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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 1994 14:08:07 GMT
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References: <3997dq$857@ecom2.ecn.bgu.edu> <39al9e$beq@coli-gate.coli.uni-sb.de> <MARCUS.94Nov8015942@jetsam.cs.pdx.edu> <sbogner.125.2EBFA21C@dres.dnd.ca>
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In article <sbogner.125.2EBFA21C@dres.dnd.ca>,
Stephen Bogner <sbogner@dres.dnd.ca> wrote:
>In article <MARCUS.94Nov8015942@jetsam.cs.pdx.edu> marcus@jetsam.cs.pdx.edu (Marcus Daniels) writes:
>
>>Causality is implied by absolute determinism.
>
>I would perhaps argue that because we  _observe_  causality, we conclude 
>that such systems are deterministic.  However, I would note that strict 
>causality is not observed at the quantum level where quantum uncertainty 
>prevails.  Some argue that "unknown and unmeasurable influences" are at work, 
>and that if we could only nail these down, we would see that the quantum 
>systems are actually strictly causal.  Einstein himself adopted such a view, 
>though it has not prevailed...
------------------------------------------
Causality is implied, not observed. That is to say, it is one of a number
of possible conclusions, if we needed just one at a time, for what happens.
It can be a useful one sometimes. Free-will can be a useful one sometimes.
Don't get trapped in your models. They are about as useful alone as the
wave versus the particle models of matter/energy.
-Steve Walz

>>Causality is not denied by the lack of absolute determinism.
>
>Are you saying that you can have partial determinism?  What is the other part?
------------------------------------------------------
Absolute determinism implies that "WE CAN KNOW THE FUTURE FROM THE PAST".
This is NOT a requirement for causality. Whether causality in the "brain"
or in the chaotic "outer" world is dabbled with by Heisenberg is irrelevant
to the fact that what is to be the future will be the future, and always
has been will have been going to be!!! We don't control the cause, but
'it', the universe as we have chosen to see it without uncertainty, then,
doesn't EITHER!! In other parallel universes to this one, other things
diverge away into different pasts and different futures! The present state
IS a probabilistic wave function with uncertainty into past and future!
-Steve Walz

>>Free will is denied by causality.
>
>In the same way as large numbers of individual probabalistic systems create 
>stochiasic certainty in aggregate (for example, in chemisty) it seems to me to 
>be entirely possible (dare I say likey) that a human choice might arise from 
>the aggregate stociastic balance of favorable and unfavorable outcomes 
>_anticipated_  by the brain, each of these outcomes being perceived through 
>large numbers of synaptic firings, any one of which might have changed the 
>choice had an event of quantum uncertainty occurred differently.
---------------------------------------------
And they do and did and create all the parallel and alternative pasts and
futures that could ever be, but the one YOU have to live with this next
second is both to be considered ill-defined until you have lived through it
and travelled out of it, like the EM near-field phenomenon of phase
sorting, and as certain as shit that it is going to do its number on you
its way! And you are both witness and product of that!! Free will is not
only denied by absolute deterministic causality, but by sloppy canonical
conjugates of uncertainty as well in the form of action blur!!! You might
proceed to make two different binary decisions at different branching
moments now, but that is about as supportive of vaunted free-will as saying
that your aneurysm might pop right now or twenty seconds from now! Whatever
the thing that calls itself you IS, YOU'RE *STILL* watching it do its shit
from outside of it; you're still JUST along for the ride as a process that
generates a sense of self by simple lying! You delude yourself into
believing that you control, circularly, when all the self is is a vicious
rumor!!! Now for the purpose of the model of self it doesn't change much,
as the other ideas as to what the phenomenon of living might be don't make
the same demands as this egotistical delusion. They make other demands
unrelated. But the idea of "self" is persuasive only if you ignore all the
inconsistencies! You want "responsibility" that supposedly goes with
"freedom". Freedom is what an individual derives from others when they all
persuade each other to act a certain set of ways! It does NOT derive from
the universe. Political freedom is only a construct that says that if you
are predetermined to do thus and such, we will try to stop you, and
whether people vote for that or intend to carry it out is strictly
determined by whatever happens, and that's ALL!!! The delusion that the
self exists as seat of the beaing is simply a claim that no other of the
delusions apply for except that they join in to that claim automatically.
It DOESN'T mean that self is any less a delusion, one possible limited
attempt to predict and explain oneself and others as we call them, and our
bodily behaviors and our imagined constructs as to how this occurs.
-Steve

>I think that it is therefore an error to attempt to refute Free Will by gluing 
>it to predictability.  (I do think that it is something of a semantic argument 
>to say that causality is different from determinism is different from 
>predictability...)
----------------------------------------------------
It is not necessary to REFUTE so-called "free will", as it cannot be shown
to be free in any sense other than that one claims that whatever they do
as is determined by the biochemistry or secret messages from the CIA beamed
into their brains is either what they really "wanted to do" anyway, or
somehow "theirs" in any reasonable sense such as legal! My impression is
NOT that we put people in cages because we didn't like their artful
decisions, but really precisely because we don't understand them and don't
find them predictable enough to live around unless surrounded by bars and
armed guards! I don't much care whether they had what they thought was a
good reason for what they did or not. My bet is on whether they might do it
again, to me! And if they had such a good reason for doing something
otherwise heinous, if *I* don't understand it, I am nevertheless going to
consider them a nut and lock them up anyway!

And as for why you may not choose to understand that the three terms;
causality, determinism, and predictability; are different things with
important distinctions, to that degree, you're probably a nutter as well!
-Steve Walz 
  
>>Therefore, the *possibility* of Free Will requires denying causality,
>>and, furthermore, introducing notions of "action at a distance",
>>and "self measuring".
>
>While I would also reject "action at a distance", I am not clear on your logic 
>for rejecting at the same time the concept of self-referential (self aware) 
>systems.  By definition, self aware systems can anticipate their future state 
>(action at a space-time distance?) and they certainly seem to be able to act 
>to advance toward goals.  
>Regards, Steve.
>Stephen Bogner  (DRES/DTD/MES/Vehicle Concepts Group)     sbogner@dres.dnd.ca
>(403) 544-4786  DRE Suffield; Box 4000; Medicine Hat, Alberta; Canada T1A 8K6
-----------------------------------------------
It is not necessary to intelligence to insist on an entity which believes
as you do! This is eminently true from observation from our side, as WE do
not believe as you do!! Are we "aware" by *your* definition? Awareness does
not require that the being use the "belief in self" process in the way that
you would require! I'll really bet that Zen scares the bejeesus out of you,
doesn't it? There are other ways of considering the bodily division of self
without jumping to all your conclusions!!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

