Chip with simple program for Toy

On Mar 22, Bob <bbx107....@excite.XYZ.com> wrote:
You are composed of cells, billions and billions. Each
cell follows the laws of chemistry, immutably - including
your brain cells. They just run along, minimizing the
Gibbs free energy, that's what molecules do.

More precisely, you are misrepresenting what the
laws of chemistry say.
If we accept the general intent of what you said or
meant to say, it is statistical. The importance of "random"
fluctuations to biology is increasingly appreciated.

Straw man.
Clearly, human behavior is very complex,
probably intractable. And likely, this is due
in large part to thermodynamic fluctuations.
Humans are noisy, messy sytems.

But that doesn't address the free will question.
The brain/mind may be chaotic and
unpredictable, but that doesn't mean you have
free will. You are still a mass of cells, governed
by the laws of chemistry.

To invoke free will, you must posit a 'mind',
which is somehow acting independently
of cellular activity.

Your basic point was that the laws of thermo disallow
"free will". That is false, for the reason I stated, and
which you seem to understand.
Quite explicitly, I did not claim any position on free will -- only
that "thermo" does not disallow it.

Our understanding of "mind" is not yet far enough
advanced to allow any meaningful scientific discussion
of what free will, or its appearance, is.
There's the problem: you have not defined the
term, your notions are fuzzy.

Before we can talk about ducks, we need an
operational definition; a duck is feathered, swims,
quacks. After we agree on that, we can argue
about the best ways to hunt em, cook em, boink em.

I have given my definition of free will, which
accords with the commonly held view. And
I have provided cogent reasons why it is chimerical.

You only wriggle with "science isn't advanced
enough" etc. without defining what "it" is. How
would you recognize it if it crashed through your
windshield?

Come back when you've done your homework...

--
Rich
 
RichD wrote:

On Mar 21, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Clearly, my "no magic axiom", means that consciousness
is indeed a part of physics in the sense that, whatever it
is, it is strictly the result of the physical structure in
the brain. However, it is a new axiom of physics.

By derivable, it is meant, that it logically follows from
known laws of physics.


There's another consideration... in quantum
mechanics, the observer occupies a special
place - the wave function cannot collapse
(to a particular event)without one. But
'observer' is vague... presumably, it means
consciousness. Hence, consciousness has
some attribute whch interacts with nature.

Ah, but if we accept the many worlds interpretation of QM (as many have
been doing), you don't need a collapse of the wave function.
 
On Mar 23, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
in quantum mechanics, the observer occupies a
special place - the wave function cannot collapse (to a
particular event) without one. But 'observer' is vague...
presumably, it means consciousness. Hence,
consciousness has some attribute whch interacts with nature.

There is no physics experiment that you can design
and run, which has a different outcome depending on whether
consciousness is present in the experiment or not.
er, yeah

More concisely, consciousness is present in
every experiment.

In QM, there is a sharp difference in result,
depending on whether, and where, we observe;
refer to the electron double slit experiment.
Since the only difference between 'observer'
and 'non-observer' appears to be consciousness,
we attribute special attributes to it.

Perhaps that is not logically justified...

Hence, it seems far more likely that consciousness
is a subset of nature, rather than the other way around.
I don't believe 'subset' is the right description...

Children need encouragement. So if a kid gets
an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess.
That way, he develops a good, lucky feeling.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Did you ever consider, that 100 incorrect coin toss
predictions carries as much information as 100
correct predictions?

--
Rich
 
On Mar 23, "feedbackdroid" <feedbackdr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
As you said yourself, consciousness seems to
arise from a sufficiently complex neural network.
But there are degrees... a snail has a neural net,
with brain activity, should we call it conscious?
That doesn't appear too useful.

Maybe more useful that you surmise. The alternative
is that consciousness isn't simply a yes-no issue,
but has graded degrees, and so a snail does have
a certain degree of consciousness, albeit much
much less than chimps and humans.
Perhaps... but then you need a way to define, and
measure, this 'degree of consciousness'. Which
could be done, in terms of synaptic activity.

