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Live Moderated Chat: Are We Spiritual Machines?
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0511.html
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Live Moderated Chat: Are We Spiritual Machines?
On July 19, 2001, the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design hosted an online chat with Ray Kurzweil, Jay Richards, and William Dembski, three of the co-authors of the new book, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I. The discussion focused on the nature of consciousness, free will vs. determinism, complexity, and implications of the eroding boundary between humans and intelligent machines.
Originally published on International
Society for Complexity, Information, and Design July 19, 2002.
Published on KurzweilAI.net July 24, 2002.
ISCID Moderator
Welcome, everyone. ISCID is pleased to have several of the contributors
to the new book Are We Spiritual Machines? as guest speakers
in today's chat. Before we announce the speakers, I would like to
give everyone a heads-up on the protocol for today's chat.
The public (that is most of you) can type in questions and submit
them. The questions will not automatically be displayed. Rather,
they will be sent to a moderator who will then select questions
for everyone to view. The guest speakers will then have the opportunity
to respond to the questions that have been selected. When the guest
speakers have finished their comments, the moderator will approve
another question. This cycle will continue until 5PM Eastern. When
submitting a question, please indicate which guest speaker it is
addressed to. Please stay on topic and be as brief and concise as
possible.
Right now it looks like Ray K. and Jay Richards are the only two
guest speakers logged on.
I will go ahead and introduce them and the others we are expecting.
Bill Dembski
I'm here as well.
ISCID Moderator
Tom Ray, who authored the chapter "Kurzweil's Turing Fallacy,"
is not able to be with us today. He did, however, want to say a
few words. Here they are:
Sorry that I can't join the chat. I'm sleeping in Kyoto, Japan.
But I have prepared a few comments for those who are interested.
You can read them at: http://www.his.atr.co.jp/~ray/richards.html
Our first guest is Ray Kurzweil. Ray is an inventor, entrepreneur,
and author. His books include The Age of Intelligent Machines
and The Age of Spiritual Machines, When Computers Exceed Human
Intelligence. The recently published Are We Spiritual Machines?
Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI is a collection of critiques
and responses regarding Ray's vision of Strong Artificial Intelligence.
Welcome Ray.
Ray Kurzweil
Glad to "be" here.
ISCID Moderator
The next guest is Jay Wesley Richards. Jay received his Ph.D. in
philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He
is the editor of the collection Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray
Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI. Jay is currently finishing
up a book with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez entitled The Privileged
Planet. He is also a senior fellow and program director at the
Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington.
ISCID Moderator
William A. Dembski is associate research professor in the conceptual
foundations of science at Baylor University. He holds a Ph.D. in
both philosophy (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago) and mathematics (University
of Chicago) as well as an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Bill is the author and editor of several books including The
Design Inference and No Free Lunch which deal with his
work in information and probability theory. Bill's contribution
to Are We Spiritual Machines? is a chapter entitled "Kurzweil's
Impoverished Spirituality."
ISCID Moderator
Ok. It looks as if, right now, Ray may be the only one who is actually
"here" with us.
ISCID Moderator
So lets get started.
Danpech
While we can have the idea that there are things outside our self
that are aware only because we our self are aware, it is granted
by nearly every one as objective fact that there are things outside
himself that do not possess awareness (that do not feel either sensorily
or emotionally, that do not think, etc.). In my opinion, central
to the problem of multiple realizability is the question of how,
in the first place, we each get the very idea that there are things
that are not aware. How do you, personally, know that there are
things that are not aware?
Ray Kurzweil
I don't know that absolutely. Maybe I'm the only person who's conscious.
That's consistent with a dream. Even by common wisdom, there seem
to be both people and objects in my dream that are outside myself,
but clearly they were created in myself and are part of me; they
are mental constructs in my own brain. Or maybe every other object
is conscious. I'm not sure what that would mean, as some objects
may not have much to be conscious of. It's hard to even define what
each object or thing is that might be conscious, as there are no
clear boundaries. Or maybe there's more than one conscious awareness
associated with my own brain and body. There are plenty of hints
along these lines with multiple personalities, or people who appear
to do fine with only half a brain (either half will do). We appear
to be programmed with the idea that there are "things"
outside of our self, and some are conscious, and some are not. That's
how we're constructed. But it's not entirely clear that this intuitive
conception matches perfectly to ultimate ontology.
Micah Sparacio
Ray, what are your thoughts on the Frame Problem? Do you see it
as a challenge that requires a "paradigm shift" in software
before human level intelligence is attainable?
Ray Kurzweil
The concept of frames as discussed by Minsky and others has a variety
of interpretations, but generally refers to issues of context in
a knowledge base that incorporates such concepts as inheritance
of features. And yes, I do think a paradigm shift is required from
this kind of expert system methodology. We'll never get to anything
with the suppleness and subtlety of human intelligence with expert
system rules. That's not how human intelligence works.
Although the work on a system such as Cyc is impressive and worthwhile,
it's clear that this type of approach will not create human-level
intelligence. Human intelligence works through pattern recognition,
which uses a paradigm combining massive parallelism, chaotic self-organization,
and holographic-like methods of information storage.
Human thinking is very slow; typical interneuronal connection reset
times are 5 milliseconds, so we don't have time in real time to
think through complex sequential rules. But we do have on the order
of a 100 trillion connections working more or less simultaneously
to provide powerful and subtle pattern recognition capabilities.
Pattern recognition approaches have softer edges to their expertise.
We need to bring pattern recognition methodologies to domains such
as natural language understanding.
Brandon Watson
Your replies to your critics often seem to involve what might be
called a moderate skepticism about other consciousnesses. That is,
you seem to proceed in something like this way: There is no objective
test for consciousness; so it cannot be decided with certainty whether
any given thing is conscious, although we do assume it in certain
cases based on analogy with ourselves; so we can concern ourselves
entirely with the objective correlates of consciousness; we can
build functionally equivalent versions of these; so we will reach
a point at which our reasons for calling the computer conscious
will be as good as our reasons for calling anything else conscious.
Do you regard your conclusions as dependent on this line of thought?
Do we have any knowledge of consciousness beyond its subjectivity?
Ray Kurzweil
I do believe that the line of thinking that you aptly summarize
is more than just a philosophical slight of hand. We really do have
problems penetrating the subjective reality of other entities. Our
inability to do that with other humans is behind much human conflict.
Humans feel deeply the suffering of their friends and allies, and
easily discount/dismiss the comparable experience of their enemies.
How about animals? Basic disagreement on whether or not animals
are capable of subjective experience, e.g., suffering, or whether
they are just operating by "instinct," i.e., like a simple
machine, lies behind our disputes on animal rights.
This issue will be even more profound and difficult to resolve
with machines. On the one hand, one might argue that machines are
less like humans than animals because at least animals are biological
and have many similar organs and structures and behaviors. On the
other hand, since at least some machines will be based on reverse
engineering of humans, these machines may be more similar to humans
and human behavior than animals.
Also relevant here is a rather important slippery slope. We're
already replacing portions of our biological neurons with machine
equivalents. It's early yet in this process, but this will ultimately
pick up speed. No one says that the current cyborgs among us (e.g.,
people with cochlear implants, or the recently FDA approved neural
implant for Parkinson's Disease) are not fully human. There's no
clear line between these beginning steps in replacing biological
circuits with nonbiological ones to a fully nonbiological equivalent
to human brains.
