Robots vs Humans

[methylatedghosts]

Robots are programmed. People aren't

Can't remember who said that or in which thread, but I wonder, are people really not programmed?

I would say that we are programmed to some degree by our upbringing and the society we live in. Not in the same sense as a robot, obviously, but still, there is some sort of programming there.

The thought processes of everyone, (if not, most) begin in early childhood by watching how mum and dad react and respond to the world. Some of these processes continue through to adult life, and to death - because they are the ones that seem to work for them.

In a robot one can alter the programming, just like one can alter their own habits. It might take some work, but it happens.

My question is, how much are people programmed?
Are we all programmed to the same degree, or are some people "more programmed" than others?

----------------
I'm not talking about free will. Please can we leave God and destiny etc out of the equation?

[methylatedghosts]

A person has free will to do whatever he wants. But the person has no need to avoid one option for fear of repercussions, or to lean towards another because of benefits (as in, outside of the choice - getting into heaven or whatever). That to me, is true free will. If one was to get punished for making a choice, then I do not see that one really has the free will to make that choice, knowing that one would get punished. I think a truely ignorant person - one who does not know the difference between right and wrong - has true free will.

Anything else is not true free will.

But unlike Bugmaster, I do not think free will means unpredictablility. One does have the free will to make the same choice over and over, and many people do. Then, when a similar situation occurs, one can predict the choice a person would have, based on his/her previous choices. And I'd agree, that psychology, neurobiology and such have made it easier to predict a persons choice, but that is only by looking at the previous choices one has made, and the choices others have made, that will decide the likelyhood, and thus, predictablility of your choice. But one would still have the free will to change that and make a different choice - one that is not predicted.

[Bugmaster]

If there was no way to calculate people's behavior even in principle then we we would have no way of distinguishing a universe containing only deterministic behavior from one that contained free will. If this was the case we could apply Occam's razor equally to Free will or determinism.

No, I think we'd jettison free will, because it's an extra entity that we have no evidence for. Under scenario A, we would have plenty of evidence for determinism, because we would be able to predict how most things (rocks, etc.) would behave -- just not humans, due to our lack of computing power.

At first glance scenario B looks plausible, I think there is a problem here. There well could be human actions whose final instantiation are balanced on a knife edge - but how sharp is that knife edge, and how is the balance weighted. I suspect the 50/50 split is in practice I feel just an abstraction.

Agreed. Realistically, under scenario B, human actions would tend to follow some sort of a probability distribution -- Gaussian, most likely. So, Harry would very often eat toast in the morning, but sometimes (very rarely) he'd eat fruit or chocolate or nothing at all. If we were to plot his eating habits, we could get a nice histogram, to the effect of "toast: 90%; fruit: 8%; other: 2%".

A lucky dip on the lottery generates random numbers, but they aren't really random, it is just a complex algorithm. So as long as you have access to the rules of the algorithm then again the eventual behavior will be predictable.

We've had a discussion on randomness on another thread. As I see it, it's relatively easy to obtain a source of truly random numbers; there's even a site called random.org that can do it for you.

So for Free Will to be a strong hypothesis it needs to saying something else I feel. Hmmm. Well I think that was one of my points. If we do have Free will, by definition we will not be able to make any strong predictions.

Why not ? I don't think I follow.

Anyway, my point is that if the world with free will in it is indistinguishable from a world without free will, we might as well assume that free will does not exist (though it still could, of course). If free will does exist, then it should be detectable as something else other than randomness. Methylatedghosts seems to think so as well:

But unlike Bugmaster, I do not think free will means unpredictablility. One does have the free will to make the same choice over and over, and many people do. ... But one would still have the free will to change that and make a different choice - one that is not predicted.

However, I still don't see how we'd distinguish free will from randomness (assuming that human behavior actually is unpredictable, of course).

[McCulloch]

I still don't see how we'd distinguish free will from randomness.

I see the difficulty. It would be impossible to distinguish free will from randomness based simply on external observations. But randomness has no causal agent. Free will implies some sort of causal agent, sometimes called a soul. The odd thing is that this soul has no evidence for its existence other than free will, which, as you point out, is indistinguishable from randomness.

