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From: telford@threetek.dialix.oz.au (Telford Tendys)
Subject: Free will (was Minsky's new article)
In-Reply-To: simonpe@aisb.ed.ac.uk's message of Tue, 8 Nov 1994 15:35:04 GMT
Message-ID: <1994Nov18.065317.11164@threetek.dialix.oz.au>
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Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 06:53:17 GMT
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Taken from news of simonpe@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Simon Perkins):

> I think this is entirely circular. You are happy to accept that
> looking at the yellow square on the screen causes a chain of
> neurological events to occur in the brain, but then you deny that this
> is the same as an `experience' of yellowness. In doing so you are
> boldly saying that the experience of yellowness CANNOT be a physical
> phenomenon. But this is what you are setting out to prove!

Circular arguement because of a circular problem.
Your ``thought experiment'' involves the observer observing themself.
Now, the case of an observer observing someone else is a more useful
experiment. Then the question of internal states appears:
how many of the subjects internal states can the observer see and
does visiblility of these internal states make any difference
to the observation of free will in the subject?

> ... After all we all `know' that we have the free will to
> choose our behaviour, don't we? However, research in neurobiology in
> animals has continually found that animal behaviour that at one level
> is frequently explained in terms of `intentions' or 'desires', can
> also be explained in terms of mechanistic neural ciruitry...

When I roll a pair of dice,
I provide them with a (carefully controlled) amount of energy.
They transform that energy into a number between 2 and 12 (inclusive).
I can't tell them which number to choose and I can't predict
which number that they will choose.
I can, however, use a fancy movie camera to observe all of their
intermediate states and I know that Newton's laws MUST apply
at all times to my dice.
What I am working up to is the statement that my dice have
free will despite being constrained by causality and determinism.

> My belief (and unfortunately I have to use that word here) is
> that such mechanistic explanations will ultimately describe all of
> human behaviour (including such `non-mechanical' things as creativity).

The seed of creativity is randomness and unpredictability.
The other component is a filter that knows what is worth creating.

	- Tel
