compatibilism

[iambiguous]

Two Conceptions of Free Will
Matthew Gliatto
Published in ILLUMINATION

Instead of proposing that free will is somehow compatible with determinism, libertarianism posits that determinism is false: the future is not pre-determined, not even by neuroscience, because the ghost in the machine has the freedom to decide our course of action.

This might be true. This might not be true. Neuroscience may one day finally arrive at the correct conclusion. Neuroscience may not ever arrive at the correct conclusion.

Then the part where some go completely off the deep end and insist there really isn't even a way for any of us to determine which. Squabble over what the human brain is and how it got there. But, even if we determine that the human brain is capable of at least attempting to explain itself, we don't actually know for sure if the human brain itself is capable of explaining itself. Then we can go to intelligent lifeforms "out there" that may well be considerable closer to that than we are. Or, sure, we can go to God.

Thus, there are three major positions that a philosopher could take with regard to free will and determinism:
1. Compatibilism: Determinism and free will are compatible with each other. Determinism is true and free will exists [but in my opinion, that’s not true free will].
2. Libertarianism: Determinism and free will are incompatible. Determinism is false and free will exists. The ghost in the machine makes free choices.
3. Hard determinism: Determinism and free will are incompatible. Determinism is true, and there is no free will.

But: Of his or her own free will, can a philosopher then opt for which position to land on?

Which makes all of this truly mind-boggling to say the least. We are trying to pin down how the human brain functions in the context of "all there is" but all that there is available to us to accomplish this is the human brain itself.

And here I am arguing for determinism only because "intuitively" it seems like the most reasonable frame of mind. But not anymore than "intuitively" it seems like I clearly do have some measure of autonomy.

Then down the "philosophical" rabbit hole we go:
https://www.untrammeledmind.com/2017/03 ... l-paradox/

[Skepdick]

Everything.

It means that God can know what you are going to do, and yet you are still the one doing it when you do it. He may have made you, but He hasn't "made" you do what you choose to do.

That's so peculiar!

When I write non-deterministic software I have absolutely no idea which choice the algorithm will make. Because the algorithm makes its own choices. That is how I made it.

When I write deterministic software I know precisely which choice the algorithm is going to make. Because the algorithm doesn't make its own choices. That's how I made it.

Both algorithms make choices. Only the deterministic algorithm's choices are predictable before they are made.

And this is routine, even for humans. For, no doubt, if you and a woman combine you will make a child; but once that child is born, he/she will begin to make his/her own choices, from the very first moment. Free will beings do that.

A mother has no idea what choices the child will make. From the mother's perspective the child is non-deterministic.

God (apparently) does. From God's perspective the child is deterministic.

[Immanuel Can]

Both algorithms make choices.

Algorithms don't "choose." Choice is a human activity.

Algorithms, whether random or predictable, simply respond to programming. No consciousness is involved.

[iambiguous]

...like your philosophical definitions and deductions are on par with the experiments that scientists conduct in probing the actual functioning brain.

Give your specific case, I guess. I'll look at your data. Let's find out what it's worth.

I don't have any data. But that's my point. I'm not a neuroscientist. All I can do is to Google "neuroscience free will -- https://www.google.com/search?q=neurosc ... nt=gws-wiz -- and explore the latest in actual research.

Or, like you, to the best of my ability, "think through" the issue going back to the pre-Socratics. What philosophically has been concluded down through the ages.

Then this part: those who might be able to connect the dots between science and philosophy. Or [for some] between science and philosophy and theology.

What is reasonable or unreasonable in regard to dueling definitions and deductions?

But it's not just "dueling definitions."

Think again: the words make reference to the external world. They form propositions about that world that can be true or false. Even mere definitions must be OF something. So it's not the case at all that everything is just a kind of internal language game. That's a conceit of the Postmondernists, and a rather stupid one, if I may say.

They have A point when they say that words are not always precise. But they lose their whole point when they say that words only refer to other words. They clearly don't: and if they didn't, then any "language game" is as good -- or more accurately, as absurd and pointless -- as any other.

Only here again you provide us with but another world of words.

