Machines and morality

[Inquirer]

Given that humans are believed to be mechanisms (albeit of great complexity) on what basis can we say that murder or torture is wrong? Why is destruction of a machine regarded as having no moral component yet destruction of a person is? Surely destroying any mechanism is the same irrepestective of the mechanism.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #86]

... we are faced with free will being non-determinism, we are faced with the laws of nature being deterministic and so we are faced with how to explain that a physical system (me) can behave non-deterministically when all the parts I'm built from behave deterministically.

A working brain of sufficient capability (to think, to weigh factors to arrive at a decision, etc.) is the obvious explanation. Seems like you are really asking how a functioning brain can be constructed of molecules that cannot think or make decisions, because once you have the brain you have the explanation.

Brains evolved from much simpler nerve nets, over a very long period of time. A bdelloid rotifer has a tiny "brain" called a cerebral ganglion. Nerves extend from this throughout the body and the animal consists of only about 1000 cells. It is not very smart. The number of neurons in animals varies from a few hundred to many tens of billions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ... of_neurons

Somewhere along the evolutionary trail brains became complex enough to enable non-deterministic behavior. It seems to be a natural product of a working brain ... even much simpler ones than in humans.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #86]

... we are faced with free will being non-determinism, we are faced with the laws of nature being deterministic and so we are faced with how to explain that a physical system (me) can behave non-deterministically when all the parts I'm built from behave deterministically.

A working brain of sufficient capability (to think, to weigh factors to arrive at a decision, etc.) is the obvious explanation.

I don't see how the existence of brains "explains" anything at all.

Seems like you are really asking how a functioning brain can be constructed of molecules that cannot think or make decisions, because once you have the brain you have the explanation.

That is not something I've said. Once again if all the parts use to build something are deterministic (molecules, cells, neurons) then by definition the machine will likewise be deterministic. Therefore if the brain really is non-deterministic (e.g. has free will) then one or more of the parts must be non-deterministic and since science cannot mathematically model or describe non-determinism, science cannot explain free will.

Brains evolved from much simpler nerve nets, over a very long period of time. A bdelloid rotifer has a tiny "brain" called a cerebral ganglion. Nerves extend from this throughout the body and the animal consists of only about 1000 cells. It is not very smart. The number of neurons in animals varies from a few hundred to many tens of billions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ... of_neurons

Somewhere along the evolutionary trail brains became complex enough to enable non-deterministic behavior. It seems to be a natural product of a working brain ... even much simpler ones than in humans.

How do you "enable" non-determinism? The statements is nonsensical. If matter is governed by laws (which science claims it is) then matter cannot be non-deterministic. How can you make matter not obey laws of nature? I don't see how the amount of matter or the complexity of some configuration of matter can "enable" the laws of nature to be violated, that's a very unscientific thing to propose.

[Difflugia]

If matter is governed by laws (which science claims it is) then matter cannot be non-deterministic.

You're equivocating on (or misunderstanding) what the word "law" means in the scientific sense or what "deterministic" means.

The Ideal Gas Law is true because of the apparently random motion of many molecules. Whether the behavior of the individual particles can be completely predicted based on the current state of the universe is immaterial. The predictive power of a set of probabilities, which is ultimately what the Ideal Gas Law describes, doesn't translate to determinism as it's being discussed here, even when the predictive power at the macro level reaches the point of practical certainty.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #92]

I don't see how the existence of brains "explains" anything at all.

It explains how a collection of deterministic molecules, integrated into a system (brain), can create non-deterministic behavior. It is the brain that is doing the non-deterministic work, clearly.

That is not something I've said. Once again if all the parts use to build something are deterministic (molecules, cells, neurons) then by definition the machine will likewise be deterministic. Therefore if the brain really is non-deterministic (e.g. has free will) then one or more of the parts must be non-deterministic and since science cannot mathematically model or describe non-determinism, science cannot explain free will.

So you keep claiming, but this is the fatal flaw in your argument because it is very obviously false. The brain is made of atoms and molecules, and human behavior is non-deterministic and driven by decisions the brain makes. Explaining how this works, if science is going to address the problem, cannot involve magic, or spirits, etc. Yet that seems to be your preferred solution to the problem. Repeatedly making the same false claim (collections of determnistic components cannot build a non-deterministic system), then building arguments based on that, doesn't work.

How do you "enable" non-determinism? The statements is nonsensical. If matter is governed by laws (which science claims it is) then matter cannot be non-deterministic. How can you make matter not obey laws of nature? I don't see how the amount of matter or the complexity of some configuration of matter can "enable" the laws of nature to be violated, that's a very unscientific thing to propose.