My point is, to define conscousness in a manner
to include snails, seems counter-productive; it
doesn't capture what we experience as humans.

--
Rich
 
RichD wrote:
On Mar 23, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
in quantum mechanics, the observer occupies a
special place - the wave function cannot collapse (to a
particular event) without one. But 'observer' is vague...
presumably, it means consciousness. Hence,
consciousness has some attribute whch interacts with nature.
There is no physics experiment that you can design
and run, which has a different outcome depending on whether
consciousness is present in the experiment or not.

er, yeah

More concisely, consciousness is present in
every experiment.

In QM, there is a sharp difference in result,
depending on whether, and where, we observe;
refer to the electron double slit experiment.
Since the only difference between 'observer'
and 'non-observer' appears to be consciousness,
we attribute special attributes to it.

Perhaps that is not logically justified...

Hence, it seems far more likely that consciousness
is a subset of nature, rather than the other way around.

I don't believe 'subset' is the right description...

Children need encouragement. So if a kid gets
an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess.
That way, he develops a good, lucky feeling.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

Did you ever consider, that 100 incorrect coin toss
predictions carries as much information as 100
correct predictions?
There was a science fiction novel that explored this. Kid NEVER got an
answer right on the card test... EVER.

Turns out he had a deep psychological block that prevent him using using
his extremely strong psychic powers.

Might have been A.E. van Vogt who wrote it, not sure.
 
Gordon wrote:
On 22 Mar 2007 22:59:11 -0700, "RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com
wrote:

On Mar 21, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Clearly, my "no magic axiom", means that consciousness
is indeed a part of physics in the sense that, whatever it
is, it is strictly the result of the physical structure in
the brain. However, it is a new axiom of physics.

By derivable, it is meant, that it logically follows from
known laws of physics.
There's another consideration... in quantum
mechanics, the observer occupies a special
place - the wave function cannot collapse
(to a particular event)without one. But
'observer' is vague... presumably, it means
consciousness. Hence, consciousness has
some attribute whch interacts with nature.

I entertain the idea that our consciousness may be related to
some means for communicating with the attributes of the other
dimensions of String Theory. If those other dimensions are right
here in our midst, and are somehow linked to the three dimensions
of space and one of time that we perceive, it may be that we
communicate "over the line" so to speak. Gordon
See Hagelin's "Is Consciousness the Unified Field?"

and

"Restructuring Physics From Its Foundation In Light Of Maharishi's Vedic
Science."

http://ccdb4fs.kek.jp/cgi-bin/img/allpdf?198912227


Hagelin did the initial work in revising Flipped SU(5) uperstring theory
based on conversations with his guru about Vedic cosmology. It made his
rep in the physics world, but don't tell the physicists how he came up
with the initial tweaks to the theory.
 
Bob Myers wrote:
"RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174778585.620873.109190@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Obviously at some point a conscious observer will
gather the data from that equipment, but unless we
are willing to assert that the record of that data is itself
in an indeterminate state prior to the observation
That is the convenional view, in QM.
Schrodinger's cat...

Not quite; Schroedinger brought in the "cat" example
as just that - an example which attempted to explain,
at the normal level of physical experience, what was
going on at the extremely non-intuitive quantum level.
I don't believe anything would propose that Schroedinger
actually believed that there was truly a cat somewhere
which was existing in some intermediate state between
dead and alive, until someone looked into the box!

Bob M.
As I understand it, Shroedinger introduced his cat to show how silly the
extreme positions were.

Wigner, on the other hand, introduced his friend to show that it wasn't
so extreme after all...
 
"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1y5Nh.21078$267.63@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...
I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else.

