Samantha

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]

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

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.

Yes, but he deals in stories, human psychology and human nature.  It doesn’t have to make perfect logical sense.  It can have a psychological logic – a human logic rather than a mathematical or physical logic.

If you’re expecting a meticulously logical philosophical treatise, you won’t get one out of him.  But his stories make sense in a human setting.

Unseen wrote:
You talk about free will in a way that presupposes its existence. That’s what I accused you of in my prior post.

Maybe, but my point is, that there’s evidence for its existence.  If I had no free will, I could not respond to contingent, random circumstances by deliberating and picking and choosing.

Just because I can’t directly fi…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
JP strikes me mostly as someone mostly trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame. To me he’s the “Hawk-Tua girl” of the identity wars.

I don’t think he’s a fame-whore at all.  Being a little bit up close to him, I was impressed with his integrity and responsibility.  He was quite happy to apologise and say he was wrong about somethi…[Read more]