Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.philosophy,sci.cognitive,alt.consciousness
From: stevem@comtch.iea.com (Steve McGrew)
Subject: Re: Intelligence is in the test, not the system
Organization: New Light Industries, Ltd.
References: <3261DA12.4DBF@clickable.com> <5414a3$dsv@hermes.louisville.edu> <32656F64.45B3@clickable.com>
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In article <32656F64.45B3@clickable.com>, Christopher McKinstry <chris@clickable.com> wrote:
>George C. Lindauer wrote:
>> [snip] True free choice implies
>> that at some instant X there may be an effect which is not totally predicated
>> by some cause.
>
>I actually don't believe in free choice. I think everything is causal.
>If adding a radio isotope rnadom number generator to such a system makes
>people feel better, then so be it. I still think it's completely
>deterministic, as I think I am.
>
        Many of us need to learn some quantum mechanics and some chaos theory. 
 QM has randomness at its roots: absolute, acausal, nondeterministic 
randomness.  Chaos theory shows that even in a deterministic system it can be 
*impossible* to predict the outcome of an experiment, because it is not 
possible to measure initial conditions, nor the values of physical constants 
in the equations that determine the system's behavior, to an infinite number 
of decimal points.  
        One can argue that the ability to predict a system's behavior is 
irrelevant, and is more a statement about the limitations of an observer than 
about the nature of the system, but that really isn't the issue.  The point is 
that if your definition of free choice or randomness is such that there is no 
test to decide whether a system has free choice or behaves in a random 
fashion, you're wasting your time.
        Why does "free choice" have to be acausal?  If my choices are 
traceable back to quantum mechanical randomness or chaos on the molecular 
scale, I don't think that should qualify my choices as "free".  My own opinion 
is that choice is only as free as a genetic algorithm is: a GA proceeds 
towards a solution regardless of whether its random number generator is 
"truly" random or not.  You can't (in principle) predict the path a GA will 
follow to its final answer, and unless you choose a problem whose answer you 
already know, you can't predict the answer it will give.  And even though 
there are allegedly random processes driving the GA, the most important 
determinantss of its behavior are simple, very clearly understandable 
algorithmic processes.  That's a LOT like people and what we call free choice.

Steve

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