Nevertheless I am absolutely certain that they exist in others. You see,
although I don't believe in belief without evidence, i.e. faith, but I do
hold beliefs as true so long as the evidence is convincing enough.
I suspect we're in agreement again with this, just using somewhat
different terminology. I try very hard to avoid terms like "certain"
or "believe" simply because, for most people, they bring in quite
a bit of baggage of the "faith" variety. Quite obviously, though, I
behave as those these feelings exist in others, and agree that there
is an extremely high probability that they do. Avoiding saying
"I'm certain" is just my way of keeping myself on the right track.


For example, before squaring the circle was proven impossible, one could
sort of argue that it might be "possible" to square the circle. The fact
that one didn't know that squaring the circle was impossible prior to
knowing the proof, did not make the probability of such squaring non zero.
Not the "real" probability, no - but on the other hand, "probability"
is ALWAYS an expression of our ignorance about a given set of
circumstances. Some degree of ignorance is, of course, impossible to
avoid - many questions simply involve far too many variables EVER
to know them all.

So, fo me, I take the view that there is zero probability of Zombies,
despite my lack of proof. I could be wrong, but what the hell.
And in everyday practice, so do I - I don't worry about whether
or not the next person I meet is "really" conscious. However, the
A.I. possibilities that keep coming up in these discussions are the
main reason I can't claim quite as high a degree of confidence as
you seem to re "zombies" (broadly defined to include non-human
entities) being impossible.

Bob M.
 
"RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174778585.620873.109190@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Obviously at some point a conscious observer will
gather the data from that equipment, but unless we
are willing to assert that the record of that data is itself
in an indeterminate state prior to the observation

That is the convenional view, in QM.
Schrodinger's cat...
Not quite; Schroedinger brought in the "cat" example
as just that - an example which attempted to explain,
at the normal level of physical experience, what was
going on at the extremely non-intuitive quantum level.
I don't believe anything would propose that Schroedinger
actually believed that there was truly a cat somewhere
which was existing in some intermediate state between
dead and alive, until someone looked into the box!

Bob M.
 
Bob Myers wrote:
"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1y5Nh.21078$267.63@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...
I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else.

Nevertheless I am absolutely certain that they exist in others. You
see, although I don't believe in belief without evidence, i.e.
faith, but I do hold beliefs as true so long as the evidence is
convincing enough.

I suspect we're in agreement again with this, just using somewhat
different terminology. I try very hard to avoid terms like "certain"
or "believe" simply because, for most people, they bring in quite
a bit of baggage of the "faith" variety. Quite obviously, though, I
behave as those these feelings exist in others, and agree that there
is an extremely high probability that they do. Avoiding saying
"I'm certain" is just my way of keeping myself on the right track.


For example, before squaring the circle was proven impossible, one
could sort of argue that it might be "possible" to square the
circle. The fact that one didn't know that squaring the circle was
impossible prior to knowing the proof, did not make the probability
of such squaring non zero.

Not the "real" probability, no - but on the other hand, "probability"
is ALWAYS an expression of our ignorance about a given set of
circumstances.
Actually, its not, and that is what motivated my statement above.

In Quantum Mechanics, the postulate is that there is no ignorance at all
with the inability to make an exact prediction of a particles position and
momentum. The new position and momentum is truly only given by a statistical
probability, that is mean and standard deviation. According to QM, their is
no extra hidden information unknown to us that can remove the indeterminacy
if we knew it. The information, simple doesn't exist, in principle.

Hence, we can distinguish between occurrences, that are in actual fact, not
possible, but we just don't know that at prior, and one that are possible in
principle, but we are ignorant if it can be achieved in practise. e.g.
skiing through revolving doors backwards.

Some degree of ignorance is, of course, impossible to
avoid - many questions simply involve far too many variables EVER
to know them all.

So, fo me, I take the view that there is zero probability of Zombies,
despite my lack of proof. I could be wrong, but what the hell.