Iain Strachan
How do computers get to develop their own smart software, when it's
likely that to do such things involves complex decisions that, for
a formal mathematical system such as a computer, involves NP hard
problems?
Ray Kurzweil
We use Bayesian nets in one of our projects, and at the risk of
oversimplification, we can think of it as a clever way to get probabilities
into a network that provides more flexibility than rule-based knowledge
bases. I don't believe that humans solve problems in real time involving
multiple variables using anything like a mathematically appropriate
solution.
We apply a pattern recognition type of methodology to our real-time
estimates. Think of a child catching a fly ball. At some point,
she senses to take a few steps back, and then raises her hand in
about the right place (maybe). But she is not computing all the
differential equations to do this, even in an unconscious way. We
appear to have an ability to develop models of how certain curves
will evolve which utilize our self-organizing methods, so it requires
training and experience. That's why she won't do a very good job
of catching the ball until she becomes experienced at doing it.
But it's not a direct computational process. It's an ability to
apply certain curve fitting abilities that approximate expected
behavior.
And humans are not particularly optimal at doing this. The ability
of a well-designed "quant" investment system to anticipate
short term market trends better than human analysts (something I've
been working on) is a good example of the limitations of human trend
or expectation analysis abilities. Most human decisionmaking is
based on very flawed and incomplete models. It's machines that can
combine this type of anticipatory modeling with more powerful mathematical
techniques when appropriate.
Keep in mind that our 10^11 neurons and 10^14 synapses are characterized
by a genome with only 6 billion bits, which is 800 million bytes,
which after routine compression is only about 24 million bytes,
half of which characterizes the brain. We get from this very small
genomic information (which specifies the brain's initial conditions)
to a brain that contains much more information because the genome
specifies stochastic processes (e.g., semi random wiring in certain
regions according to certain constraints) followed by a self-organizing
process using essentially an evolutionary process (i.e., learning).
Chris
Science does very well as long as observers and observed phenomena
are assumed to be spatiotemporally separate, and as long as physical
observables are taken as "given," but can be seen to fall
flat when it comes to putting the relationship between subjects
and objects on a logical basis. In fact, in its adherence to principles
of scientific objectivity, science excludes subjectivity from the
theorization process as a form of "contamination." Might
it therefore be possible that the ontological medium of reality,
whatever that may be, imposes "hidden constraints" on
emergence, and that these constraints differentiate between natural
and mechanical processes with respect to the consciousness attribute?
What basis is there for assuming otherwise?
Ray Kurzweil
It is a good insight that there is a separation between the objective
reality of science and the subjective reality that is consciousness.
That is why there is room for philosophy and religion (as a form
of philosophy) to address questions that fall outside the domain
of objective observation and analysis that is the province of science.
However,
the "natural" world is observable by objective methods,
and can be understood and modeled through objective methods, and
most importantly, its methods can be recreated using objective methods,
i.e., technology. In my own field of "pattern recognition,"
we use biologically inspired paradigms, such as evolutionary algorithms,
neural nets, etc. These are far from perfect models, but as the
pace of reverse engineering (i.e., understanding the principles
of operation) of the human brain picks up speed (as it is), our
biologically inspired methods will become closer analogues to the
methods we find in nature.
ISCID Moderator
Any questions for our other guests (Jay Richards, William Dembski)?
Nic
Machines cannot lie. A person can. Do you suppose a test for con.
is the capacity to lie? In other words, Machines are analytic domains
while the con. mind is not an analytic domain.
Ray Kurzweil
The Turing test is very specifically a test of lying. The machine
has to lie that it is a human. There is already a Turing test competition,
which my organization is entering (for the designation of "most
human" machine, as we are not yet close to "passing"
a Turing test). But there's no reason why a machine cannot lie.
Of course, successfully lying takes a lot of intelligence, actually
more intelligence than most humans have ("Oh what a tangled
web we weave....")
Iain
I'd like to come back on one of Ray's comments about pattern recognition.
Working with neural netsis an interest of mine. I have for a long
thought that pattern recognition is a key component of intelligence.
But surely it is only one small part. One might get a creative idea
by noting the similarity to another known idea (e.g., in "brainstorming").
But the pattern recognition must also be supplemented by an intelligent
putting together of patterns, rather than just recognising similarity.
What kind of techniques do you see being developed for that?
Jay Richards
Perhaps instead of focusing on consciousness, we could consider
freedom. One of the most readily apparent realities about ourselves
as persons is our capacity for free choice. We experience that capacity
directly, at least much more directly than we experience, say, the
external world. We choose between alternatives, and although we
are shaped by our context, biology, etc., we have the sense that
these don't always determine our choices. This capacity, and not
simply "consciousness," seems to me to be an essential
property of intelligence. But it is very difficult to see how a
computer, no matter how advanced, which is governed by algorithms
(and perhaps randomizing functions), could ever enjoy such freedom.
I'm not sure what Ray's view is on this, but I know some advocates
of Strong AI just deny the existence of libertarian freedom. But
my direct experience of possessing such freedom seems much more
certain than any theory that might deny its existence.
Ray Kurzweil
We do have an ability for sequential logical ("rational")
thinking that apparently is a relatively recent evolutionary development
(in biological brain development).
But most of our thinking is pattern-recognition-based. That's how
a human plays chess. We don't have much time to do real-time sequential
analysis the way a machine can.
Chris
Let's talk about the medium of emergence of consciousness. Phenomena
must be appropriate to the media in which they occur. For example,
sound can occur only in a medium capable of supporting transverse
(compression-rarefaction) waves, and winged flight can occur only
in a gaseous atmosphere capable of providing the necessary lift.
It follows that there must be a relationship between the emergence
of consciousness and the medium in which it occurs. Specifically,
this emergence must involve a process parameterized by attributes
of the medium. Unfortunately, science is unable to characterize
the overall medium of reality with respect to the subjectivity attribute;
in fact, it is unable to characterize the process of attribution
itself in any but the most superficial of ways. What is it that
actually relates objects and their attributes...some kind of glue?
Don't we need a complete account of this relationship in order to
relate the attribute of consciousness to various systems and devices?
Ray Kurzweil
Jay has raised an important issue: free will, which is closely related
to consciousness, the apparent sense of making free choices. It's
as hard to pin down objectively as, well, subjectivity. My point
is that we will encounter machines whose complexity and depth of
processing is indistinguishable from that of humans, with all their
anguished decision making. Are they actually conscious? Are they
actually deploying free will? Or just appearing to? Is there a difference
between such appearance and reality? Because of the slippery slope
argument I alluded to above, and for many other reasons, I believe
we will accept nonbiological intelligence as human, i.e., conscious,
i.e., responsible for its own free will decisions. But that's a
political and psychological prediction, not necessarily an ontological
one.
tim
As a follow-up to Jay Richards last comment on freedom. Where does
"motivation" factor in?
Sulu
Jay, I do not believe even humans have free will the way you describe.
If the universe is deterministic (that is, if the state of the universe
is known at one time, physics will allow us to predict the state
at any other time), then so are humans. The only distinction we
currently make between humans and deterministic machines is that
the complexity of humans prevents any other human from having perfect
knowledge to predict future behaviour. It is possible that in the
future, machines will be complex enough to be able to view humans
are predictable and deterministic.