You are rejecting the well known fact that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts, which is what this boils down to. The brain is made of determinstic atoms and molecules, yet it can exhibit non-determinism as everyone can see. This is a fact. It isn't unscientific (just the opposite) to try and figure out the mechanisms via applying scientific methods. You're entire argument is built on a false claim, and repeating it over and over doesn't make it any less false. No one is arguing that matter is being forced to not obey the laws of nature ... the argument is that the brain as a system has capabilities far beyond its individual components, and that does not violate any laws of nature.

[Inquirer]

I did not state "engineering and science are incompatible with nondeterminism" at least I don't think that's a phrase or expression I've used, so please quote me rather than risk paraphrasing me inaccurately.

I quoted you in an earlier comment. Here it is again:

The claim "Everything is governed by the laws of nature" is identical to claiming that everything is deterministic yet you are claiming we can choose! Free will to choose cannot exist in a universe where everything is governed by laws. Because the future state of a system is always dictated by current state + laws, that's why we are able to build complex machines.

My thesis here is that as soon as we admit that, we must abandon science as a means to explain ourselves because science has no scope for non-determinism.

Did I misunderstand what you meant?

Possibly, not entirely clear actually. I don't want to imply that the concepts can't coexist, that's what I mean. They can coexist but science has a hard limit on what we can know when it comes to indeterminism. We must accept that if non-determinism is a real phenomenon - which it must be if free will is real - then science can never ever be used to shed light on the mind because the mind possesses free will which is beyond our ability to describe or explain scientifically (because by definition free will, mind, is not restricted by laws of nature). That's the point I'm trying to make and I think its reasonable, surely?

How do you know they are non-deterministic and not simply hard to predict?

If you mean in a philosophical sense, i.e. deterministic if one could in principle know everything about the state of the universe, then I don't. Since we can't know that at least practically and can't distinguish between the two, but Casinos can still make accurate predictions, then the methods must work whether slot machines are deterministic or not.

The lottery is unpredictable but the balls that are cast surely always obey the laws of mechanics do they not? The lottery makes money yet there is no non-determinism involved, there can't be if the behavior of the balls is governed by laws.

Whether or not the apparent lack of determinism is simply an illusion created by complexity is immaterial.

How can determinism being real or an illusion be immaterial to a discussion about determinism!

Because no matter how much you want to change the subject, that's not what our discussion is about!

Really? I thought you and I had been exchanging views on determinism and the implications for free will and hence morality, what have you been discussing if not this?

Your claim, as I quoted above, was that "science has no scope for non-determinism." That's false whether or not any particular event or the universe itself is, in fact, deterministic.

How can a discipline predicated on the belief that nature is based on inviolable laws be used to account for things that do not obey any laws? that's what non-determinism is, events that are not the inevitable result of laws, events that have no material cause.

Pseudorandom number generators (to give them their correct name) are not examples of non-determinism but of unpredictability, if you disagree then just tell me how you distinguish between the two.

Slot machines aren't pseudorandom. There are actually technical requirements for randomness in casino games that are legally enforced. The accepted way to do this is a hardware chip that generates pseudorandom bit patterns at clock speed. The chip then latches the current bit pattern in response to an external stimulus, usually the button press to activate a play. As long as each bit position obeys a normal distribution relative to every other bit position over a short enough time interval (like one second, say), the exact pattern can't be predicted even probabilistically in practice and maybe not even in principle, since the exact time that any person would begin a game involves an incredible amount of randomizing entropy and perhaps quantum noise. This would be true, amusingly, even if humans have no free will and could be individually and completely predicted.

Right so I agree they are random, they use pseudo random number generators as you describe combined with effectively random human interactions, but everything that happens is still the result of laws of nature, at no point are there events that are not scientifically explicable. No non-determinism here - unless the humans (who possess free will) are the source of the non-determinsim.

But that's all academic. Your claim, once again, is that "science has no scope for non-determinism" and aside from attempts to change the subject, your only argument has been to repeat that science requires some form of causality. Since causality and determinism aren't the same thing, that's still a non sequitur, whether the universe is deterministic or not.

In my comments I am regarding them as the same thing, look:

Determinism is often used to mean causal determinism, which in physics is known as cause-and-effect. This is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state of an object or event is completely determined by its prior states.

If you mean something different then what do you mean exactly? how do these differ in your opinion?

I trust that settles the matter, these devices are not non-deterministic.