And in everyday practice, so do I - I don't worry about whether
or not the next person I meet is "really" conscious. However, the
A.I. possibilities that keep coming up in these discussions are the
main reason I can't claim quite as high a degree of confidence as
you seem to re "zombies" (broadly defined to include non-human
entities) being impossible.
Again, its imagining a morph of a system getting more and more interactive
to causes and giving responses such that consciousness just emerges. It just
seems that as one tries to develop a Zombie, it will just automatically
become conscious.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice
 
On Mar 25, 1:35 am, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 22, Bob <bbx107....@excite.XYZ.com> wrote:





You are composed of cells, billions and billions. Each
cell follows the laws of chemistry, immutably - including
your brain cells. They just run along, minimizing the
Gibbs free energy, that's what molecules do.

More precisely, you are misrepresenting what the
laws of chemistry say.
If we accept the general intent of what you said or
meant to say, it is statistical. The importance of "random"
fluctuations to biology is increasingly appreciated.

Straw man.
Clearly, human behavior is very complex,
probably intractable. And likely, this is due
in large part to thermodynamic fluctuations.
Humans are noisy, messy sytems.

But that doesn't address the free will question.
The brain/mind may be chaotic and
unpredictable, but that doesn't mean you have
free will. You are still a mass of cells, governed
by the laws of chemistry.

To invoke free will, you must posit a 'mind',
which is somehow acting independently
of cellular activity.

Your basic point was that the laws of thermo disallow
"free will". That is false, for the reason I stated, and
which you seem to understand.
Quite explicitly, I did not claim any position on free will -- only
that "thermo" does not disallow it.

Our understanding of "mind" is not yet far enough
advanced to allow any meaningful scientific discussion
of what free will, or its appearance, is.

There's the problem: you have not defined the
term, your notions are fuzzy.

Before we can talk about ducks, we need an
operational definition; a duck is feathered, swims,
quacks. After we agree on that, we can argue
about the best ways to hunt em, cook em, boink em.

I have given my definition of free will, which
accords with the commonly held view. And
I have provided cogent reasons why it is chimerical.

You only wriggle with "science isn't advanced
enough" etc. without defining what "it" is. How
would you recognize it if it crashed through your
windshield?

Come back when you've done your homework...

--
Rich- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
You're a liar, RichD. a liar of the worst type. And alternatively (or
also) not too smart. Just a simple liar, that's you.

Don't get angry. You have no right to. According to you, I've no free
will, right? so I'm only typing what my 'program' forces me to. Every
time I see words like yours, I'm forced to type 'liar'. So stay calm.

But, seriously, I do think you're a liar (or, let's say, it's better
than the alternative...). Have you noticed what are you trying to do?
you try to CONVICE people of your opinions - note, all people are
'programmed', right? so, for a lot of posts, you just try to do the
impossible, according to you. So you probably don't really believe
they're programmed, right? :)

And, you seem to be over-satisfied with your last points. So let's
clear it out: you didn't write nor composed them. You're only a
printer. You just type what your 'program' tells you to. Heck, you're
not even a keyboard. Just a simple printer. Have you ever seen a
computer coming out of its manufacture line, dancing and crying 'hey,
I've a wonderful operating system and a brilliant program installed!!'
- that's what you are. You can't take credit for anything you're ever
done, said or thought.

And, let's assume you really have no free will. After all, some
(small) percentage of the population is born crippled, damaged, sick,
blind or in any other type of inormality. So let's assume some are
born without free will (that's what you feel - maybe you're correct).
But how do you know what's going on in my mind? how can you speak of
other people? I feel I do have free will.

And you do, too. Let's take a look at your (private) life: Have you
ever walked into a supermarket and wondered what type of ice-cream to
buy? why? it's a teriffic waste of time! anyway you'll walk out with
what your progam tells you to, so why waste time? just take the first
one and run out. Have you ever tried to decide which way to walk,
which words to choose, which way to do anything? time waster! I think
you're a great believer in your free will. Yopu're absolutely sure you
have it. You can't deny it anymore than you can deny your existance -
if someone supplied you with a proof you don't exist, will you stop
feeling existing? will you believe him? even if you find no fault in
the proof, there're things you'll never believe (unless you want to
believe them in order to release yourself from responsibility). So is
free will. For that very reason, no exact definition is required
(although possible) - we all know exactly what it means. We use it
every time we choose (which is almost always), and many other times.