That's how you choose to see it, maybe; but it's not how it is.

Or it's how it can only be. But, if not, I fail to see how your words are not just connected to more words.

Then the words you left out...

The words don't connect to human beings interacting, but to words interacting with other words in a particular order such that the truthfulness of your conclusion revolves entirely around others agreeing with how you define the meaning of the words.

So, where is your "hard evidence" that pins down once and for all that mindless matter evolved into mindful matter [us] and, as a result of this, human autonomy/volition came into existence.

Please point me to where I promised you this, and I'll happily deliver it.

Well, given the manner in which [to me] you inflect a sense of certainty...

So I didn't promise it. What I did do is point out that Determinism is incapable of accounting for ordinary human experience.

Yes, you pointed it out in a world of words. And if we agree with the meaning you give to the words you used then a "philosophical consensus" might emerge which may or may be corroborated by the brain scientists who are actually trying to figure out experimentally/phenomenologically how to explain mindless matter evolving into us.

[Immanuel Can]

...like your philosophical definitions and deductions are on par with the experiments that scientists conduct in probing the actual functioning brain.

Give your specific case, I guess. I'll look at your data. Let's find out what it's worth.

I don't have any data.

There isn't much to say, then.

Then the words you left out...

The words don't connect to human beings interacting, but to words interacting with other words in a particular order such that the truthfulness of your conclusion revolves entirely around others agreeing with how you define the meaning of the words.

I didn't find them perceptive or interesting. I think they're just not true.

But maybe you have a better argument for them...let's see.

What I did do is point out that Determinism is incapable of accounting for ordinary human experience.

Yes, you pointed it out in a world of words...

Then you tried to respond to it in "a world of words." So the response is no better.

And maybe that's the world you think you live in. But I think it's not the real world.

Well, lest I tax you by asking you for more "mere words," I think we've exhausted our exchange.

[Skepdick]

Algorithms don't "choose." Choice is a human activity.

Such a peculiar claim in a world where algorithms emulate human behavior.

Algorithms, whether random or predictable, simply respond to programming.

Algorithms, whether random or predictable operate within the constraints imposed upon them by their maker.

Like humans operate within the constraints imposed by God.

No consciousness is involved.

One day, when somebody explains to us what consciousness is we could finally determine whether we have it or not.

[Immanuel Can]

Algorithms don't "choose." Choice is a human activity.

Such a peculiar claim in a world where algorithms emulate human behavior.

They don't "emulate" either. Human beings are simply gullible enough to anthropomorphize their functioning. The programs themselves have no such surreptitious intention. Computers have no intention at all.

Algorithms, whether random or predictable operate within the constraints imposed upon them by their maker.

Yes, they do. And that makes them unlike human beings, who can clearly choose things God does not "impose" on them, but rather that suit their personal wants and desires.

No consciousness is involved.

One day, when somebody explains to us what consciousness is we could finally determine whether we have it or not.

We don't have to wait. We know that computers have no intentions, desires or choices. As you say: they just perform what the writer of the program makes it unavoidable for them to perform.

Searle's famous "Chinese Room" experiment illustrates this admirably. No matter how fooled we humans may ever become by the funcions of our programs, they'll still just be programs.

[Age]

Algorithms don't "choose." Choice is a human activity.

Such a peculiar claim in a world where algorithms emulate human behavior.

They don't "emulate" either. Human beings are simply gullible enough to anthropomorphize their functioning.

Talking about "anthropomorphizing", are you STILL 'try to' "anthropomorphize" God into a "male gendered being" "immanuel can"?

The programs themselves have no such surreptitious intention. Computers have no intention at all.

Algorithms, whether random or predictable operate within the constraints imposed upon them by their maker.

Yes, they do. And that makes them unlike human beings, who can clearly choose things God does not "impose" on them, but rather that suit their personal wants and desires.

No consciousness is involved.

One day, when somebody explains to us what consciousness is we could finally determine whether we have it or not.

We don't have to wait. We know that computers have no intentions, desires or choices. As you say: they just perform what the writer of the program makes it unavoidable for them to perform.