Ray Kurzweil
To respond first to Chris, I think you've articulated another way
of saying that there is a barrier between the objective world of
science and the subjective issue of consciousness. Some people go
on to say that because the issue of consciousness is not scientific,
it is, therefore, not real, or an "illusion." That's not
my view. One can say that it is the most important question. It
underlies, for example, morality, and to the extent that our legal
system is based on morality, then our legal system. We treat crimes
that cause suffering of a conscious entity differently than damaging
"property". In fact, you can damage property if you own
it. We only punish damaging property because some other conscious
person cares about it.
With regard to "motivation," this is another high-level
attribute like intuition and creativity that are inherent characteristics
of entities with the complexity and depth of organization of humans.
We don't yet have machines of that complexity, but we will.Often,
a human can successfully predict the "free will" decisions
of others if that first human has a complete enough understanding
of the cultural model of the other.
Micah Sparacio
Could you discuss how stasis plays a role in your Law of Accelerating
Returns? How does one get beyond stasis to a true "paradigm
shift"?
Ray Kurzweil
By stasis, do you mean the approaching of an asymptote? If so, that
invariably happens with any paradigm. "Moore's Law" (the
shrinking of transistors on an integrated circuit) will approach
such an asymptote when we run out of room on two-dimensional circuits
(we'll then go to the third dimension). Invariably as we approach
the limits of a particular paradigm, pressure builds up to create
the next. We see that now with the increased intensity of work in
three-dimensional molecular computing. Even Moore's law was not
the first but the fifth paradigm to provide exponential growth to
computing.
Generally speaking, the new paradigm already exists before the
old one dies. Transistors had a niche market before tubes reached
their limit. But once they could no longer shrink vacuum tubes any
further and maintain the vacuum, then the superior ability of transistors
to maintain ongoing price performance growth took over.
Chris
The spacetime intervals between machine components stand for causal
independence (within spatial cross-sections). This highlights the
basic distinction between the causal independence of mechanical
components and the coherence of consciousness, i.e. the parallel
or "simultaneous" mutual causal connectedness of spatially
separate components. Reality is constructed in such a way that spatial
separations occupy a lower rung of its ontological lattice; to build
a conscious machine, one would have to find a means of overcoming
the componential independence of classical reality. Far more likely
is that the unity attribute is inherited from a point up the lattice,
and ultimately, from the global identity of the lattice, which is
distributed over spacetime and everywhere implicit. But this means
that unitary consciousness is, in a sense, derived from the "unitary
consciousness" of the universe. So the question is, how do
you propose to create that unity from an assemblage of parts, and
an associated set of laws?
Jay Richards
In response to Sulu. I would assume that if one assumes that the
universe is deterministic (though I don't think predictability is
the same as determinism), then one will deny the existence of free
will. But such determinism is hardly self-evident, even if lots
of folks say that it is such. My point is that we experience our
capacity for freedom directly, and as a result, should be much more
certain of its reality than any theory that entails determinism.
Moreover, even determinists, when they're not in a philosophical
mode, presuppose the existence of such freedom when they make moral
judgments about the actions of others. If some theory, from, say,
psychology or biology or physics makes such freedom impossible,
then so much the worse for that theory. Our experience and knowledge
of our own freedom will always be more certain than our certainty
of any such theory. This is relevant to strong AI, because it seems
to me that if we had good reason to think that an AI, in say, 2059,
is exercising freedom
J(how we recognize freedom is a matter of debate), then we would
have good reason for inferring that the AI is exercising real intelligence.
kuebler
It doesn't seem that being able to predict someone else's behavior
denies they have "free will." Knowing someone's preferences
does not give you any more insight into whether they are acting
freely or are "determined." Is there any way in which
a notion of free will can be incorporated into a deterministic algorithm?
Ray Kurzweil
Chris, you have a particular ontological model in mind. But making
your assumptions, there's nothing inherent in biological systems
that cannot be emulated with nonbiological systems, and no clear
boundary between biology and non-biology. As our nonbiological systems
become more biological inspired, and as we merge more and more with
our increasing biological-like technology, it would have the same
characteristics as a biological human. It would share, then, in
this unity of consciousness.
Fredkin and Wolfram's conceptions of cellular mechanics show that
even simple processes may be deterministic but are unpredictable
by any process not complete equivalent in complexity and time as
the actual process. So deterministic does not necessarily imply
predictable.
Leonid_Andreev
How would you comment on an idea that starting with a certain level
of information processing information field itself turns into information
processor (as was earlier discussed on Brainstorms: REPLACE URL)
In this event, the term "spiritual machine" may literally
be understood as a result of biological evolution. In other words,
spirit processes spirit. If this is true, then reverse engineering
of consciousness should be absolutely impossible.
Ray Kurzweil
In response to Jay, agree that free will is apparent to me, just
as my consciousness is apparent to me. But it may not be apparent
to others. I assume that others are conscious (or have free will),
and others may assume it of me, and this may seem obvious,
but this obviousness (and this shared assumption) breaks down as
we leave
shared human experience (e.g., animals, and now the emerging debate
on machines).
Jay Richards
There seem to be three different categories: freedom (or agency),
determinism, and randomness. It's easy to imagine a computer "acting"
according to the latter two. It's very difficult to see how a computer
could actually exhibit freedom. In fact, it's difficult to see how
we exhibit freedom. We, however, experience the capacity for freedom
directly, so any adequate theory should accommodate its existence.
Thus, if we had really good reasons for thinking that an AI exhibited
freedom, I would conclude that we had reason to think there was
something more going on than mere determinism and randomness.
Ray Kurzweil
Further response to Jay:
This freedom is only apparent to myself. There's no objective way
of demonstrating it, so there won't be a clear way to distinguish,
say, Ray Kurzweil from a very accurate simulation.
Bill Dembski
Ray, I'd like you to speak to the role of the first person within
your view of computation. In your review of Wolfram's book, you
approvingly cite Marvin Minsky's "society of mind," in
which an intelligence may result from a hierarchy of simpler intelligences.
But that sounds like the first person dissolves in a sea of modularity,
and modularity is exactly what you seem to want to avoid. How is
it possible within your view of computation to avoid thinking of
the first person as anything but an illusion (Hume's bundle of associations)?
And if it is possible, what computationally grounds the first person
perspective?
Ray Kurzweil
Response to Bill:
A human intelligence is obviously more than a loose association
of processes; we do have a very coherently organized identity. But
it's far from perfectly coherent. It can be pretty incoherent at
times, and we have all kinds of different forces and feelings that
we feel inside us in some chaotic pattern. But there is a coherent
organization to a human, it's not a loose association.
Sulu
First year philosophy students are taught that liberty of desire
(getting what we want) is compatible with determinisim, but not
liberty of spontaneity (the possibility of things being otherwise
than they could have been). However, it is stronger to say that
our morals and legal code not only depend on consciousness but free
will of the second kind (liberty of spontaneity), and even if we
can't reconcile it with determinism, it is humanly infeasible to
live without either determinism (the basis of our science) or free
will of the second kind (that we have a "soul" that is
independent of physical laws). This is similar to many other problems,
like justifying induction; we can't guarantee that reality will
stay the same, but it is humanly impossible to live without this
assumption. We attribute to luck or chance phenomena about which
we do not have complete information. It is possible that a machine
will be able to live without induction and be able to eliminate
the idea of "chance".