I'm also a programmer and I write software to do scientific data analysis. Part of my job is to identify patterns of nonrandom noise in ADC data, including sampling bias in any particular bit in any particular ADC, and find ways to account for or eliminate it. I know what random means.

Very well, I accept that you have a sound understanding of random, that's never been disputed by me though, I suppose we likely share the same definition of it.

But again, you still need to defend your claim that science doesn't work in the absence of determinism. You keep trying to justify your claim by arguing that scientific data might be deterministic at some level, even though the level is well below that of practical data collection.

Casinos do not require non-determinism. Consider Black-Jack, are you really going to argue that the positions of the cards in a deck is not entirely due to their initial ordering and the steps taken by the dealer to shuffle the pack?

No. That's why I used slot machines as my example. Gaming commissions do require slot machines to be random in some way that is tied to the chaos of the physical world.

Yes but random is not the same as non-deterministic! Random events are caused events yet hard to predict due to insufficient data. True non-determinism is uncaused, events and state changes that are not attributable to some preceding material cause or event. Science can never "explain" non deterministic systems because they are not subject to laws of nature, that's what I mean, science is limited to things governed by laws, relationships is it not?

Consider the three body problem, is the state of that system governed by laws or not?

[Inquirer]

If matter is governed by laws (which science claims it is) then matter cannot be non-deterministic.

You're equivocating on (or misunderstanding) what the word "law" means in the scientific sense or what "deterministic" means.

The Ideal Gas Law is true because of the apparently random motion of many molecules. Whether the behavior of the individual particles can be completely predicted based on the current state of the universe is immaterial. The predictive power of a set of probabilities, which is ultimately what the Ideal Gas Law describes, doesn't translate to determinism as it's being discussed here, even when the predictive power at the macro level reaches the point of practical certainty.

If some process can be described by a law then how can there be scope for events and states arising that are not described by those laws? It cannot, science is cause and effect, laws. If there is no law governing some events then by definition it cannot be described, modelled or explained by science because to do so necessitates the system being described by a law which is the antithesis of nondeterministic.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #96]

NOTE: FYI for readers ... Inquirer's comments in post 95 are responses to Difflugia, not me.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #96]

NOTE: FYI for readers ... Inquirer's comments in post 95 are responses to Difflugia, not me.

Man, how did that happen! My apologies!

[Inquirer]

OK all fixed.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #92]

I don't see how the existence of brains "explains" anything at all.

It explains how a collection of deterministic molecules, integrated into a system (brain), can create non-deterministic behavior. It is the brain that is doing the non-deterministic work, clearly.

That is not something I've said. Once again if all the parts use to build something are deterministic (molecules, cells, neurons) then by definition the machine will likewise be deterministic. Therefore if the brain really is non-deterministic (e.g. has free will) then one or more of the parts must be non-deterministic and since science cannot mathematically model or describe non-determinism, science cannot explain free will.

So you keep claiming, but this is the fatal flaw in your argument because it is very obviously false. The brain is made of atoms and molecules, and human behavior is non-deterministic and driven by decisions the brain makes. Explaining how this works, if science is going to address the problem, cannot involve magic, or spirits, etc. Yet that seems to be your preferred solution to the problem. Repeatedly making the same false claim (collections of determnistic components cannot build a non-deterministic system), then building arguments based on that, doesn't work.

How do you "enable" non-determinism? The statements is nonsensical. If matter is governed by laws (which science claims it is) then matter cannot be non-deterministic. How can you make matter not obey laws of nature? I don't see how the amount of matter or the complexity of some configuration of matter can "enable" the laws of nature to be violated, that's a very unscientific thing to propose.

You are rejecting the well known fact that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts, which is what this boils down to. The brain is made of determinstic atoms and molecules, yet it can exhibit non-determinism as everyone can see. This is a fact. It isn't unscientific (just the opposite) to try and figure out the mechanisms via applying scientific methods. You're entire argument is built on a false claim, and repeating it over and over doesn't make it any less false. No one is arguing that matter is being forced to not obey the laws of nature ... the argument is that the brain as a system has capabilities far beyond its individual components, and that does not violate any laws of nature.

I think the point on which we disagree is that you regard the existence of brains (with free will, hence non-determinism) as proof that non-determinism can emerge from determinism. I regard it as evidence that some other phenomenon is at play, something not open to scientific investigation (because non-determinism, absence of causes for events cannot be explained scientifically).

The problem I see with your position is that you need matter to be governed by laws of nature and at the same time not be governed by laws of nature, how can one have law that there are no laws?