The Atheism of the Gaps

First Things ^ | Stephen M. Barr

[garbanzo]

Penrose takes neural networks into account, of course.

I was referring more to the argument that AI researchers have discovered that most AI algorithms have way too many operations for non-trivial problems to be good models for how the mind works. My point was that many of these problems are solved more easily by neural nets than linear algorithms.

[AndrewC]

Free will need not be utterly free. If it has built in limitations, as it well may, we wouldn't notice them.

Are you arguing for God(supernatural)?

[jennyp]

Free will need not be utterly free. If it has built in limitations, as it well may, we wouldn't notice them.

Are you arguing for God(supernatural)?

I can't say for PH, but for myself this basically means that the whole question is moot. Who cares whether or not our decisions are deterministically, uh, determined? We'd never know otherwise, and attempts to resolve the question always get trapped in an infinite regression.

[PatrickHenry]

Are you arguing for God(supernatural)?

Not in what I posted. I'm saying that unless we are gods -- and I don't think we are -- our free will is limited. An entity with unbounded free will would have a god-like characteristic, in that such a form of free will probably wouldn't be materialistic in its source.

[AndrewC]

An entity with unbounded free will would have a god-like characteristic, in that such a form of free will probably wouldn't be materialistic in its source.

Amen.

[PatrickHenry]

I said: " An entity with unbounded free will would have a god-like characteristic, in that such a form of free will probably wouldn't be materialistic in its source."

On mature reflection, maybe it could have a materialistic source. I don't think we really know enough yet to flatly rule it out. Anyway, I suspect that our free will may have limits of which we are unaware, and perhaps we can never know what they are. That leaves me enough wiggle-room to speculate that the human brain-mind is material in origin.

[AndrewC]

That leaves me enough wiggle-room to speculate that the human brain-mind is material in origin.

Yep, that's free will all right!

[What about Bob?]

Obviously our free will has limits. I cannot flap my arms and fly around the city, no matter how much I will it. That is beside the point. If the mind is fully material, and the manifestations of it (thought, emotion, etc) fully supervenient on the material brain which I assume you believe (if not then what?), then you did not choose to respond to this thread. Law and matter causally determined that you would. "You" have no choice in the matter, even if as you find yourself typing a response you believe that you "chose" to do so.

[What about Bob?]

Who cares whether or not our decisions are deterministically, uh, determined?

I care. It would mean that the hijackers who killed nearly 7,000 people in NYC did not choose to do so. They were merely pawns in a chain of physical events which deterministically led to them doing so. While we may want to punish them, doing so would merely be a formality since they would not be- could not be- responsible for it.

This also raises the question of objective morality. If materialism is correct, morality is a human construct and it is no more "wrong" for me to kill someone as it is for me to eat a cheeseburger.

[What about Bob?]

Top 10 Questions for Science in the next Century

My new post :)

[Nebullis]

Who cares whether or not our decisions are deterministically, uh, determined?

Or randomly, uh, unpredictable? As the case may be...

Do minds play dice? (you've probably seen this already)

[Nebullis]

All that I can presently detect plus all those that you will say I missed.

You've missed all the ones that you can't presently detect. You've moved from show me one to "all". Which was my point to you several posts back. You can't detect all.

[AndrewC]

You've missed all the ones that you can't presently detect

There are none of those.

[sourcery]

re: Do minds play dice?

I had not seen that article. Thanks.

[jennyp]

I care. It would mean that the hijackers who killed nearly 7,000 people in NYC did not choose to do so. They were merely pawns in a chain of physical events which deterministically led to them doing so. While we may want to punish them, doing so would merely be a formality since they would not be- could not be- responsible for it.

And if that realization makes us become profoundly jaded about the world, then that was also predetermined. And if we reject determination, then that was predetermined too. And at that point determinism becomes a moot point, since it explains away every possible reaction to the terrorist attack.

One of the few things I vaguely remember from one of my Philosophy classes in college was a quote from, was it Samuel Johnson? (Dunno, I can't find it in any Famous Quotes websites.) Anyway, it goes, "Sir, I know my will is free, and there's an end on't!"

How could you prove Johnson wrong? The only way I can think of would be to inventory all the atoms' positions & energy levels & velocities, both inside Johnson & all the atoms he'll ever encounter, and run the simulation forward & see what it predicts. If it accurately predicts his movements & thoughts for the next, say, 24 hours, then we could assume determinism has won.

But even without quantum indeterminacy it would be impossible, because such a computer would have to be the size of a planet.

As for the rest of your argument, I'm afraid I can't comment on it until you tell me what "supervenient" means.

[Cold Heat]

Thanks for the post. I skimmed the article and saved for later. I have never seen a piece of harware that could reason and argue but I have been involved in some rudimentry AI stuff. In 84 or 85 Honeywell was playing around with something called fuzzy logic. It has been incoporated into many process controllers at work today in manufacturing. It basically LEARNS. It does this by keeping a record of the activity that it runs. It then adjusts its own program to make itself better. I always found this to be exciting and a little scary. I wonder how far it could go.

[jennyp]

So, let's assume Penrose is right and the brain can't be a Turing machine. I'm wondering (not a computer theory expert) why should this be a problem? The brain is a network of digital/analog components. The neurons aren't strictly digital. Each neuron integrates the pulse trains coming into it, where the frequency of the pulses represents a positive or negative amount that adds to or subtracts from the electrical level.

Has anyone ever claimed or proven that an analog computer (or analog/digital hybrid) would also be a Turing machine?

[AndrewC]

Has anyone ever claimed or proven that an analog computer (or analog/digital hybrid) would also be a Turing machine?

Have you noticed a trend in the type of electronic equipment? What "exactly" is quantum mechanics based on?

[jennyp]

For that matter:

Later Developments

The concept of a Turing machine has played an important role in the recent philosophy of mind. The suggestion has been made that mental states just are functional states of a probabilistic automaton, in which binary inputs and outputs have been replaced by sensory inputs and motor outputs. This idea underlies the theory of mind known as "machine functionalism".

Would a probabilistic Turing machine also be constrained by Gödel's Theorem?

[AndrewC]

Would a probabilistic Turing machine also be constrained by Gödel's Theorem?

Yes.