Brandon Watson
For Dembski: You brought up the issue of the role of the first person
(and have just recently today posted on the subject on the discussion
site for this book). Would you briefly summarize your own view on
this subject, particularly as it relates to Kurzweil's patternism
and strong distinction between the objective correlates of consciousness
and consciousness in its subjectivity?
Jay Richards
Ray may be correct that there will be no "explicit" way
of distinguishing his freedom from that of a very good simulation.
That is, we may not be able to come up with a list of necessary
and sufficient criteria that establishes that the entity is free
rather than just a good simulation. But it may be that we have an
intuitive capacity of some sort that cannot be made fully explicit,
which, when properly functioning, allows us to discern the existence
of a free agent. I think this is normally how we do recognize freedom:
directly and intuitively, rather than deductively or inferentially.
Ray Kurzweil
Response to Jay: We may very well have intuitive capabilities that
we have not yet identified or articulated, but they do take place
in our brains and bodies, characterized as they are by a genome
with only 23 million bytes of compressed information, aided, of
course, by humanity's exponentially growing knowledge base, but
a knowledge base accessible to nonbiological intelligences as well.
I don't think a suitably advanced AI will be distinguishable from
human intelligence. And there won't be a clear boundary -- we are
already putting machines in our bodies and brains, and that will
accelerate. There are already four major conferences on bioMEMS
(biological micro electronic mechanical systems) to put a first
generation of nanobots in our blood stream. These will evolve increasingly
intelligent machines, meaning that merging our brains with our machines
will not require surgery.
Chris
I understand, but rather than making assumptions, I'm trying to
get around certain assumptions already in place. For example, classical
spacetime has an ontological-qua-geometric lattice structure with
dimensions matching those of Minkowski space. The vertical (time)
dimension of this lattice corresponds to logical induction in the
regressive direction and logical deduction in the progressive direction.
Progressing down the lattice corresponds to moving forward in time,
and involves a horizontal (spatial) expansion which accommodates
the expanding spatial distinctions among the contents of spacetime
and is thus characterized by entropy. In this sense, the arrow of
time is differentiative, and where (forward) time is innately differentiative
in the classical context, the establishment of true unity constitutes
a violation of entropy. Any deterministic complexity emerging in
the course of machine assembly and operation is merely a function
of distributed dynamical laws intersecting in specific arguments
which remain spatially separate throughout (and thus causally independent
in any spatial cross-section), despite being subject to identical
localistic laws. What, if anything, would make you think that this
particular kind of complexity could generate unitary consciousness?
And if you consider "unitary" consciousness beside the
point, then can you at least account for the fact that human consciousness
is introspectively and volitionally unitary, while there is simply
no way to effect this in a machine? I.e., on what basis are machines
being compared to human beings possessing unitary, volitional consciousness
with access to volition, emotion, qualia, and other "subjective"
properties?
Ray Kurzweil
Response to Chris:
There is no way to access "qualia," we can only access
neurological correlates (i.e., objective correlates) of subjective
experiences. But there is no clear way to experience the link without
being that entity yourself. Consider that we will have machines
that are as complex as humans and indeed based on a thorough reverse
engineering of the principles of operation of humans.
Bill Dembski
Responding to Brandon: My own view is that intelligence is a primitive
notion and that it finds its expression only through the first person.
It is persons that interpret patterns that are embodied in matter.
Materialism is content with matter and patterns but cannot make
sense of the personal in anything but a reductive way. That's why
I asked Ray about how to ground the first person perspective computationally.
It's interesting that the etymology of "Person" is thought
to derive either from the Persian "persu" (meaning mask)
or Latin "personare" (meaning to sound through). In either
case, the person takes on a derivative and, dare I say it, "emergent"
role, not something fundamental.
Nic
Does a superposition of both Yes/No open the door to what could
be called free will?
Ray Kurzweil
Response to Nic:
Well, people have been inspired by the apparent duality of quantum
mechanics to suggest links to consciousness and free will.
ISCID Moderator
Last chance to get your questions in.
Sulu
Jay's freedom seems to be completely freedom of desire; this is
still freedom in that we get what we want, but our desire in the
first place is determined. It is also empirically determined as
in "I want to move my hand; I see my hand move; therefore I
control my hand and get what I want; therefore I have free will
(of the first kind)." I don't see any difference between this
and the phenomenon of a machine fulfilling its professed desires.
Intuition is not needed; or if there is intuition involved, it is
also a determined process verified by experience that machines could
implement.
nanci
then how would you address the phenomonon of clarvoyance? Is that
just another type of brainwave to be constructed, so to speak, for
a computer?
Ray Kurzweil
Sulu's argument is an old one (which is not to criticize it). We
can introduce some randomness to both humans and machines, but that
as Jay points out still falls short of the conception of free will.
It's almost impossible to articulate Jay's concept of free will,
except in the first person. But we will experience most machines
(as we do most people) in the third person.
Paul Kisak
Asymptotes are the proof that God does not trust us;-) I have had
experience with pattern recognition models that base their design,
or computational ceiling, at 10^30 bits per second, which many believe
is an approximation of the brains capacity.
Correspondingly approximations have been made, based on the numbers
that Ray alluded to earlier (10^11 neurons and 10^14 synapses -
which I think is higher now (on the order of 10^16); yielding an
approximate 10^16 bits per second limit. The discrepancy is several
orders of magnitude. One model that I have read attempts to explain
this gap by building on the discovery that all cell walls have hollow
protein microtubules and it is these structures that facilitate
a quantum mechanical computing capability. QUESTION: Have you heard
of this theory, and if yes, what is your opinion of it?
Jay Richards
Just to be clear, I have been referring to what Sulu called "freedom
of spontaneity." I think it is subjectively clear to us that
(at least sometimes) we can choose between mutually exclusive alternatives,
that things could otherwise than they are.
Ray Kurzweil
Response to Paul Kisak:
The history of this is interesting. Roger Penrose suggested a possible
link of quantum computing (which is computing using quantum ambiguous
"qu bits") as a foundation of consciousness.
It was pointed out to him that the computational structures in
neurons were too large to do quantum computing, so he came up with
the microtubules as fine enough structures to do quantum computing.
It is his objective to show that machines cannot do this because
of this quantum computing capability. There are some problems with
this. First of all, no one has ever shown any evidence for quantum
computing taking place in the microtubules,
nor any capability of humans that requires quantum computing. Moreover,
if humans do perform quantum computing in the microtubules or elsewhere,
that would not restrict quantum computing from machines.
We're already making progress on quantum computing in machines,
and researchers claim to have a 7-bit quantum computer.
ISCID Moderator
Well, it looks like it is just about 5PM here on the East Coast.
ISCID would like to thank Ray Kurzweil, Jay Richards, and William
Dembski for their participation in today's chat. If you would like
to continue chatting after the event, feel free to move over into
the General Discussion room.
Ray Kurzweil
Thanks, I enjoyed the dialogue. Look forward to reading it over
again.
ISCID Moderator
Thank you, Ray.
ISCID Moderator
It was a pleasure to have you with us.
ISCID Moderator
The transcript of this discussion will be posted on ISCID next week.
Ray Kurzweil
Thanks for having me. Goodbye for now.
