Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!ism780b!jim From: jim@ism780b.UUCP Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Torek on Skinner (free will & determ - (nf) Message-ID: <56@ism780b.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 00:29:00 EDT Article-I.D.: ism780b.56 Posted: Wed Oct 10 00:29:00 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Oct-84 03:48:23 EDT Lines: 57 #R:pyuxn:-117300:ism780b:27500045:000:2543 ism780b!jim Oct 8 15:17:00 1984 >This would mean that a program "chooses" to do certain things based on the >"current" state of its "chemicals" (e.g., the CPU instruction address counter, >the data in "memory" and input through sensory channels). Can the program >"choose" arbitrarily to do something (like set fire to the disk drive, or >cause the computer to explode----just like in the movies!!) or can it only >make the "decision" it is programmed to make based on the contents of its >"chemicals". As you say, the agent of decision making in the brain is in >fact the chemicals, and the successive current states of the chemicals >themselves (the ones that "make the decisions" causing other chemical/physical >actions in the body) are DETERMINED by the same physical laws that govern >action in rocks and trees! *Of course* the program can choose to set fire to the disk drive, if it has the physical means to do it (can a robot "choose" to walk into a furnace? Why not?). While they didn't have it right in the movies, your notion of a computer as a purely ethereal thing is highly outmoded, and leads you to make these sort of false distinctions. And you keep presuming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive. It doesn't matter how many times you right it in all caps, it still doesn't make the tautological fact that all occurrences in the physical world are determined (ignoring random quantum events) by physical laws *relevant* to questions of free will. >It's wrong to say "the subjective isn't real". Behaviorists say so. They say that only the physically observable manifestations of the subjective are real. You are failing to distinguish the two (if you say there really is no difference, you have verified my claim). >Again, this is like saying that a program has free will. On the contrary, >barring system errors, a program's functions are deterministic. Which of the following have free will: programs I write bacteria me programs written after ten thousand years of development of AI How did you decide? Can't you see how silly you are being? You are begging the question. Your premises: 1) All behavior is is a result of physical processes 2) All physical processes are determined 3) Determinism is mutually exclusive with free will conclusion: We have no free will. Of course. Now justify premise 3. You won't be able to do it until you give the terms formal definitions. But the definitions will refer to different meta-levels; they don't talk about the same things. -- Jim Balter (ima!jim)