And just one last point (although it really isn't needed), just to
refute your thermo-chemical argument (so you can stop showing your
astonishing ignorance again and again. Really strange 'program' you
have...). Many years ago, Karl Popper proved that the laws of physics
aren't deterministic. Note, he didn't speak of quantum physics (which
goes without saying) - he spoke on Newtonian Classical Mechanics. You
must know thermodynamics is much more complicated than mechanics, and
that no one really understands it (that's why Bolzman has commited a
suicide, right?) but it's based on mechanics, so that's it. I think I
have this wonderful Popper article on paper somewhere at home.

Now, PLEASE. I don't want to open a new line of discussion by people
who have never touched philosophy, hardly ever learned physics and
think they're the world's geniuses. so PLEASE, reffer to this last
point ONLY AFTER you'r learned that Popper article.

Good day. Have good time CHOOSING what to think of my words...
 
Curt Welch wrote:

But that was 500 years ago. We know a bit more now. Unfortunately,
like many other things such as these pesky religious beliefs, most
common men seem unable to see the obvious truth in it all - mostly
because they don't try to see the truth. They just accept what other
people tell them and get on with their lives (we all do this).
And you are the Mister Future? (not without mentioning the past,
otherwise you have said nothing)

Our language is full of lies about what is happening in our brain
simply because the people that created the language over the past
thousands of years had no clue about what all this brain activity
was. It didn't seem to be physical to them because they couldn't
sense the activity of neurons with their eyes and ears and nose and
fingers. They had no way to relate brain activity, to the physical
world. Not seeing the connection, forced them to invent a language
which had no connections to describe this stuff which wasn't
physical. As such, we have a language built on a foundation that
thought and everything connected with it being non-physical.
Ahh.

I have met many times my Brain limits. Even when being around (inmidst)
friends :) (telling them some seconds after the occuring error, what
error happened. Einstein for example couldn't weave logical sentences
but with math he could. Afterwards [success] he also speaked good.)

Nothing serious, there is something over that Brain. Call it Life if you
wish, I care to say soul.

We say that feelings aren't physical. Memories aren't physical.
Ideas aren't physical. Qualia aren't physical. Tangible objects are
physical, intangible objects are not physical. But that's all pure
bull shit created by people that didn't even know we had a physical
brain. Thought, and feelings, are nothing more than the physical
data processing activities of a brain - which itself is nothing more
than an adaptive learning controller for our arms and legs.
Crap.

e.g. Dr. Hawkings!!! (IQ ~200)

So the question becomes, if you want to use this silly word
"consciousness" and have endless silly debates about stupid words,
then what in fact are you talking about when you use the word? You
must be talking about physical brain activity because there is
nothing else here to talk about. We know that for a fact now. 500
years ago no one had the data they needed to know that. But we have
more than enough data to know it to be true now. Yet, some huge
percentage of the population are still blind to this truth.
Wow, you seem to be the wisest person.

The prime reason people are blind, is because they allow themselves to
become word-centric thinkers. They believe they can master an
understand of a word like "consciousness" simply by studying words.
They do see it half-sided. And words and sentences ARE one (half) sided.

You should not listen to such words ;-), better take care of yours.

It's not the words that need to be studied. It's the brain. Studying
words is a waste of time unless your goal is to be a linguist or
language specialist or a philosopher. But when philosophers come
into my camp and make stupid arguments about "consciousness can't be
defined" because they have gotten themselves all twisted up in their
stupid words and forgot to actually study the universe instead of
just studying words, it just drives me insane.
Studying the Brain with a Brain?

Forget it. That's paradox!

