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>From: tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals (was re: The Systems Reply I
Date: 17 Mar 92 14:42:46 MST
Message-ID: <1992Mar17.144247.10193@hellgate.utah.edu>
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
References: <1992Mar16.005137.13005@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar16.003442.9891@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar15.233805.3026@hellgate.utah.edu> <1992Mar17.085639.9836@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
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In article <1992Mar17.085639.9836@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas) writes:


>>  Lets look at the world as having some things which are considered to
>>have volition.  What does this really mean?  It is operating on its own,
>>of its own intent. It is operating OUTSIDE THE FRAMEWORK of external
>>things, it is operating on its own.
>
>Do you mean that such things do not obey to ANY laws?
>That they are not deterministic? That they are random?

YES!!! YES, yes, that is it exactly! Right on!

>
>>  Now what would be something not operating under volition?  It would be
>>something acting purely in the context of external things, not operating
>>with any whit of being on its own.
>>
>>  Something operating on its own has its own volition and is an agent.
>>What is the minimal agent one could consider?  A good one to select
>>is gene modification, it operates on its own. There is no external power
>>dictating the way it will modify.  Specifically, normally a 260nnm photon
>>will activate the sugar through a nondetermined event.  The point of
>>mutation is outside external events.
>
>This reminds me the stories Aristotles was telling about the planets moving
>because of their souls, simply because he did not have in his mind a newtonian
>model. Sure the point of mutation cannot be predicted, but this happens 
>because of our inability to count and/or calculate some things.
>Your example with the photon is one of them. It is very possible
>that we will never be able to predict such things, but obviously

RIGHT!!  In fact, the wavefunction collapse of quantum mechanics is 
totally unpredictable (beyond probabilities)!!

>>  An agent is something that can cause an action which is independent of
>>external causes.  An agent is specifically...
>
>Better to say: we model it as being independent. But isn't this
>the model of a random event? 

 NO, it is not a model of independence, it IS independence.

 Even if the QM theory found a hidden variable, we must eventuall fall
back to some nondeterministic event.  If a hidden variable was found that
explained all of QM deterministically we STILL would have an independent
thing- the initial conditions!!!  There is no way around it.