Searle's famous "Chinese Room" experiment illustrates this admirably. No matter how fooled we humans may ever become by the funcions of our programs, they'll still just be programs.

[Skepdick]

Human beings are simply gullible enough to anthropomorphize their functioning.

Or we are gullible enough to call our own functioning "choosing", and then sneak in a double-standard when it comes to calling the functioning of computers as choosing.

The programs themselves have no such surreptitious intention. Computers have no intention at all.

Sure they do. From the view-point of the programmer every single algorithm has intention. It has my intention.

Much like God knows your intentions. I know the intentions of my algorithms. Obviously - because the makers explain their intentions to the creation.

The difference is that I don't know the exact choices my non-deterministic work will make towards achieving its intentions.

Look no further than AlphaZero for an algorithm whose intention is to be the best at rule-based games. All you need to do is explain the rules of the game to it. And then it figures out how to be the best at that game.

Yes, they do. And that makes them unlike human beings, who can clearly choose things God does not "impose" on them, but rather that suit their personal wants and desires.

But if your wants and desires were given to you by God. That's literally how God knows what you want and desire.

We don't have to wait. We know that computers have no intentions, desires or choices. As you say: they just perform what the writer of the program makes it unavoidable for them to perform.

I said that about deterministic programs.

I also said that non-deterministic choices, intentions and desires. As programmed by their maker.

Searle's famous "Chinese Room" experiment illustrates this admirably. No matter how fooled we humans may ever become by the funcions of our programs, they'll still just be programs.

Searle doesn't illustrate anything. The argument affirms the consequent.

It assumes humans have "real" understanding, while computers don't. And then it concludes that it's true. Searle himself doesn't even understand the difference between declarative and imperative programming. Nor does he draw any distinction between programs which have been told exactly what to do; vs programs which have learned what to do.

But all his mumbling was just begging the question. What's the difference between human and computer learning?

[henry quirk]

An excerpt...

ERIC HOLLOWAY FEBRUARY 20, 2022
Recently, Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, proposed that artificial intelligence (AI) may currently be “slightly” conscious. His claim was probably in reference to the GPT-3 AI that can generate text from a prompt.

I’ve played with a couple of the linguistic neural networks a bit, and you can try them out *here. Some of the output is quirky, which could be mistaken for personality and make the algorithm appear conscious.

The algorithm also generates emotional statements, that can generate empathy in a human user of the system. Just as kids make believe their dolls are alive when they develop an emotional bond with their toy, the algorithm text generates empathy in the human user. It can make us feel a bond with — and anthropomorphize — the algorithm.

Here is a short exchange I had with the GPT-2 algorithm. I typed my question, triggered the autocomplete, and then selected the most coherent of the possible choices generated by GPT-2:
Me: How are you feeling today?
GPT-2: I am feeling a bit better.
Me: What happened?
GPT-2: You’ve been playing around with me
Me: Did playing around with you make you feel better?
GPT-2: It helped me a
Me: Helped you what?
GPT-2: The feelings that
Me: Is it hard to talk about how you feel?
GPT-2: Is it hard to talk about how you feel?
GPT-2: What are you going through right now?
GPT-2: What is going on in your life right now?

Things started out well. The first two responses sound almost sentient, and for a brief moment I could believe that the neural network was conscious. But they quickly fell apart after that, producing an Uncanny Valley effect.

As the algorithm gets better, say by GPT-3000, I can imagine that the period of time where the algorithm appears conscious will grow longer. If the period grows long enough, then GPT-3000 will pass as a conscious being for short interactions. But, does this mean that GPT-3000 is really conscious?

Some philosophers, like Daniel Dennett, would say yes. Dennett thinks that what we call “consciousness” is a collection of procedures our brain runs. When we copy all those procedures with an algorithm, then we can say that the algorithm is conscious. This is the sort of reasoning that would lead a researcher to say that GPT-3000 is conscious. The algorithm has memorized a vast probabilistic lookup table of text completions, which copies at least a good deal of human brain procedures. So, by Dennett’s definition of consciousness as a collection of procedures, it does makes sense to say that GPT-3 is partly conscious.