[methylatedghosts]

I still don't see how we'd distinguish free will from randomness.

I see the difficulty. It would be impossible to distinguish free will from randomness based simply on external observations. But randomness has no causal agent. Free will implies some sort of causal agent, sometimes called a soul. The odd thing is that this soul has no evidence for its existence other than free will, which, as you point out, is indistinguishable from randomness.

But free will doesn't have to equate to unpredictability. We essentially are "programmed" by many influences to make the same choice over again, but we always have the free will to change that choice.

For example, a person with OCD always chooses to never step on a crack in the footpath, over and over again. It is their "programming". But with enough work, a new program can be entered, provided the person wanted to change it. This part might be the free will. The ability to change programs when one wants. A person with OCD only has a highly predictable program. They had the free will, to install that program in the first place.

And I think that this point is agreeable, whether or not you believe in a soul.

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Bugmaster

If there was no way to calculate people's behavior even in principle then we we would have no way of distinguishing a universe containing only deterministic behavior from one that contained free will. If this was the case we could apply Occam's razor equally to Free will or determinism.

No, I think we'd jettison free will, because it's an extra entity that we have no evidence for. Under scenario A, we would have plenty of evidence for determinism, because we would be able to predict how most things (rocks, etc.) would behave -- just not humans, due to our lack of computing power.

Is Free will an extra entity? Ok I started using the term Free Will and I guess that brings with it some dualistic metaphysical baggage. But I am definitely not a dualist. I think your keenness to get slicing with Occam's razor is down to seeing Free Will as something extra, but from where I'm coming from it is just a different way at looking at the possibilities and non possibilities of causal explanations.

This is how I see it. Full blown 100% materialism is committed to causality. Every event has a prior cause. Within a deterministic programme we could then have a series of events E1, E2, E3..etc , one following the other, each event in turn caused by the prior event. Thus determinism. And thence our brains are just complicated machines that run deterministic (thought again complicated) programmes. Within that scenario there may be a case for lack of computing power to be able to predict behavior, but that failing is an epistemological failing, viz., its down to a failing in our ability to know for sure.

The Free will I have in mind is not a entity, and it is not just the unpredictability of behavior. It goes right to the heart of how we view and understand causality. For there to be Free Will there would have to be an event not caused by a prior event. Ok by definition determinism would then be false. However if we take the series E1, E2, E3, then if E1 is not caused by a prior Event and is "uncaused" my first point is - if we continue to view this series through deterministic glasses we shall never admit or "see" the possibility of an uncaused E1.

Going back one step. I previously mention the falsification principle. This is the standard criteria for assessing the scientific credentials of any theory. If it cannot be falsified then it is a doctrine and not a science. If we apply this test to the deterministic theory of causality, then unless it can admit the possibility of uncaused events then determinism cannot in principle be falsified. It is then a doctrine.

No, I think we'd jettison free will, because it's an extra entity that we have no evidence for.

Well if determinism cannot be falsified then interpreting the world via determinism will never generate evidence for uncaused events. But the reasoning becomes circular and self supporting.

At this point I guess your brow might be furrowed. Does an uncaused event even make sense? Does it entail that something must occur out of nothing? Well I've been looking into that Try here - Is it really possible to get something from nothing?

And what would an uncaused event look like? Well how about subjective experience. Ok in principle I can happily admit all subjective experience will be tokened in the brain and/or nervous system, and will be reducible to physical interactions. But how do the lights switch on? so to speak. There is the twitching of nerves and firing of neurons - But what about the subjective feel of pain. Science can tell us what is causing the physical interactions, but not how/why the subjective feeliness of the pain arrives. If a scientist comes along and says I 've found a bunch of firing neurons ,and if their atoms are vibrating within this limited energy spectrum then the subject will experience blue. That explanation - despite showing the causes - still systematically fail to explain how blue interactions and energies turn into experiential feely subjectiveness.

So I posit subjective feely experience is one phenomena we know occurs with 100% certainty, but which systematically falls outside causal explanations. It is an uncaused subjective event. Thus 100% determinism has to be false. However there are epiphenomalist who would argue that mental states are just a product of causal states and are not causal themselves. Thus, though we are the happy recipients of having experience, this would mean we can do anything with it. Our behavior is still 100% deterministic, and we just get to observe our live as we live it out deterministically. I don't buy into that.

