Free will
in [Lisp]
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From: Raffael Cavallaro on 3 Jun 2010 11:28 On 2010-05-28 13:34:57 -0400, RG said: > We have to guess what Ralph would say > because he refuses to say, and I consider his silence to be > hypocritical. Or one could look at the calendar and note that this was a holiday weekend in the US, and conclude that Ralph was simply not looking at usenet for a few days. I haven't been unclear at all about what I believe - you just don't agree with it. I've been very clear that I think that science must be grounded logically in subjective experience. Science is simply formulating models that correlate well with subjective experience (aka, observations) for the simple reason that everything we know starts with subjective experience. You would prefer to ground everything in QM or QIT, but you keep eliding the logical circularity of your position; we never get to QM or QIT except by going through the development of science *first* and that development is all about plain old human observation, which is to say subjective experience. You can't escape subjective experience in building the logical foundation of science. Because of this, you can't "prove scientifically" that subjective experience doesn't exist - it is axiomatic of the whole logical enterprise of science. Now you can put forward some hypothetical AI scientist which could recapitulate all of science and thus "prove" that subjective experience isn't necessary, but this argument has several gaping holes in it: 1. There is no such AI scientist, so saying what would be the case of a fictional entity is an argument without substance. It's distinctly possible that no such AI scientist will ever exist. 2. There's no way to know what such an AI would be like. There is every possibility that such an AI would develop an emergent subjective experience replete with qualia, and would therefore be in precisely the same situation as human beings - its science would be logically grounded in its subjective experience, and any attempt to "scientifically disprove" the existence of its subjective experience would be equally logically incorrect. 3. Once could validly argue that the reports of such an AI scientist are in kind no different than the print-outs of lab equipment - no observation could logically be said to be made until a human being sees or hears these reports, and integrates them logically with what s/he already knows. Note that this is *not* about the Copenhagen interpretation of QM - we never get to QM, let alone interpretations thereof, except by first going through plain old human observation of the world, which is precisely subjective experience. IOW, you can't jump out of your own skin. Your (and my) whole way of knowing the world is through your subjective experience of it. *EVERYTHING* else is built logically on subjective experience. It is axiomatic to everything we know, and therefore it is meaningless to say that its existence has been or can be disproven scientifically. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: RG on 3 Jun 2010 12:02 In article <hu8hmo$tpn$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.despam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > You can't escape subjective experience in building the logical > foundation of science. Of course you can. You and Bob Felts are both simply wrong about this. Read David Deutsch's book. You are arguing ad ignorantum. > Because of this, you can't "prove > scientifically" that subjective experience doesn't exist - it is > axiomatic of the whole logical enterprise of science. No, it isn't. Science is not about subjective experience, it is about processing classical information, which can be done by Turing machines. > Now you can put forward some hypothetical AI scientist which could > recapitulate all of science and thus "prove" that subjective experience > isn't necessary, but this argument has several gaping holes in it: > > 1. There is no such AI scientist, so saying what would be the case of a > fictional entity is an argument without substance. It's distinctly > possible that no such AI scientist will ever exist. And in 1903 it was distinctly possible that no heavier-than-air flying machine would ever exist. Look around you. > 2. There's no way to know what such an AI would be like. There is every > possibility that such an AI would develop an emergent subjective > experience replete with qualia, and would therefore be in precisely the > same situation as human beings - its science would be logically > grounded in its subjective experience, and any attempt to > "scientifically disprove" the existence of its subjective experience > would be equally logically incorrect. And in 1903 it was possible (indeed many thought it likely) that if a heavier-than-air flying machine should ever come into existence that it would flap its wings like a bird. > 3. Once could validly argue that the reports of such an AI scientist > are in kind no different than the print-outs of lab equipment - no > observation could logically be said to be made until a human being sees > or hears these reports, and integrates them logically with what s/he > already knows. One could argue this, but one would be displaying a profound ignorance of contemporary physics. > Note that this is *not* about the Copenhagen interpretation of QM - we > never get to QM, let alone interpretations thereof, except by first > going through plain old human observation of the world, which is > precisely subjective experience. > > IOW, you can't jump out of your own skin. Your (and my) whole way of > knowing the world is through your subjective experience of it. No, that is absolutely and demonstrably false. I have never personally experienced being in a quantum superposition of states. Indeed, I have never personally witnessed any QM experiment that actually demonstrated the quantum nature of anything. (I've seen polarization experiments and interference patterns, but nothing that I have personally witnessed rules out the possibility that light is merely a wave and not a particle.) So my way of viewing the world (which is the scientifically accepted way of viewing the world) is not only not dependent on my subjective experience, it is completely and utterly at odds with my subjective experience. > *EVERYTHING* else is built logically on subjective experience. It is > axiomatic to everything we know, and therefore it is meaningless to say > that its existence has been or can be disproven scientifically. No. You are completely and profoundly wrong about this. Science is no more bound to subjective experience than heavier-than-air flight is bound to being a bird. rg
