Free will
in [Lisp]
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From: Raffael Cavallaro on 23 May 2010 11:22 On 2010-05-22 12:20:24 -0400, RG said: > >> This may be a somewhat subtle point. When someone claims (as I do not) >> that we are zombies they are claiming that our subjective experience is >> not real. I am not denying that our subjective experience is real. > > That is ironic, because all the scientific evidence indicates that it is > in fact not real. On the contrary, science can have nothing whatsoever to say on the existence or non-existence of subjective experience, since science rests logically on subjective experience, on awareness. Science is built up from observation and logic, and observation *is* subjective experience, awareness. What we call objective data are nothing more than subjective experiences that correlate well between individuals - i.e., subjective observations that can be replicated are objective data. So far from being unreal, subjective awareness is a fundamental ontological category of existence. No matter how complex the apparatus of a scientific experiment, there is no observation until a person or persons become aware of the output or result of that apparatus.[1] This is why your argument about the spatiotemporal asymmetry of subjective experience being at odds with other physical laws is unnecessary - we never get science started without taking awareness as axiomatic; we have QM because it is built on the logical foundation of subjective experience. Since you don't need to/can't prove an axiom of a logical system, you don't need to/can't prove awareness exists. Nor, having assumed it does exist to get things rolling, can you disprove it. At most you can show that the whole system is logically inconsistent, but this would bring all of science down, not subjective awareness. [1] yes, this also includes thought-experiment robots capable of recapitulating all of science from scratch. Their results are not results until you or I or some other person is aware of these results. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 23 May 2010 11:22 On 2010-05-22 17:36:20 -0400, Kenneth Tilton said: > Your problem is that there is indeed an homunculus: awareness! Please see my reply to Ron for my take on awareness. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 23 May 2010 11:26 On 2010-05-22 10:59:31 -0400, Don Geddis said: > This is what people generally mean by "free will", as contrasted with an > entity making decisions which are coerced by the goals of some different > entity. This claim is provably false. For example, about 1 person in 6 on this planet is Roman Catholic, and all of these 1 billion+ people are required, in order to be members of the church in good standing, to believe in an extra-physical immortal soul capable of moral choice. This is what they mean by free will, not some cut-down deterministic thing. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: RG on 23 May 2010 13:03 In article <htbh72$vkh$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-05-22 12:20:24 -0400, RG said: > > > > >> This may be a somewhat subtle point. When someone claims (as I do not) > >> that we are zombies they are claiming that our subjective experience is > >> not real. I am not denying that our subjective experience is real. > > > > That is ironic, because all the scientific evidence indicates that it is > > in fact not real. > > On the contrary, science can have nothing whatsoever to say on the > existence or non-existence of subjective experience, since science > rests logically on subjective experience, on awareness. Science is > built up from observation and logic, and observation *is* subjective > experience, awareness. Ah. Now I understand why you've been consistently ignoring the point I keep making about objective reality being fundamentally quantum in nature. It's because you really don't understand this point. Observation is not subjective experience, it is entanglement. See: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf Or David Deutsch's book "The Fabric of Reality" for a more complete treatment. > What we call objective data are nothing more > than subjective experiences that correlate well between individuals - > i.e., subjective observations that can be replicated are objective > data. So far from being unreal, subjective awareness is a fundamental > ontological category of existence. No matter how complex the apparatus > of a scientific experiment, there is no observation until a person or > persons become aware of the output or result of that apparatus.[1] .... > [1] yes, this also includes thought-experiment robots capable of > recapitulating all of science from scratch. Their results are not > results until you or I or some other person is aware of these results. No, you are simply flat-out wrong about this, at least from the point of view of contemporary science. It's ironic that you, who stand so strongly on scientific principle, should be advancing a point of view that has been so thoroughly discredited by science. The idea that humans have some sort of privileged status in the scheme of things, even in the quantum mechanical scheme of things, has been discredited every bit as thoroughly as creationism. > This is why your argument about the spatiotemporal asymmetry of > subjective experience being at odds with other physical laws is > unnecessary - we never get science started without taking awareness as > axiomatic; we have QM because it is built on the logical foundation of > subjective experience. Since you don't need to/can't prove an axiom of > a logical system, you don't need to/can't prove awareness exists. Nor, > having assumed it does exist to get things rolling, can you disprove > it. At most you can show that the whole system is logically > inconsistent, but this would bring all of science down, not subjective > awareness. No, no, and no. All you need to do science is classically correlated measurements, which includes the states of computing machines and reports of subjective experience by humans. And classically correlated measurements arise as a nearly exact approximation to quantum theory when dealing with large systems of mutually entangled particles. There is no need to get metaphysical to do science, just as there is no need to get metaphysical to advance you political agenda. Go read my paper, or Deutsch's book, or Eliezer Yudkowski's writings on QM. All of these are easily accessible, and the topic is much to complicated (to say nothing of off-topic) to recapitulate here. rg
From: Mirko on 23 May 2010 21:09
On May 16, 11:06 pm, Don Geddis <d...(a)geddis.org> wrote: > Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavall...(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote on Sun, 16 May 2010: > .... much much stuff unjustly deleted. Finally a topic appropriate to the lisp newsgroup :-) Somewhat tangentially to the topic at had, do check out the book `Phantoms in the brain'. From the back cover: `A brilliant "Sherlock Holmes" of neuroscience reveals the strangest cases he has solved - and the insights htey yield about human nature and the mind' An amazing book about how our brains build a picture of ourselves and reality - and how the brain can create a misrepresentation of our reality, such as having three foot long noses, a table being part of our body, etc. Mirko |