spacecrayz

It sure is easy to imagine how an ape brain could believe it has agency, even if it doesn’t, especially if you lean towards soft determinism (I’d also throw in some random particles that make it through the atmosphere and smash into our neural networks.)

Moral responsibility is a sideshow, unrelated to the mechanics of this question.

I’m starting to see “emergence” as a kind of “God of the gaps” type of argument. When all else fails in many disputes, they trot out “It’s an emergent property.”

In other words, as in the religious person who presupposes that God exists, and whose incredible shrinking proposition is running out of supportive arguments, who then resorts to “If I…[Read more]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Unseen wrote:
How do you account for free will in a way that rescues the “free” part of free will and attaches it to the “will” part of free will without violating the scientific laws of the universe?

Absolutely. Nothing new here, not sure, did I misuse the word emergence? Free will couldn’t emerge, except as a theoretic…

[Read more]

Simon says “You might be surprised to find that studying all this evolutionary philosophical stuff, helps a person to navigate life successfully.”

Maybe a little but not shocked if it is true. Meanwhile it is divorced from how life actually works when viewed from a distance. Definitely see the value in acknowledging the role of evolution. i have…[Read more]

I see free will as a faculty, or cluster of related faculties, that emerges from the biological substrate of the living brain, in the same way that morality emerges as a number of related faculties from the physical reality of obligate collaboration driven by the biological pressure to reproduce and survive and thrive within a risky ecological niche.

jakelafort wrote:
I can’t get involved in philosophical issues regarding morality. It strikes me as a vacuous endeavor when juxtaposed against the real world. Consequentialist, deontological blah blah blah. I suppose it is okay if you are so inclined in terms of PERSONAL principles.

Some of us think that diagram should be taught in primary s…[Read more]

Brain Droppings:

Filched it and am gonna guess two of you get the reference.

Yeah Pope that forever endeavor will linger longer. And it is quite apparent the LLM’s are rapidly improving. Interestingly i challenged Meta after it once again towed the party line in asserting it does not remember prior conversations with users. Not only did Meta…[Read more]

PopeBeanie wrote:
Can one just think of morality as an emergent thought process, with societal ramifications?

Morality emerges from collaboration.

There is a difference between “cause and effect” and hard determinism. A cause can have many different effects, but there has to be at least one. The idea that the position, motion and energy of every single particle through space-time is predetermined at time = 0+ of the big bang is not compatible with quantum theory.

And of course, causality is…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
How do you account for free will in a way that rescues the “free” part of free will and attaches it to the “will” part of free will without violating the scientific laws of the universe?

Absolutely. Nothing new here, not sure, did I misuse the word emergence? Free will couldn’t emerge, except as a theoretical or philoso…[Read more]

“Emergence” is defined as a property of a whole not present in its parts. So, emergence is an epiphenomenon, like a rainbow or mirror reflection.

Notice that rainbows and mirror reflections are, in a sense, not real and are accounted for in terms of sufficient conditions.  Conditions describable deterministically

In other words, you can explain…[Read more]

Here it is:

(Verse 1)
Yo, it’s the tale of determinism, science in the rhythm,
Where every cause is linked, no room for schism.
The universe, a script, no freestyle decision,
Every action’s locked tight like a prison.

But wait, we flip the beat, science enters the scene,
It’s the methodical method, if you know what I mean.
Hypothesize, test,…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Where does responsibility and morality enter in? Beyond, of course, “You did it. You were not under duress. Therefore, you’re responsible for it.

Can one just think of morality as an emergent thought process, with societal ramifications? In particular, people stating moral beliefs can and do influence others, and one’s sel…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:
We can start with intelligence or hair color and work our way into musical preferences. Throw any of that data on a chart and you will have a bell curve.

What does that have to do with free choice and consciousness?

Everything. Everything about us including “free choice” is governed by a probability function.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
Nothing happens without sufficient conditions being met,

We think for a reason: to calculate what we have to do to achieve our goals, to thrive, survive and reproduce. There is therefore biological pressure to think. As for what direction this thinking takes, then within constraints and limits, and acted upon…

[Read more]

Cows came back to attack the ones who drained their udders. Cows declared there and then, “hey my teats ain’t rudders!”

Woke is an obnoxious handle. Reminds me of the chosen people.
Make America Rip Van Winkle again.

I looked for more detail on the “breakthrough with desalinization article”. The source is https://news.mit.edu/2024/solar-powered-desalination-system-requires-no-extra-batteries-1008 .

The gist of it can be summarized as a much more efficient method of desalinization through “flexible batch electrodialysis”, with “flexible” meaning that the pro…[Read more]

Throw in the other religions too, every which one defining God, Allah, and so on in their own way, usually dictated by traditionally purported authorities. The sureness they have seems particularly dangerous to me, e.g. with upsurgence of Christian Nationalism. I don’t think I ever really knew what populism was until the past few years, much less…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Nothing happens without sufficient conditions being met,

We think for a reason: to calculate what we have to do to achieve our goals, to thrive, survive and reproduce.  There is therefore biological pressure to think.  As for what direction this thinking takes, then within constraints and limits, and acted upon by influences – i…[Read more]

The Catholics and the Mormons pray just as strenuously, and argue over who’s god and church is true….I don’t know who’s cognitive dissonance is stronger……