(Who would place the reference? You? Dr. Hawkings?)


It is here to perceive the natural beings around, not to explore the
case of its perceiving!!!!!!!

Please stop your stupid amreica babbling or I have to ROTFL. :)))




Best regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
Curt Welch wrote:

But what I know for a fact is true, is that you don't have any proof
to back up you belief that electrons don't experience pain because
you have no way to define what pain is. I do. Read my 1000 posts in
c.a.p. if you want the answer.
Hi Curt!


O.K. but I do not understand why you mention God and religion so often?


If you have never perceived God, it's your problem, not mine. I can see.


Hens for example forget the past in about 5sec. You can watch that.
Throw a corn-piece farer away from the Hen, if it runs there to pick it
up for over ~5sec., it stops and turns aways for new findings (food).

Human can hold longer memories, but with all that repetetive bad
happenings on the World, I believe the most are more like hens than
humans ;-) (sheeps?)



Best regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
Daryl McCullough wrote:

I actually don't consider that such a terrible situation to be
in. We can just go ahead and define all these mental terms
self-referentially. These self-referential definitions then
are not actually definitions, but are axioms constraining
possible interpretations of mental terms. If the axioms don't
uniquely pin down what the mental terms mean, then that means
that there are possible nonstandard interpretations of those
terms. In a similar way, the first-order axioms of Peano arithmetic
don't uniquely pin down the natural numbers---there are nonstandard
interpretations of those axioms.


Hi Daryl!



I knew some scientists can describe it with meanful words!



Not to forget the Axiom between Brain and Heart, the two seats of the
Soul. The Action! :) (and the reception axiom)

[Headache and accelerated Heart function is nothing new. Interesting
that it works for good or bad feelings. Probably a function of the
Universe. Upper- and lower Quark...]



Best regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
Bob Myers says...

...I would again point out
that we have no way of directly demonstrating "experience"
or "feelings" in ANYONE but ourselves - therefore, I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else. The rest of you may be
all zombies for all I know (which would raise troubling questions
about where you all came from, and why I'M here, but at
least it IS a possibility!).
I don't see how such a possibility has any meaning.
What would it *mean* for someone else to lack "feelings"
or "experience"?

Obviously, when people talk about zombies, they are
distinguishing between "as if" mental properties and
"real" mental properties. We can certainly all agree
that other humans behave as if they had sensation,
emotions, awareness, etc. But supposedly that isn't
enough to show that they have "real" mental experience.
But what does that mean? What does "real" mean in this
case? Presumably, it means "Like mine". But what notion
of "likeness" is appropriate here? Of course, no two
brains are alike, so no other brain is like mine, and
no other mind works precisely like mine. But what
range of differences is allowable for mentality to
be considered "real"?

The further question is, why should anyone *care*
about the difference between "real" and "as if"
mentality?

Let me try an analogy. Suppose we're talking about
socks. Some philosopher has a theory that there are true
socks and there are pseudo-socks. This philosopher
doesn't yet have any physical test to distinguish
true socks from pseudo-socks, and he *also* doesn't
have any explanation for why anyone would care whether
they are wearing true socks or pseudo-socks. But he
insists that there is a property of "intrinsic sockness"
that is not reducible to the physical facts. Why would
such a theory of socks make any sense? Why is the
possibility of zombies any different from the possibility
of pseudo-socks?

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY
 
On Mar 25, 3:10 am, part...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Mar 25, 1:35 am, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:



On Mar 22, Bob <bbx107....@excite.XYZ.com> wrote:

You are composed of cells, billions and billions. Each
cell follows the laws of chemistry, immutably - including
your brain cells. They just run along, minimizing the
Gibbs free energy, that's what molecules do.

More precisely, you are misrepresenting what the
laws of chemistry say.
If we accept the general intent of what you said or
meant to say, it is statistical. The importance of "random"
fluctuations to biology is increasingly appreciated.