Anyhow - to summarize. Free will as I see it is not an entity. Its roots are drawn from an alternative model of causality. If the term Free Will brings too much philosophical baggage with it for your tastes then call it non deterministic behavior. If there is no means to tell determinism from non determinism, any application of Occam's razor would be a misuse, because neither view point posits extra entities. What separates them is a different view of causality.

[Bugmaster]

This is how I see it. Full blown 100% materialism is committed to causality. Every event has a prior cause.

Eh, causality is just a shorthand. When you start looking closer and closer at what the real world is made of (to the best of our knowledge, anyway), you start seeing a bunch of waves interacting with each other all over time and space. There isn't really a clear chain of events such as A causes B causes C. But, this notion does work quite well for large objects, such as billiard balls or cars, or possibly planets. Still, you shouldn't confuse the shorthand with reality.

For there to be Free Will there would have to be an event not caused by a prior event.

How would we tell an uncaused event from a random event ? For example, as I've pointed out before, radioactive decay is random. If you point a sufficiently sensitive Geiger counter at a chunk of radium, you could never predict when the next particle would be emitted by it -- though you could predict the average number of particle emissions per second, and thus the half-life of the radium. So, is radioactive decay random ? Or uncaused ? Or both ? Or what ?

I would agree with you that strict determinism (i.e., the notion that everything in the Universe can be predicted exactly in 100% detail) is false, but I don't think this is actually important. We don't need to predict everything for all time, we just need to predict what Bob the token human will do for the rest of his natural lifespan -- and I think that a 99.9% correct prediction would already be pretty good; we don't even need 100%.

There is the twitching of nerves and firing of neurons - But what about the subjective feel of pain.

If the subjective feel of pain is truly uncaused, then how come you tend to experience it only after receiving certain stimuli -- such as a heavy book landing on your toes ? Yes, I agree that there's probably no 100% ironclad proof that books falling on toes cause pain, but I think the likelihood of this is pretty high.

Note that, in the previous paragraph, we are both assuming the existence of subjective experiences, as independent entities. Normally I'd deny this, but I'm willing to entertain the idea for the purposes of this post.

To summarize that I said above: how is an uncaused event different from randomness ? Furthermore, if my uncaused free will is causing me to type things, and your uncaused free will is causing you to reply to what I type, how can we communicate at all ? There's no causal relationship between our posts whatsoever.

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Bugmaster

I think this is the deepest problem so I'm going to start with this first.

There is the twitching of nerves and firing of neurons - But what about the subjective feel of pain.

If the subjective feel of pain is truly uncaused, then how come you tend to experience it only after receiving certain stimuli -- such as a heavy book landing on your toes ? Yes, I agree that there's probably no 100% ironclad proof that books falling on toes cause pain, but I think the likelihood of this is pretty high.

So book drops on toe. Stimuli sets of chain of physical events, and in some optimum science we could in principle say all those neurons there, and nerves here account for the pain experience.

Ok say you are building a robot. A very sophisticated robot. Its hardware can be compared in its complexity to the human brain and nervous system. Drop a book on its toe and a bunch of wires and replica neurons get busy, but you are not sure your robot feels/has subjective experience. Lets say some super scientist discovers and can prove that subjective feeliness is 100% correlated with a certain part of the brain, and certain physical interactions within that brain area. There is no doubt about this. The physical causes of experience have been found! So you replicate these interactions and build this into your robot. Suddenly your robot starts acting real strange. He begins to weep with Joy, and says I can see, and I feel like I've been born, and keeps staring out himself in the mirror, which was something you never programmed him to do etc etc. After further test you are convinced Robby the robot is not just reacting to stimuli but is actually experiencing colour and pain etc. He really can smell the coffee.

I can go along with all that. In that sense I can happily say experience is caused. But....we still have not explained how and why certain physical interactions turn into experience. We have only given evidence that they do. Moreover, even if the causal explanation continues to ever improve, it will never be able to offer that explanation.....because the form of the problem remains untouched. Viz., over here is a causal physical phenomena....but why experience? You make a point about deep radomness. But the problem still does not go away. Viz., over here are random physical events....but why experience?

