's search > algorithm is most certainly a deterministic algorithm, but that doesn't > mean that the search results will be deterministic as well. > > Same with "free will": Just because the neurons in your brain act > according to deterministic principles doesn't mean that the decisions > you make are deterministic. > > Hofstadter had a good example: If you have to make the decision to > choose between a Pizza Margherita and a Pizza Hawaii doesn't mean that > your neurons are oscillating between Margherita-ness and Hawaii-ness. > They just act independent of what's going on at that level decision making. > > "Free will" can be seen as an emergent property of your body functions. Is there really a substantive difference between "emergent property" and "illusion"? (Feel free to treat that as a rhetorical question.) rg |