Copyright © by International
Society for Complexity, Information, and Design July2002.
Used with permission.
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Free Will
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It seems people on this chat just talked past one another on the topic of free will. There are actually several notions of "free will" and "freedom." Here are some of the meanings of the various notions I've picked up on:
1) Theological and metaphysical free will: This concept of free will was invented to give Judeo-Christian theologies a seemingly less arbitrary and cruel God. If God judges' people and people's actions are determined by the universe God set in motion and thus determined, then he is ultimately punishing people for his own mistakes. God himself is ultimately responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, the rape and murder of young girls and abuse of young boys by priests as well as Pharaoh's hardened heart and the religion of the calf worshippers God ordered Moses to kill. This concept of free will puts the blame for evil on human shoulders rather than God's. So, our feeling of having choices was given metaphysical and theological significance, we will be judged by God because of our choices. These choices are usually cast in a very narrow and black and white frame of good versus evil. Because people with apparently theological notions don't make their views on free will explicit they tend to just confuse everybody who doesn't share the same theological view.
I think this is Jay Richards' view, though he's not explicit about it because he knows he's arguing with someone in a non-Christian camp (atheist, agnostic, deist, Buddhist, Kurzweil). I think this because he has a Ph.D. in theology and it's the most common view of free will in our religious society. Richards also says things like "if one assumes that the universe is deterministic then one will deny the existence of free will." Why? The only notion of free will denied by determinism is the theological notion that places blame on humans for their choices. He also says; "even determinists, when they're not in a philosophical mode, presuppose the existence of freedom when they make moral judgments about the actions of others." Again, a false statement. In a certain sense I share a determinist's philosophy and I do not make'moral' judgments about other's behavior, I make survival judgments. Hey, those Islamic fundamentalists attacked us; let's kill them before they do it again. Unlike Bush I do not judge them as "evil," I just judge them as committed to a psychotic religion and blame the beliefs they were raised with. Richards say"...instead of focusing on consciousness, consider freedom. One of the most readily apparent realities about ourselves as persons is our capacity for free choice." This isn't even true; it's a much exaggerated statement suggesting a metaphysical view. Consciousness is far more apparent than free choice. I'm very aware of those things influencing my choices, my tastes, beliefs, emotions, values, confidence and knowledge. Change those things and I might change my choices. Richards says context isn't enough by saying; "we have the sense that these don't always determine our choices." Again, this is more or less false from my perspective. Our choices are determined by all our contexts, biology and culture, nature and nurture. Another clue is Richards statement; "I don't think predictability is the same as determinism." Actually those two ideas are so tightly tied together they might as well be the same. If I can predict someone's behavior it's only because I can determine what's influencing their choices. I could go on with my analysis, but I think you've probably got my drift.
2) A determinist's notion of free will: The "illusion" of free will results from a sense of internal conflict among our own desires. When I make a choice I am ultimately making a value judgment about my options.
This view allows for a less black and white view of choice. It's not just shades of grey; there is a multidimensional range of colors too. For example: If I'm presented with a choice between blueberry and pecan pie for desert there's no good and evil involved in such a choice, but I can be held in doubt for longer than I am by moral choices as I try to imagine the taste of both and judge which would please me more. It's a value outside of the very notion of good and evil but it involves a certain realm values, taste values.
3) Stochastic and chaotic view of free will: This view grows from the primitive determinist notion and incorporates the findings of modern neural science to correct the oversimplification of pure determinism. Randomness enters the system and neural firing can result in non-deterministic outcomes. It explains what we all have been living with but failed to notice; that we don't always make choices in what we know are our best interests or the values we think we hold, like smoking or drug addiction. I not only make choices on an individual basis, I have to develop good habits, I have to train my own neural net. I think this is Kurzweil's view because it's the dominant one in A.I..
4) Legal: The legal sense of "freedom" and "free will" isn't even related to free will and freedom used in the A.I. sense. It doesn't matter why you broke society's laws, it only matters that you did. Punishment works in all philosophies because punishment too obviously works in real life when it comes to changing behavior. If an A.I. tries to destroy the world, we will try to destroy it, not because we are making a moral judgment but because we want to survive. In fact, training neural nets is called 'reward and punishment' by some of those who work with them and no one talks about neural net chips having free will.
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Re: Free Will
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Norm,
Here is my take on the 4 form of "free will":
1) Theological and metaphysical free will:
Since you did not elaborate on the difference, I will take this to mean (at least) one explanation for the position of "real choice", as opposed to the illusion of choice.
To the degree that it presupposes a "Gift From A Judging God", I tend to reject this out of hand. Even if it were true, I could not abide a God who will punish people for eternity. Silly idea, altogether (and all too human a notion.)
To an unfortunate degree, this form of "free will" is so central to the western theological viewpoint, that scientists who reject God/metaphysics feel that they must likewise reject "free will", even though they now generally recognize that the universe is not a purely deterministic machine.
Regarding determinism and predictability, these are not quite equal, but related. If the universe is not purely deterministic, then perfect predictability is clearly impossible (but statistical predictability is still available). However, if one supposes a purely deterministic universe, then perfect predictability is, at BEST, only "possible in principle". Myriad factors may make effective prediction impossible. In one such view, the entire universe would be required to afford the perfect prediction of its future course, and the computation, in perfect detail, could not proceed any faster than the universe "calculates itself anyway." If it takes me until noon next thursday to calculate that a lightning bolt will strike a given tower at noon next thursday, that is not any great predictive power!
2) A determinist's notion of free will: The "illusion" of free will results from a sense of internal conflict among our own desires. When I make a choice I am ultimately making a value judgment about my options.
This is "no free will, with the illusion of free will", and the only possible view of "will" that a determinist is allowed, for obvious reasons. It abuses the terms "free will", "choice", "decide" and "options", since none of these can actually exist except in an illusory and false way. It might be characterized by saying that "we are all dominoes with illusions".
Fortunately, the "deterministic machine" universe is a largely discarded notion in modern physics, an approximation appropriate only for statistical behaviors of large aggregates. So I cannot see quite where the "deterministic view of non-will" has a place to stand.
3) Stochastic and chaotic view of free will: This view grows from the primitive determinist notion and incorporates the findings of modern neural science to correct the oversimplification of pure determinism. Randomness enters the system and neural firing can result in non-deterministic outcomes. It explains what we all have been living with but failed to notice; that we don?t always make choices in what we know are our best interests or the values we think we hold ...
This view is "closer" to mine, but is actually ambiguous about whether the added "randomness" allows for (not demands, but allows for) true free will, or whether it simply restricts predictability.
Even with such true randomness as an added input, it goes too far to say that this accounts for the "mistakes people make." Our so-called "bad-choices" are not merely the mis-firings of an otherwise lock-step machine. If we posit, for the moment, that we have "real true free will" (thus, "real" options), and place ourselves in the shoes of the desperate person raised in a cruel environment, we might "see our options" as rather poor ones, and honestly judge as "best" one that most of society would reject. That does not necessarily imply that that a "mis-fire" occurred.
Morally speaking, I believe that even with a "true free will" perspective, we often "hold accountable" many whose situations did not leave them with very attractive options.