There is something missing from scientific/causal/material/quantum explanations. They can explain where and when, and probability of, and in a limited sense of the where and the when then how..... but not why experience? And not how experience in the deeper sense of how that bunch of jangling molecules becomes not just that particular experience, but an experience at all? Thus when I say experience is non causal I mean it in the sense that it cannot be fitted into a causal explanation or even a quantum randomness explanation.

Eh, causality is just a shorthand. When you start looking closer and closer at what the real world is made of (to the best of our knowledge, anyway), you start seeing a bunch of waves interacting with each other all over time and space. There isn't really a clear chain of events such as A causes B causes C. But, this notion does work quite well for large objects, such as billiard balls or cars, or possibly planets. Still, you shouldn't confuse the shorthand with reality.

Ok. But wave A + wave B = resulting wave C. Thus A + B are the cause of C. These kinds of interactions are very deterministic.

This all boils down to a failure of the following kind:

1) Wave A + wave B = resulting wave C.

2) Wave A + wave B = smell of coffee fresh coffee.

1) type explanations may succeed at explaining where and when and how and why wave C. Explanation 2) on the other hand explains where and when but not how and why "smell of fresh coffee" is experienced.

If you point a sufficiently sensitive Geiger counter at a chunk of radium, you could never predict when the next particle would be emitted by it -- though you could predict the average number of particle emissions per second, and thus the half-life of the radium. So, is radioactive decay random ? Or uncaused ? Or both ? Or what ?

Well certainly random. Caused or uncaused? Hmmm. Well when I say experience is not caused, I also mean explanations relying on randomness cannot explain it. So I do not group randomness in the set of uncaused phenomena as I am trying to use the term uncaused here. If you wish you can split explanatory models into deterministic and random phenomena, but both fail to explain experience. So I'll have to say experience is non causal and non random. So I guess I need a new term - "experience of experience is not explainable by materialism" as compared to "the physics of experience is explainable". (Ok the term "experience of experience" may be sailing close to either empty tautology or worse incoherence, but langauge is unwieldy sometimes, and I am just seeking a term to stand at a distance to all the "physics of experience" By physics I just mean atoms, molecules, energy, waves etc.)

If we take your example of randomness of particles emitted by radium. Though we cannot predict the event, we know how and why the particle is emitted. There are some prior conditions for there to be an emission. And our scientific type explanation forces us to think in terms of an event at least having prior conditions. But my point about experience as experienced is that this does not have prior conditions. So subjective experience is not explainable by prior conditions". If it is then it is amenable to science. But my whole point is that it is not.

Note that, in the previous paragraph, we are both assuming the existence of subjective experiences, as independent entities.

I don't want to do that. My dictionary defines an entity as "a thing with distinct and independent existence". Ok I'm trying to plow some ground that falls beyond the explanatory power of science. But I do not see this as a request for a theory about a new entity, or a even metaphysical problem. The deeper problem is how we approach the whole issue. It lies at the heart of how we conceive of causality and the world. I don't want to invent new entities, my aim is to reassess the intellectual tools by which we judge and measure the world.

To summarize that I said above: how is an uncaused event different from randomness ?

Well I'd say uncaused entails no prior conditions. (As well as physical, that also includes metaphysical conditions, dualism, unknown entities etc).

The nearest physical example I can think of are virtual particles popping into and out of existence from nothing. As long as science does not discover/require some prior conditions to this phenomena then I'd say they could meet my criteria of uncaused.

Furthermore, if my uncaused free will is causing me to type things, and your uncaused free will is causing you to reply to what I type, how can we communicate at all ? There's no causal relationship between our posts whatsoever.

It that right? There is the causal chain event between the two free wills. The chains just do not trace back further.

I detect some frustration with me Bugmaster. I can understand that. The line I am trying to tread is wafer thin, and perhaps invisible too. I fully appreciate I am sailing close to incoherence. But it is a direction I feel compelled to follow.

[Bugmaster]

Ok say you are building a robot. A very sophisticated robot. Its hardware can be compared in its complexity to the human brain and nervous system. Drop a book on its toe and a bunch of wires and replica neurons get busy, but you are not sure your robot feels/has subjective experience...