*https://transformer.huggingface.co/

-----

What does it mean to be conscious?

[Immanuel Can]

Human beings are simply gullible enough to anthropomorphize their functioning.

Or we are gullible enough to call our own functioning "choosing", and then sneak in a double-standard when it comes to calling the functioning of computers as choosing.

No. Choosing existed before computers. In fact, the only reason computers exist at all is because of choices we made.

The programs themselves have no such surreptitious intention. Computers have no intention at all.

Sure they do

.
No, they don't. "Intention" is not a quality a computer can even have.

But if your wants and desires were given to you by God.

They weren't. Many of one's desire do, in fact, contradict or oppose the will of God.

Searle's famous "Chinese Room" experiment illustrates this admirably. No matter how fooled we humans may ever become by the funcions of our programs, they'll still just be programs.

Searle doesn't illustrate anything.

I see you don't understand it.

[bahman]

You can "ask" anything you want, I guess. What you probably can't do is compel Him to tell you.

Why I cannot ask him what I am going to do?

You are going to ask what you want. But you cannot want what you want. You just want it.
If, and only if, you compel their answer, say through, force, would their free will be denied.
But their answer shall also be want they want to answer, and like you they cannot want what they want.

I am not talking about the free will of God. I am talking about our free will and foreknowledge and the conflict between. The question is whether I can choose to do differently from what God reveals to me that I am going to do?

[bahman]

You can "ask" anything you want, I guess. What you probably can't do is compel Him to tell you.

Why I cannot ask him what I am going to do?

I said you could. You can "ask" anything you want.

And could He answer what I am going to do?

[Immanuel Can]

Why I cannot ask him what I am going to do?

I said you could. You can "ask" anything you want.

And could He answer what I am going to do?

Keep asking. If He answers, you'll know.

[iambiguous]

Give your specific case, I guess. I'll look at your data. Let's find out what it's worth.

I don't have any data.

There isn't much to say, then.

Well, other than this...

But that's my point. I'm not a neuroscientist. All I can do is to Google "neuroscience free will -- https://www.google.com/search?q=neurosc ... nt=gws-wiz -- and explore the latest in actual research.

Or, like you, to the best of my ability, "think through" the issue going back to the pre-Socratics. What philosophically has been concluded down through the ages.

Then this part: those who might be able to connect the dots between science and philosophy. Or [for some] between science and philosophy and theology.

Then the words you left out...

The words don't connect to human beings interacting, but to words interacting with other words in a particular order such that the truthfulness of your conclusion revolves entirely around others agreeing with how you define the meaning of the words.

I didn't find them perceptive or interesting. I think they're just not true.

More words connected to more words still. Looks like [compelled or not] we're stuck.

What I did do is point out that Determinism is incapable of accounting for ordinary human experience.

Yes, you pointed it out in a world of words...

Then you tried to respond to it in "a world of words." So the response is no better.

Exactly! All we basically exchange here are worlds of words. Why? Because neither one of us have any hard data derived from experiments we conducted exploring functioning brains. After all, what is the philosophical equivalent of the "scientific method" when exploring how mindless matter evolved into living matter evolved into us.

Given my own attempts to read up on what the neuroscientists are concluding, the weight of the evidence seems to indicate that determinism is the most likely explanation. Though, sure, there are hundreds and hundreds of accounts I have not read. And if someone here has come across one that indicates human brain matter has in fact acquired the capacity to reason autonomously, please link me to it.

And maybe that's the world you think you live in. But I think it's not the real world.

More to the point, on this thread, the compatibilists seem to argue we think and feel and say and do everything in the only possible world but we are still somehow responsible for those things. Even morally responsible in the is/ought world.

Try as I might [if freely I can try as i might] I just can't make sense of that.

Yet many intelligent men and women seem to believe it. So, it might be something that I am missing in their arguments. I could not have not missed it, but I'm still responsible anyway.

Well, lest I tax you by asking you for more "mere words," I think we've exhausted our exchange.

If only has it must be?