Gregg R Thomas

jakelafort wrote:
do you suppose the genesis of general intelligence in AI is the one and only way that free will is possible?

I don’t know anything about AI.  I’m talking about living brains.  Free will is limited by influences, restrictions and circumstances.

_Robert_ wrote:
Or maybe we are merely consciously informed of the decision we believe we made, since the brain is just matter and energy,

Maybe it’s matter and energy that has the faculty of free will.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
What Is Ockham’s Razor?

Ockham’s Razor is a useful way to think, but people try to apply it to moral theory sometimes, where it doesn’t work.  The simpler explanation is not always the better one.

jakelafort wrote:
Evolution for instance.

The claim of evolution requires proof.  However, we already have a wealth of supporting evidence for it, including predictive power.

At what point does free will appear? Is it with chimps and gorillas also? Whales?

I’d say it depends on cognitve power, intelligence and flexibility.  So, humans have a l…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Simon, the starting point for free will, god, or any popular belief puts the burden of proof on the proponent. So if Sapolsky refutes all of the arguments he has won the day.

I’d say that whoever is making a claim, has a burden of proof to prove or demonstrate the truth of that claim.  However, you can’t prove a negative, so…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
His book Determined dispatches every free will argument ever made.

I still haven’t heard any argument in favour of the non-existence of free will apart from “if free will exists, we can’t work it out” – the argument from ignorance.

@jakelafort – I’ve been asked it a few times as well.  I just don’t fit the picture.

My nephew is as autistic as it’s possible to be, apparently.  He’s a nice young man.  There was a scandal about language boards a few years ago, my nephew faced a lot of cognitive dissonance from professionals who insisted he was an imbecile.  This article is shi…[Read more]

heatherspoonheim wrote:
Come to think of it – that may apply to me.

I definitely have some autistic traits but I don’t feel I’m on the spectrum.  I don’t feel a shock of recognition when I hear what it is like for people.

I like things to be neat and orderly and I’ve been told (by a boss who didn’t like me) that I’ve got an organised mind.  I’m…[Read more]

No, but I bought a few shares 🙂 See graphs in article.

I was talking to a teenager 3 years ago after a park run. Just after Covid. I was 40 years older than him and I finished 40 seconds ahead of him. (No, I am NOT competitive!!). He said his disability forced him to be “a geek” and was obsessive with numbers. He said he had an unusual type of autism. I told him that it was not a disability that he…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Think how much the middle east has changed as a result of the invasion and religious rapture of Hamas two octobers past.

Think of how much the middle east has changed as the result of the creation of Israel by Euro-American external politicians 76 years ago.

It has been reported by Russian media that Assad and his family are now in Moscow, and have been granted asylum on humanitarian grounds.

Enjoy the weather Basher el Sad.

@heatherspoonheim – I think the most creative people are probably on or very close to what we normies call ‘the spectrum’. That’s a good thing.

I included the video of JP and Harris today to show how Harris uses plain English to make his points and JP, while he has an extensive vocabulary, never take a straight line to make his. If I was to describe him in his own terminology, he tergiversates and is the personification of an ultracrepidarian, roughly speaking.

Here is an interesting rev…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Elon Musk calls for ACLU to be defunded.

Have a great week!!

“You don’t need religion to have morals. If you can’t determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion.”

PopeBeanie wrote:
For believers in free will, I ask, do you believe you have power over determinism, or is determinism not even a thing?

It depends on how binding the restrictions are.

I’m not going to dismiss him, because I don’t understand him.  He might be Deepak Chopra by now, he might not.

I was asked recently why I have no interest in reading anything else that JP writes, especially his new book about Catholic Jesus (roughly speaking!!). I replied that he may have had some opinions worth consideration in the past but not since he was ‘Deephacked Choprafied’.