Straw man.
Clearly, human behavior is very complex,
probably intractable. And likely, this is due
in large part to thermodynamic fluctuations.
Humans are noisy, messy sytems.

But that doesn't address the free will question.
The brain/mind may be chaotic and
unpredictable, but that doesn't mean you have
free will. You are still a mass of cells, governed
by the laws of chemistry.

To invoke free will, you must posit a 'mind',
which is somehow acting independently
of cellular activity.

Your basic point was that the laws of thermo disallow
"free will". That is false, for the reason I stated, and
which you seem to understand.
Quite explicitly, I did not claim any position on free will -- only
that "thermo" does not disallow it.

Our understanding of "mind" is not yet far enough
advanced to allow any meaningful scientific discussion
of what free will, or its appearance, is.

There's the problem: you have not defined the
term, your notions are fuzzy.

Before we can talk about ducks, we need an
operational definition; a duck is feathered, swims,
quacks. After we agree on that, we can argue
about the best ways to hunt em, cook em, boink em.

I have given my definition of free will, which
accords with the commonly held view. And
I have provided cogent reasons why it is chimerical.

You only wriggle with "science isn't advanced
enough" etc. without defining what "it" is. How
would you recognize it if it crashed through your
windshield?

Come back when you've done your homework...

--
Rich- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You're a liar, RichD. a liar of the worst type. And alternatively (or
also) not too smart. Just a simple liar, that's you.

Don't get angry. You have no right to. According to you, I've no free
will, right? so I'm only typing what my 'program' forces me to. Every
time I see words like yours, I'm forced to type 'liar'. So stay calm.

But, seriously, I do think you're a liar (or, let's say, it's better
than the alternative...). Have you noticed what are you trying to do?
you try to CONVICE people of your opinions - note, all people are
'programmed', right? so, for a lot of posts, you just try to do the
impossible, according to you. So you probably don't really believe
they're programmed, right? :)

And, you seem to be over-satisfied with your last points. So let's
clear it out: you didn't write nor composed them. You're only a
printer. You just type what your 'program' tells you to. Heck, you're
not even a keyboard. Just a simple printer. Have you ever seen a
computer coming out of its manufacture line, dancing and crying 'hey,
I've a wonderful operating system and a brilliant program installed!!'
- that's what you are. You can't take credit for anything you're ever
done, said or thought.

And, let's assume you really have no free will. After all, some
(small) percentage of the population is born crippled, damaged, sick,
blind or in any other type of inormality. So let's assume some are
born without free will (that's what you feel - maybe you're correct).
But how do you know what's going on in my mind? how can you speak of
other people? I feel I do have free will.

And you do, too. Let's take a look at your (private) life: Have you
ever walked into a supermarket and wondered what type of ice-cream to
buy? why? it's a teriffic waste of time! anyway you'll walk out with
what your progam tells you to, so why waste time? just take the first
one and run out. Have you ever tried to decide which way to walk,
which words to choose, which way to do anything? time waster! I think
you're a great believer in your free will. Yopu're absolutely sure you
have it. You can't deny it anymore than you can deny your existance -
if someone supplied you with a proof you don't exist, will you stop
feeling existing? will you believe him? even if you find no fault in
the proof, there're things you'll never believe (unless you want to
believe them in order to release yourself from responsibility). So is
free will. For that very reason, no exact definition is required
(although possible) - we all know exactly what it means. We use it
every time we choose (which is almost always), and many other times.

And just one last point (although it really isn't needed), just to
refute your thermo-chemical argument (so you can stop showing your
astonishing ignorance again and again. Really strange 'program' you
have...). Many years ago, Karl Popper proved that the laws of physics
aren't deterministic. Note, he didn't speak of quantum physics (which
goes without saying) - he spoke on Newtonian Classical Mechanics. You
must know thermodynamics is much more complicated than mechanics, and
that no one really understands it (that's why Bolzman has commited a
suicide, right?) but it's based on mechanics, so that's it. I think I
have this wonderful Popper article on paper somewhere at home.

