[OT] Plato's Pub and Philosophical Society

[Suicide Junkie]

How about this:
Is it possible for a computer program (such as an AI routine) to have free will?

If so, a copy or close variant of that program, running in an organic neural net/brain would also provide free will.

[dogscoff]

Is it possible for a computer program (such as an AI routine) to have free will?

Quite probably. All that mucking about with electrons that goes on inside circuitry probably involves QM.

You should have a read of Rob Schrab's Scud: Dispoible Assassin. It's a great read and there is a really nice concept about all of human history being predetermined by God, but then a Robot (without sould and therefore unconstrained by Destiny) messes everything up.

Not the same thing at all, I know, but it made me think of it and it's a damned good comic.

[Suicide Junkie]

Quite probably. All that mucking about with electrons that goes on inside circuitry probably involves QM

How do you mean? By generating errors? They're pretty rare, except when using windows, and that's not due to QM, its due to QA.

I think we could also use a good definition of Free Will, and what it means to say one thing has it while another dosen't.
If an AI compares random numbers to decide whether to go left or right, is that free will? It will be chaotic and unpredictable...

[dogscoff]

If an AI compares random numbers to decide whether to go left or right, is that free will? It will be chaotic and unpredictable...

Apply a force to a ball on a pool table- if the force and direction and locations of all the balls are known, the exact consequences can be predicted and known by applying a series of known physical laws. Once the force is applied, the rest of their movements could be said to be pre-determined by the laws of physics. Cause and effect.

Now consider that not only pool balls are subject to physical laws. People, cars, planets, atoms, brain cells... these are all made of matter and subject to the laws of physics. Therefore, if you apply a force to a car and all the variables are known, then the end result can be predicted. The implications of this are scary, and it's called determinism:

Determinism goes beyond "you're hungry and people eat when they are hungry, so I can predict that you will eat." It's more like "your decision to eat or not eat depends upon an immensely complex balance of psychological and physiological factors, all of which can be theoretically reduced to a bunch of chemicals and electrical impulse flying about in your brain and body."
Chemicals and impulses that are subject to the laws of physics, just like the pool table.

Imagine the universe as a massive, four (more?) dimensional pool table, with every one of the squillions of most fundamental subatomic particles as a pool ball. At the very beginning of the universe, in the instant that the big bang occurs, a force is applied. The qualities of that force set the entire universe in motion in a direction determined by the qualities (power, direction etc) of the force. Every movement of every atom from that moment until now, including the atoms in your brain clustered together right now in the right pattern to form the decision "I will eat" or "I will not eat"... every single movement in the entire universe is predetermined in just the same way the the balls on the pool table were. you have no free will. Your decisions are just cause-and-effect results of physical phenomena within your brain, which in turn are only the way they are because they were put there by other cause and effect reactions, and so on right to the big bang.

Now quantum mechanics provides us with a get out clause. QM implies that there are some things going on in the universe which don't necessarily have anything to do with cause and effect. They do not follow predictable laws, and there's room for free will again, although it implies some very wierd and unscientific things about the nature of the mind.

Anyway, I gotta go...

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
If an AI compares random numbers to decide whether to go left or right, is that free will? It will be chaotic and unpredictable...

As a computer programming student, I can tell you it is extremely difficult to get a computer to produce truly random numbers. It is possible, mind you - it takes hardware that produces truly random input, such as a noisy diode or a human user; sometimes a clever programmer will use the processor itself as a truly random number generator by using the clock drift - however, those are very rarely used. What is normally produced is pseudorandom numbers. These numbers come out of simple equations, where the routine goes something like this (I may have my suntax a bit off):

double Random(Double *seed){
double r = 1.73658965335795;
double d = 4.56891247479574;
*seed = r * (*seed) - d * (*seed) * (*seed)
return *seed;
}

While not truly random, these types of routines produce numbers that are scarecly predictable.

[Suicide Junkie]

The least significant bits from a microphone input (even if the microphone isn't plugged in) should also do fairly well, I hear.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The least significant bits from a microphone input (even if the microphone isn't plugged in) should also do fairly well, I hear.

You made a pun!

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
The qualities of that force set the entire universe in motion in a direction determined by the qualities (power, direction etc) of the force. Every movement of every atom from that moment until now, including the atoms in your brain clustered together right now in the right pattern to form the decision "I will eat" or "I will not eat"... every single movement in the entire universe is predetermined in just the same way the the balls on the pool table were. you have no free will. Your decisions are just cause-and-effect results of physical phenomena within your brain, which in turn are only the way they are because they were put there by other cause and effect reactions, and so on right to the big bang.

Interesting statement. The problem is that it doesn't take onto account gestalt, or emergent, properties. When a system (whether it be composed of atoms, neurons, people, cultures, etc.) gets to a certain level of complexity it can display qualitatively different features, ones that cannot be predicted solely through knowledge of the constituent elements. Examples of such would be the emergence of life from matter, the emergence of consciousness, the emergence of the nation-state, the properties of many drugs, breaching the speed of light, etc. Using the billiard analogy, this would be equivalant to a particularly complex shot causing all the balls to merge into a 30 foot tall MechaGodzilla that promptly dashed off to play in the land of Nod. The laws of physics could not predict that.

Determinism falls apart in the face of such drastic shifts in expectation.

[Suicide Junkie]

While there are properties you may not expect, that's because you aren't following the exact cause and effect, (mainly because its too hard to think about)

Things like the game of life (Link) have emergent properties, but still, if you follow the rules, and know the exact starting conditions, you can predict.
Try the "shooter"; its pretty cool.

Also, what are you referring to about the speed of light? All of the reports I've seen were basically media-hyped illusions.

[ March 20, 2003, 22:26: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Jack Simth]

However, the more complex the system, the more effect even a small change can have. When you get to things as complicated as the human brain, quatum mechanical effects can no longer be ignored. However, one of the big things in QM is randomness and chance. For an organism as complex as a person, prediction based on the laws of physics breakes down. In the game of life you link to runs on a very small set of rules that ignore all possibility of QM effects.