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 3 Jun 2010 12:37 On 2010-06-03 12:02:36 -0400, RG said: > >> You can't escape subjective experience in building the logical >> foundation of science. > > Of course you can. You and Bob Felts are both simply wrong about this. > Read David Deutsch's book. You are arguing ad ignorantum. Science is in the business of telling us when our subjective experiences are misleading (such as our naive notion of free will, which started this subthread); science cannot be in the business of telling us that our subjective experiences do not exist. I just don't accept Deutsch's realist metaphysics (i.e., I am what would be considered an instrumentalist wrt QM). In particular, I think it is overreaching to attribute the status of ultimate reality to a set of predictive models that only cover a portion of observable reality (i.e., we don't yet have a Theory of Everything). What we have are theories that cover, very well, certain portions of observable reality. Until such time as we have a theory of everything, it is premature to say that one of the existing theories (i.e., QM) of necessity describes the nature of ultimate reality, and even more of a stretch to say that one particular interpretation of QM, (i.e., many worlds) *is* the nature of reality. What *is* reasonable, is to acknowledge that any *interpretation* of QM that purports to disprove one of the logical axioms on which all of science, including QM is built, constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of that interpretation. IOW, when any interpretation purports to "prove scientifically" that subjective experience doesn't exist, that interpretation must be wrong. > >> *EVERYTHING* else is built logically on subjective experience. It is >> axiomatic to everything we know, and therefore it is meaningless to say >> that its existence has been or can be disproven scientifically. > > No. You are completely and profoundly wrong about this. Science is no > more bound to subjective experience than heavier-than-air flight is > bound to being a bird. This is a straw man. We have no such AI. We do not know what it might be like should it exist. It is an extremely weak argument to say that the reality of science, made from centuries of human observation, and axiomatically built on the logical primacy of subjective experience, is somehow logically secondary to your hypothetical, as yet non-existent AI scientist. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Nicolas Neuss on 3 Jun 2010 13:43 RG <rNOSPAMon(a)flownet.com> writes: > [...] > And in 1903 it was distinctly possible that no heavier-than-air flying > machine would ever exist. Look around you. > [...] > > And in 1903 it was possible (indeed many thought it likely) that if a > heavier-than-air flying machine should ever come into existence that > it would flap its wings like a bird. Not if you take gliders into account. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal Nicolas
From: Bob Felts on 3 Jun 2010 18:51
mdj <mdj.mdj(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On May 30, 9:17 am, w...(a)stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote: > > > Ron: That's right, I'm an atheist. My non-belief in God follows from > > my belief in science, which is to say, in my belief that > > experiment and rational argument are the best paths to Truth. > > > > wrf3: I used to be of the opinion that one had to check their brain > > at the church door. Read Russell's "Why I am not a Christian" > > and actually thought the arguments were cogent. I was an > > ignoramous and it kept me away for years. But, like you, I > > believe that experiment and rational argument are the best paths > > to Truth, so that's why I converted to Christianity. > > Since accepting <insert theological belief system here> requires an > act of faith, there's no choice but to conclude you're not being > entirely Truthful about your belief in experiment and rational > argument. > The problem with your rebuttal is that _everything_ requires an "act of faith." Bertrand Russell, in his book, "Problems of Philosophy", wrote: | All knowledge, we find, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs, | and if these are rejected, nothing is left. (pg. 25) | Philosophy should show us our hierarchy of instinctive beliefs, | beginning with those we hold most strongly, and presenting each as | much isolated and as free from irrelevant additions as possible. It | should take care to show that, in the form in which they are finally | set forth, our instinctive beliefs do not clash, but form a harmonious | system. There can never be any reason for rejecting one instinctive | belief except that it clashes with others; thus, if they are found to | harmonize, the whole system becomes worthy of acceptance. (pg. 25) So, please, don't call me a liar unless you have some actual proof. > > Straw arguments are easy, Ron. I'd continue the discussion, but I don't > > want to have to put words in your mouth, and "Mu" doesn't advance > > anything. > > Ad homs are even easier, as you're adequately demonstrating here. > Where did I attack Ron? I've actually enjoyed dialoging with him (and Don) even though we are in disagreement over some things. |