I think we're drifting into the territory of Strong AI, the topic on which I had a long thread with Harvey. We should probably move the robot-vs.-man discussion there, but let me summarize:

With your argument from subjective experience, you can only prove that you, personally, have subjective experiences and thus free will. You cannot prove that I, Bugmaster, have them. You could say, "well, Bugmaster behaves as though he has these experiences so he probably does", but then, I'm no different to you than a really sophisticated robot. So, your choice is to treat anything that acts human as human (including possible robots), or to treat everyone as a robot and hide under your bed (someone actually suggested that, believe it or not), or to use some other criterion to decide (but I don't know what it might be).

To put it more succinctly, I think your argument leads to a sort of solipsism, which is philosophically problematic.

Ok. But wave A + wave B = resulting wave C. Thus A + B are the cause of C. These kinds of interactions are very deterministic.

But this is not how waves work, especially not on the quantum level :-( They exist in all possible states most of the time.

Well certainly random. Caused or uncaused? Hmmm. Well when I say experience is not caused, I also mean explanations relying on randomness cannot explain it.

Ok, let's say we have two lightbulbs, that can turn on or off. Each lightbulb is connected to a machine that turns it on and off, off and on, etc. One of the machines uses a random process to toggle the lightbulb, and the other one is using an uncaused process, but we don't know which one is which.

How could we tell which machine is random and which is uncaused, if we may only look at the light bulbs ? And if we can't tell, in principle, then why does it matter ?

But my point about experience as experienced is that this does not have prior conditions. So subjective experience is not explainable by prior conditions.

Why not ? I can grant you that we currently do not know the mechanism by which subjective experiences operate (especially, subjective experiences other than yourself), but that doesn't mean that we can't know that mechanism, in principle.

The nearest physical example I can think of are virtual particles popping into and out of existence from nothing. As long as science does not discover/require some prior conditions to this phenomena then I'd say they could meet my criteria of uncaused.

But there are quite good reasons to believe that virtual particles exist, and what causes them. Just as radioactive decay, they're random, but I wouldn't call them entirely arbitrary. Inicidently, IIRC, the X-Ray radiation emitted by black holes is caused by virtual particles.

It that right? There is the causal chain event between the two free wills. The chains just do not trace back further.

Ok, let's try and trace it:

A. Bugmaster's free will causes him to post something.
B. Bugmaster enters a post.
C. FB reads the post.
D. FB's free will causes him to post something.
E. DB enters a post.
F. Bugmaster reads a post
g. (goto A)

A causes B, B causes C, but nothing can cause D or A, since by definition free will is uncaused. So, there's no causal chain between A and D. We have two separate chains (A->B->C, D->E->F) that are not connected.

I detect some frustration with me Bugmaster. I can understand that.

Nah, this is how I always talk :-)

[Greatest I Am]

The funtioning of the brain is ackin to computers. It remains to be seen as to if they can be self aware or only good engeneering.

Regards

DL

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Bugmaster.

To put it more succinctly, I think your argument leads to a sort of solipsism, which is philosophically problematic.

Problematic yes. But this problem belongs to epistemology. Maybe no matter how Robby the robot talks, cries, moans about the meaningless of his existence, we can always doubt whether he has a mind. In fact we can doubt everyone else other than ourselves. Descartes cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am)offers us a way out from doubting ourselves. But then how do we know we think. One criticism of Descartes is that his conclusion goes too far. We can only know there is thinking going on, whilst the "I" is doubtful. But even that criticism can be toughened up. What is thinking? The only thing I can say for sure is that Furrowed Brow has subjective experience. And though I cannot prove it, I'm going to take it on trust that you too Bugmaster have subjective experience, and that you are not just a very sophisticated Turing machine.

Putting epistemology to one side. The deeper problem is a problem that belongs to physics, perhaps metaphysics, and requires questioning how we think about the problem. It is a problem of where we set the limits of our theories about consciousness. What is permitted and what is not. For example, is it possible or not possible to get something from nothing. Can there be an event without prior condition/cause? Are these possibilities limits upon reality or limits upon the way we think about reality? I'd say there are limits that contour the way we think. Reality may or may not obey those same limits. In fact I'd go further and say some aspect of reality does not. Subjective experience being the proof.