The results of QM imply that the notion of "continuous forward flow across points of time" is itself an approximation that breaks down upon sufficiently close inspection. At the level of particle-spontaneity and zero-point energies, "point in time" is actually a fuzzy thing, where the universe tends to confuse "before" and "after". From the study of chemistry, we know that the "near-ground states" of simply molecules have wide-jumps between different energy levels (bands), but as molecules become larger and more complex, the alternate states of these molecules (such as the difference in "twist" between a "cis" and a "trans" state) can become hyper-fine. Since the brain is literally saturated with such molecules, those energy differences could be sensitive at the same levels at which zero-point energies, and the ambiguous sense of time, are the operating environment.
Although I have yet to fully think through how these views could actually allow a reflective mind to manifest "true-free-will", I cannot see why some believe it "plain" that true free will MUST be illusory.
4) Legal: The legal sense of "freedom" and "free will":
This is clearly a social invention, and (as I believe you observed) rather independent of whether or not free will exists. It is a pragmatism, that serves to rationalize the (real) need to adjust socially harmful behaviors, or constrain the dangerous individual.
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Free Will
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> To an unfortunate degree, this form of "free
> will" is so central to the western theological
> viewpoint, that scientists who reject
> God/metaphysics feel that they must likewise
> reject "free will", even though they now
> generally recognize that the universe is not a
> purely deterministic machine.
That's not quite right. It has a hint of theological propaganda in it. Determinism and (Stochasticism??) are naturalistic and materialistic, they assume that what describes everything else in science will describe us human beings too.
Determinism and Stochasticism are NOT born from a mere rejection of Christian metaphysics. They are born from science's dependence on mathematics to describe the world. Determinism was born in a time when the equations used were deterministic. Change the math and you change the philosophy, thus determinism becomes something else, Stochasticism?
At heart it's Occam's razor and naturalism at work. To suggest otherwise is to believe some bullshit religious propaganda. It's the acceptance of this naturalism that leads to the rejection, not visa versa.
What makes a choice "real" as opposed to "illusion" ? Does the 'reality' of a 'choice' necessarily mean we humans must leave the mathematical system that describes the rest of nature? Are human beings not mathematically describable? You have a sense that you can make a different choice, that you're "free" of something that constrains the unthinking world. Drop a rock from a tall building and it has no choice but to fall at 32 feet per second per second, just as Galileo's and Newton's deterministic formulas predict. Guess what; drop a human being from the same building along with the rock and they'll both hit the ground at the same mathematically predictable rate. Of course the human being will be screaming all the way down, flapping their arms and legs wildly, but the human doesn't seem to have much choice about not screaming (especially if you catch them by surprise) so I'm not sure that screaming is an act of free will. When they scream on the way down to their splattered destiny do they feel they have a "real" choice about screaming?
So, our free will is constrained to a limited kind of action, we can't violate any laws of physics, we can walk and talk and throw things around but those actions too depend on physics. We can trace all those physical, materialistic, naturalistic processes all the way back to the brain. So, when, if ever, does the human system separate from the rest of the mathematically describable and predictable world? When does it become non-deterministic and non-mathematically describable?
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Re: Free Will
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Norm,
I certainly do not imply any "theology" by positing the possibility of real free will. If you read through what I have written, it should be clear that I posit entirely "materialist/naturalist" foundations.
To whatever degree we can see the universe as "mathematically explicable and conformable", that very mathematics tells us that QM-indeterminacy is a "real feature" of the landscape. Mathematics tells us quite precisely when, where, and to what degree predictibility is possible.
Given a complete understanding of mathematical physics, we may be able to "deduce" precisely why the decay rate of Carbon 14 is the observed rate. But it appears that that very same mathematics tells us we can never hope to take a given Carbon-14 atom and "calculate" that it will decay to Carbon 12 at 4:05 PM. Furthermore, in a very fundamental way, it implies that the universe does not contain the state-information required to "cause" the decay at any given "point of time".
This is "Naturalism", not "Supernaturalism".
Humans may be 99.9% predictable, aggregate behaviors. But humans also display an "unpredictability" to a degree not seen in any other species. To me, this implies that our "brains" are capable of sensitivity to, and consequent amplification of, QM-indeterminacy in the "substrate". That would not quite make us a "slave to randomness", since our systems have evolved to both filter "noise" and to cause "convergence to useful behaviors" (mostly).
Now, the question at hand is, do our minds simply "deal with the noise", as in operating mostly consistently _despite_ the noise, or has it actually found a way to "exploit" the noise to allow us to "originate a causal sequence" that was not itself subsequent to a strictly preceding "cause".
If the latter is true, it may well be amenable to "complete mathematical understanding". That is NOT the same as "perfect predictability" in any isolated event.
(And if the possibility of free will "plays into the hands" of certain theologians, I am not going to let that stand in my way, as much as I might find their beliefs "bunkworthy".)
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Free Will
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jwayt,
I think "s" was referring to "Brains are the best thing to give us that adaptability", as if without our brains, "we" would be less adaptable :) But I understood your intent. The evolution of "brain" affords a creature far more adaptability, especially in the short-term, than other faculties.
I might mention that "Godel's Incompleteness" is not quite the same as "QM Indeterminacy". What Godel's theorem proves is that for any sufficiently expressive formal axiomatic system (in particular, a system in which recursive constructs can be defined), there will always exist more possible statements that can be expressed than the system is capable of reaching definitive answers for.
In short, the space of questions will be (infinitely) larger than the space of answers, thus there will be an infinity of "undecidable" issues. In particular, ther will be "true statements" that cannot be proven to be true within that axiomatic system.
If the axiomatic system in question is itself formulated in a larger metasystem, the "unprovable statement" may be shown to be true, even though not provable in the sub-system (This is exactly how Godel constructed his proof). But then, the metasystem is at least as expressive as the sub-system, and will have its own "universe" of undecidable propositions. Thus, an infinite ascent of undecidable propositions is unavoidable in powerful axiomatic systems.
However, I do not precisely follow your statement:
> "The determinism so important in brain function is not directly translatable to high-level functions."
Are you referring to the "reliability of chemistry" versus the "unreliability of thought"?
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Free Will
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>"However, I do not precisely follow your statement:
"The determinism so important in brain function is not directly translatable to high-level functions."
Are you referring to the "reliability of chemistry" versus the "unreliability of thought"?
----
The electrochemical processes of our neurons function quite predictably and reliably. Our lives depend upon it every minute. What's more, to support any higher level functions, our neurons must work as dependably as a formal mathematical/logical system. That's where the determinism is to be found.
But by the time the mental functions operate on higher levels, determinism begins to collapse. Contradictions are introduced. Self-references appear. Processes (cognitive propositions) loose their absolute truth, provability, or even some of its decidability.
For example, take the sentence, "This statement is false." The quoted statement is not only contradictory, it is undecidable, much less unprovable.
My point is that human intellect wriggles free of the determinism that produces it--BY DESIGN. Certainly there are adaptations in all manner of species that render the individual more "fit" for its environment. Genetic information does indeed make the cheetah fleet of foot. But the information that yields the essence of adaptibility itself, will find fitness in a greater range of environments, especially those that change faster than genetic info can. That is the purpose of having neurons, to transcend genetic determinacy. |
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Re: Free Will
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jwayt,
I agree with your closing premise, which I take to be "self-directed intelligence and adaptability will surpass our genetic constraints, and is (thus) our "improved path" to continued evolution.
