Simon Paynton

Unseen wrote:
However, I don’t think a lay person should accept a philosopher’s word that he has a solution to a philosophical problem if it’s one that only other philosophers or people who can intelligently read philosophy can understand.

“I have solved the free will problem and if you read my 400 page treatise and have a solid backgro…

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Unseen wrote:
“Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies.

But they were doing it for unselfish reasons: for the greater good.  That’s not so different from our conception of good and evil.

jakelafort wrote:
I want to know what the thinker thinks.

Like Peter Griffin on ecstacy:  “how are you doing that?”

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
But the personality trait pages are dumb. Worse than the Myers Brigg test which is Woo.

I can understand that employers want certain personality traits and qualities, like professionalism, initiative, communication skills, agreeableness, conscientiousness.  But I don’t see how AI can dig those out.

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]