Now, PLEASE. I don't want to open a new line of discussion by people
who have never touched philosophy, hardly ever learned physics and
think they're the world's geniuses. so PLEASE, reffer to this last
point ONLY AFTER you'r learned that Popper article.

Good day. Have good time CHOOSING what to think of my words...
Of course we have free will. Who would ever pay for it?
 
On 23 Mar, 06:59, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 21, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Clearly, my "no magic axiom", means that consciousness
is indeed a part of physics in the sense that, whatever it
is, it is strictly the result of the physical structure in
the brain. However, it is a new axiom of physics.

By derivable, it is meant, that it logically follows from
known laws of physics.

There's another consideration... in quantum
mechanics, the observer occupies a special
place -
Not necessarily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics

the wave function cannot collapse
(to a particular event)without one.
That is very contentious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse

But
'observer' is vague... presumably, it means
consciousness. Hence, consciousness has
some attribute whch interacts with nature.

--
Rich
 
On 25 Mar, 10:38, "Daniel Mandic" <daniel_man...@aon.at> wrote:

They do see it half-sided. And words and sentences ARE one (half) sided.

It is here to perceive the natural beings around, not to explore the
case of its perceiving!!!!!!!

ok fair point, fine, but

Please stop your stupid amreica babbling or I have to ROTFL. :)))

UFO, happy landings! and with a shiner from China,

Best regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
On 25 Mar, 00:35, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 22, Bob <bbx107....@excite.XYZ.com> wrote:



You are composed of cells, billions and billions. Each
cell follows the laws of chemistry, immutably - including
your brain cells. They just run along, minimizing the
Gibbs free energy, that's what molecules do.

More precisely, you are misrepresenting what the
laws of chemistry say.
If we accept the general intent of what you said or
meant to say, it is statistical. The importance of "random"
fluctuations to biology is increasingly appreciated.

Straw man.
Clearly, human behavior is very complex,
probably intractable. And likely, this is due
in large part to thermodynamic fluctuations.
Humans are noisy, messy sytems.

But that doesn't address the free will question.
The brain/mind may be chaotic and
unpredictable, but that doesn't mean you have
free will. You are still a mass of cells, governed
by the laws of chemistry.
You are governed by the laws of nature, inasmuch as they govern at
all.
FW requires a combination of indeterministic elbow-room and
rationality.
It the laws of nature are not strictly deterministic, the only
remaining hindrance to FW is achieving rationality
in spite of indeterminism. Individual indeterministic events are
obviously not rational, but the brain is very complex, so the question
resolves to the question of a very complex systems with
indeterministic elements would still be capable of
a good-enough degree of rationality.

Separate non-physical minds that cause matter to "swerve" don't come
into it.
 
On 25 Mar, 02:55, "Bob Myers" <nospample...@address.invalid> wrote:
"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message

news:1y5Nh.21078$267.63@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else.

Nevertheless I am absolutely certain that they exist in others. You see,
although I don't believe in belief without evidence, i.e. faith, but I do
hold beliefs as true so long as the evidence is convincing enough.

I suspect we're in agreement again with this, just using somewhat
different terminology. I try very hard to avoid terms like "certain"
or "believe" simply because, for most people, they bring in quite
a bit of baggage of the "faith" variety. Quite obviously, though, I
behave as those these feelings exist in others, and agree that there
is an extremely high probability that they do. Avoiding saying
"I'm certain" is just my way of keeping myself on the right track.

For example, before squaring the circle was proven impossible, one could
sort of argue that it might be "possible" to square the circle. The fact
that one didn't know that squaring the circle was impossible prior to
knowing the proof, did not make the probability of such squaring non zero.

Not the "real" probability, no - but on the other hand, "probability"
is ALWAYS an expression of our ignorance about a given set of
circumstances.
That is your assumption. Not everybody agrees.
 

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