But I have to take issue with the way you portray nature or physics, as if they are (at basis) well-determined, or even amenable to logic.
The universe (the physics "out there") behaves exactly as it behaves, with no particular respect for logic or even a sense of "logic, avoidance of contradiction, etc." Didactic logic, axiomatic systems, rule of the excluded middle (statement can be true, or false, and not both) are all mentally invented concepts.
The physics, per se, does not regard "rules" or choose to obey rules. The physics has given rise to creatures (us) that can entertain "concepts", devise categories, and invent "rules" that we try to match to what is observed, and call these "models". It is our "rule-making" (axiomatic systems) that we will not allow to have self-contradictions. The universe does not care, and there is no rule THAT WE DO NOT IMPOSE OURSELVES that says the universe must be completely described by some system of knowledge that is free of contradictions. Contradictions are "logical problems", not physical ones.
Most of the time, our (relatively simple) axiomatic theories do pretty well in matching physical observations, but that is because the things we tend to observe and explain are the "gross aggregate" qualities and quantities. Indeed, nature holds quite reliably to conservation of momentum. But when we try to place our axiomatic framework upon the wave-partical duality, nature thumbs her nose at us. And at the QM level, she is anything but deterministic (by deterministic, I mean that the universe at time T has all the information and state necessary to completely determine the state at time T+1).
Rather than "our lives/minds depend upon the predictable and reliable neuron functioning", our functional success and rise to conscious thought occurs DESPITE irregular neural activity, thousands of neurons dying each hour, etc. To hear you describe the determinacy of the chemistry, you would think that our brains are pentium processors (which are very UNLIKE our brains in that they DO need to function absolutely deterministically in order to "work"!)
And that should be a lesson for us, in our attempt to create strong-AI. It cannot be so fragile that a logical flaw "matters critically", no matter where it might occur. That would be like having one particular neuron "fail" in your brain, and suddenly you core-dump. We operate despite the "noise", and I might conjecture, in part, BECAUSE of the noise.
Of course, there is no need to go to the other extreme, and have AI so closely match our biological-path to intelligence that it must entertain every form of delusion to which we are prone. It can be more carefully engendered, "leaner and meaner", so to speak. But when it is capable of rewriting itself to make its own self-improvements ... all bets are off!
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Free Will
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I find the different opinions and theories of people posting here to be quite intriguing, and I can't resist jumping in. I am an outsider to the study of AI, please forgive me if I seem a bit ignorant of some of the principles involved. I am an EE, I have written a lot of firmware for embedded systems in the course of my career, so I do know a bit about computers. I stumbled onto Kurzweil's site through a link from an article I was reading (I had never heard of him before), and have been reading here for several hours. Fascinating!
First, I would like to comment that it seems most everyone posting here all agree with a common assumption that our brain (or a subset of it, as someone pointed out) is what *we* are. I would like to propose another assumption. It is that our brain is not what *we* are, but merely an interface between the universe of observable conscious mortality that we know, and the intelligence that exists in a sphere beyond what is observable in this mortal state that is really what *we* are; i.e. what *we* REALLY are is not observable in the mortal sphere.
I find it puzzling that so many of you are (apparently) so easily convinced that there is nothing more to us than what we are able to observe. Now, I certainly cannot offer any proof that there is more that we are unable to observe, but as an engineer and scientist, as I look back at history, I must conclude that it is quite likely that there is much pertaining to our conscious existence that we have not observed and are not aware of yet. Also, intuitively, as I sit here contemplating all of this, it seems quite obvious, even self evident, that there is more to *me*, my imagination, creativity, free will, than the relatively simplistic and somewhat deterministic interaction of the various chemicals, the molecules, the atoms, protons and electrons, that make up my body and my brain.
Many years ago, I am told, men believed that the earth was flat. The distant horizon is all that they could observe, and it certainly does appear to be flat. Later, they found out they were wrong, because they had trusted in only what they could observe. Some time after that, men believed in Newtonian mechanics. They thought the universe operated on these principles, and were arrogant enough to think that now they knew everything. Later, they found they were wrong, that there was much more that they had not been able to observe before.
As I sit here browsing and interacting with the internet, if I did not know better, I could easily conclude that all of the intelligence that is the internet was contained in my 802.11 modem. I unplug it and the internet dies, I plug it in and there it is. I cannot see any connection anywhere, therefore it must be contained within the modem, however in reality as we know, the modem is not the internet at all, but merely a conduit to it.
Why is it so hard to believe that our brains may be similar? Doesn't it seem very likely that our knowledge is based on what we can observe, and that maybe what we can observe is only a very small fraction of what is *really* around us, and what *we* really are?
It appears to me that computers are deterministic systems, with randomness injected. Nothing more. No matter how sophisticated our algorithms become, how complex the software, or how many computations per second the hardware can produce, it will always be nothing more than the deterministic interactions of inert matter. Yes, there may come a time in the not so distant future that computers are able to mimic strong AI, so much so that to us they may actually appear to be "alive". But they are not. They are still just inert matter, and always will be. Even as Kurzweil claims he is going to reverse engineer the human brain, it may be that he will never succeed in creating human consciousness in a computer, because what if the brain is not really the consciousness, but merely the conduit to it where it exists in a sphere that is not observable to the mortal body.
I know I really have no evidence for the theories I have posted here. But I hold it to be self evident, that myself, and I would hope other human beings, consist of something beyond the ever so complex organization of inert matter that is our bodies, something that will continue to exist even after our bodies have disintegrated.
Regards,
Steve
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Re: Free Will
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Steve,
Your point about not assuming that "all we can see is all there is" is a good point.
However, your assertion of a form of "metaphysical animism", something that "biological stuff" has, and "machines" cannot, is largely untestable, and hence a bit irrelevant to the issues at hand.
As I have said before, the entire "observable" universe, you, I, garden snails and river rocks, could all be the hyper-dream of a 17-dimensional turtle sunning itself in a tide pool on Zeta-Prime.
If we cannot "know this", then it seves little purpose to wonder about it, (except for a bit of relaxation:)
Fundamentally, things can only be judged by the way they behave.
If we were to build "human-like" robots (think of Star Trek's "Data") and my child is swept into a raging river, and 9 of these robots stand there, while one risks its own destruction to dive into the river and save my child, then I know which robot I would want in my house ... and they could have their own room if they expressed such a desire.
Why attempt to make such a distinction between "inert" and "alive", or "calculating" and "thinking"? What is the point, except as an element of pure philosophic debate?
What if we convince ourselves that "inert-machine-robots", no matter how highly evolved or sophisticated, cannot access that "beyond" you speak of, and yet it turns out that we are wrong?
Suppose we attempt to destroy or disassemble one of these "robots", and it "mimics" fear, and pleads with us not to destroy it. We say "its just programmed to do that - its not really afraid - it does not really feel", but suppose we are wrong. We would have destroyed a sentient being, merely out of our conviction that "it can't be like us".
We have little choice but to work from what we actually can observe. We attempt to expand our horizons in the process, and discover along the way that the world is not so flat, after all.
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Free Will
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Could you explain? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I do think they are to blame on a certain level but it could be different from your view. Maybe my connotation of blame is different than yours. For example, if Joe kicks a soccer ball, he is to blame for kicking the soccer ball. If Lisa wins the Nobel prize, she is to blame for that. But her hard work, determination, and intelligence were actually caused by luck and chance rather than her own "will" (I'm still not sure what that means, exactly, other than being synonomous with the word "illusion"). It looks like it was caused by her will, because she made the decision to work hard, etc. But she made the decisions for a reason. She was in the right place at the right time, genetically and environmentally speaking.