Ok. But wave A + wave B = resulting wave C. Thus A + B are the cause of C. These kinds of interactions are very deterministic.

But this is not how waves work, especially not on the quantum level

Ok when I wrote that I was thinking of Fourier analysis. That is to say a final wave is the superposition of the adding together the function/amplitudes. Which is to say that any complex wave function is equal to the sum of simple harmonic functions. So in my simple example waves A and B could be simple harmonic functions. (Ok I'll fess up. I am interested in Quantum physics but I am a complete amateur. I can go so far, but I don't have the expertise of QED. So if I do say anything stupid then I am happy to be picked up on it.)

They exist in all possible states most of the time.

Which bit of the time do they not exist in all possible states? When is Schrodinger's cat alive, alive and dead, and then dead. At some point the superposition of the probability functions collapse into a real event.

But my point about experience as experienced is that this does not have prior conditions. So subjective experience is not explainable by prior conditions.

Why not ? I can grant you that we currently do not know the mechanism by which subjective experiences operate (especially, subjective experiences other than yourself), but that doesn't mean that we can't know that mechanism, in principle.

I think we can't know in principle. For the reasons I tried to articulate in my previous post.There is a logical and categorical difference between being able to say physical interactions X, Y and Z are the cause of Robby experiencing the aroma of coffee, and being able to explain how and why a physical interaction can produce an experience at all.

However I think we can know the physical causal mechanisms, and will end up knowing these in great detail. But no matter how well those mechanisms are understood, we are never going to know how and why the internal lights of experience switch on - even if we know that some physical event and only X is necessary for turning the lights on.

In case I am drifting into rambling incoherence, let me draw my incoherence plain. Subjective experience = physical causal mechanism + non causal aspect. (Logically we can and do know that experience as it is felt/experienced does not fit into a causal/material explanation.)

And again. I think it deserves repeating. I am not positing new physical or metaphysical entities to resolve that equation. Instead I think we need to do some navel gazing and reassess the logic and form of the way we think about the problem.

Ok, let's try and trace it:

A. Bugmaster's free will causes him to post something.
B. Bugmaster enters a post.
C. FB reads the post.
D. FB's free will causes him to post something.
E. DB enters a post.
F. Bugmaster reads a post
g. (goto A)

A causes B, B causes C, but nothing can cause D or A, since by definition free will is uncaused. So, there's no causal chain between A and D. We have two separate chains (A->B->C, D->E->F) that are not connected.

Here you touch on a major problem of the position I am trying to hold. If nothing causes free will, how do I react to anything at all. how Does the non causal interact with the causal? Is this not just plain contradictory?

The first thing to do is hold fast to the the idea that I am not trying to posit any entities. So it is not the case there is some non causal entity standing distant to the physical mechanisms. Instead I think we have to take off the deterministic/causal looking glasses of standard materialist philosophies and see the problem in a different way. So what do I mean by that?

Well, secondly one needs to take literally and buy into the outlandish notion that when I say I scratched my head because I felt like doing that - that I really did "feel" and that "feeling" was the agency behind my hand moving to my nose to have a good scratch.

But I hear you already asking how can a feeling be reduced to a causal mechanism when I appear to be saying it can't? Well the feely bit can't, because it lies at the threshold of what can be fitted into a causal explanation. So here I am at point D, about to post this reply to you, and I'm doing it because I feel like it - and science can't explain the feeling from anything other than causal/material perspective.

Put this another way. There is experience/feeling. Epiphenomalists would admit this but say the physical process is doing all the work and the subjective experience just follows the physical process. Put bluntly - atoms and forces move and the feeling changes. But the not the other way around.

I'm saying that this is not a one way street. Feelings can move the atoms and forces. In fact we can makes this a definition of what it means to have free will.

However, I do not want to be mistaken for implying that in reality there to be any separation between feeling and its physical aspect -atoms and forces. The separation separation is drawn by the way we look and theorise about the problem. But here is only ever one thing. Though there are two views of it. One is objective and external and belongs to causal theories and science, the other is the subjective experience, which cannot be fitted into those same causal theories.