No, you say, there is more to it than that. She was the root cause of some of the decisions. Okay, imagine an exact simulation of Lisa's life. Let's say due to quantum indeterminacies, 50% of the outcomes had her win the prize, 50% had her doing something else (I don't think that alternate outcomes in the exact same universe are plausible, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt). I hope you see now that the outcome was determined by chance even if Lisa did seem to cause it.
I don't understand how quantum uncertainty works, I think that is my biggest problem. If in a comparison of two almost identical universes, if the uncertainties play out differently, how could the universes be considered truly identical? |
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Re: Free Will
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szuchymj,
> "Tony, you say there is indeterminacy and unpredictability that the 'old' determinism is not aware of? Good, that just bores another hole in the notion of free will. Conscious choice and randomness are opposites."
Curious. Certainly determinism and non-determinism (strong randomness) must be opposites. Also, determinism and free-will must be opposites. Thus for free-will and randomness to be opposites, we have a three-way set of opposites!
As there cannot (logically) be three opposite poles alng a single dimension, we are somehow involving an additional dimension of measure here.
> "By the way, "my" determinism hinges on whether or not humans are to blame for their choices. I do not care about predictability or mathematical modeling. Maybe that is where I am misunderstanding the chaotic view?"
If free will really can manifest via "minds", it affects at most the "margins" of our activities (at least, most of the time.) I would argue that 99.9% of our behaviors are "determined" by situations that are effectively beyond our control. That is, we are "reacting" to the world, far more than "acting" upon it. Effecting "choice", in the short term, is of little effect when your range of perceived options are sufficiently narrow.
The issue of "blame" is merely pragmatic. If someone commits a "crime", we like to think they are "to blame" because that eases our conscience about "incarcerating" them. (It NEVER justifies "vengeful punishment", which is self-defeating.) However, whether they are really to "blame" for their decisions or not, we can be reasonably (statistically) sure that those who "act badly" are far more likely to "act badly again", thus incarceration (of some form or remediation) is demanded.
Formally, the issue of "chaos" (as in "Chaos Theory") is the study of purely deterministic systems whose complexities can give rise to behaviors that appear (mostly) indistinguishable from strong randomness. These system exhibit the "statistics of randomness" in many measures, yet are not actually random. They are very sensitive to small changes, and can amplify these to large effects over time, but NOT coherently (in contrast to an ordinary amplifier, where small changes are coherently amplified.)
If the chaotic system of "weather" were coherent/linear, and preventing a butterfly from flapping its wings this moment shifts the onset of a typhoon by 8 weeks and 800 miles, then waiting a few moments before interfering with the butterfly would shift the typhoon (perhaps) only by 7 weeks and 700 miles. But theory indicates that the amplified change will not be smooth in this linear fashion. One cannot "interpolate between" small initial changes, and expect the larger manifest effects to display corresponding interpolations.
In contrast, I believe the mind/brain structures act to amplify small effects coherently. The issue of free-will surrounds the question of the origination of small initial effects, whether "mind" is akin to a quantum-object, a superposition of states that collapse to "choice" upon self-observation. Circularity is inherent in this, but not (of necessity) a disallowed form of circularity (the kind that leads to self-contradiction.)
Cheers! ____tony b____
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Re: Free Will
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>>Thomas, you will need to treat them like polar bears. Don't let them come in to town, shoot them if you must? Tranquilize them and transport them far out of town. Like the British did to the Australian ancestors. <<
>>Polar bears can't MURDER people. They can kill, but murder is MORALLY wrong killing. To be moral, you need to have choice. To have a choice, you need the free will to choose. Polar bears don't have free will; neither do people because determinism denies the existance of volition.<<
By the same logic, if the state imprisons and executes a convicted murderer, that is also a pre-determined action, so going to the trouble of tranquilizing and moving convicts is unnecessary. Even a trial is unneccessary. If I shoot the wrong guy...hey, it was predetermined.
If one takes this argument to the logical extreme, the very idea of moral choice is meaningless. In the words of Hassan-i-sabah, "Nothing is prohibited; everything is permitted."
By this logic, nobody can be held responsible for any act...from shoplifting to genocide.
It is possible to build a theory of free will that is strictly materialist--that doesn't require the human mind to be anything more than a mechanical process.
But if human free will is ultimately an illusion, it is certainly a useful one.
BC
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Re: Free Will
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A major source of confusion is the tendency to equate materialism/"mechanism" with "determinism".
Since most of the "machines" man has built (to date) rely upon gross aggregate behaviors, and thus obey predictable causal rules (steam engines, etc.,) we tend to think "mechanical = causal".
This "equation" is not longer an automatic given, once you build systems whose behaviors can be modulated by sensitivity to QM indetermincy, "tunneling", etc.
Of course, even if we were to agree that free will could be "real", the fact remains that most of our actions are so constrained by our environment (both the objective reality "out-there", and our ingrained ways of perceiving) that the issue of "blame" is generally inappropriate.
When someone behaves dangerously, violently, maliciously, etc., one need not "blame" them in order to be justified in acting to curtail their behaviors. However, "punishment" (usually, "sense of satisfaction of giving pain-for-pain") is never warranted, and is largely self-destructive.
The "death penalty" is an ABOMINATION.
Its real "purpose" is one of three:
(a) We are too cheap to fund minimal housing and care for this sick individual.
(b) It makes us "feel good" having killed them (restores cosmic/karmic "balance")
(c) "Their" side of the story is forever silenced.
In the first two cases, the attitude engenders further callousness in a population, and will likely lead to more cruelties down the road.
In the third case, well, you figure it out.
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Free Will
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>>A monkey sticks his hand in a fixed jar containing a cookie. The mouth of the jar is large enough to fit his open hand, but too small to fit the fist made when he holds on to the cookie. The monkey won't let go of his prize, so he is caught. Really caught by the determinism of his own desires. A human can now walk up to bind the monkey, even kill him.
You should be concluding by now that you would never fall for that longer than one second. You would suspend your desire even on the brink of starvation, in favor of freedom, and figure another way to get the cookie.<<
I see where you're going with this, but I don't think this is *necessarily* an example of free will vs. determinism.
The monkey gets caught because his brain is not "wired" in a way that allows him to resolve the problem. The jar with the treat in it is something that natural selection has not prepared him to handle.
No chimpanzee would be fooled by such a trap. He would, after a couple of tries, walk over, find a rock, and then pound at the jar until he broke it and get the goodie out. I believe that even a raccoon would probably figure out that he couldn't grasp the treat and get his hand out. I live way out in the country, and there are raccoons all over the place, and I enjoy observing them. They are tenacious and intelligent. (I have yet to find a human container without a lock that a few clever raccoons can't figure out.) A raccoon would look for an alternate strategy, and, failing that, give up. Perhaps raccoons have free will, but I think it more likely that they are just smarter than the species of monkey in question.
Where we differ from the monkey is that we can reflect on our problems, and that's where I agree with you. One fact from my 20+ years of researching "primitive" cultures that I think is very significant is that there is very little pathological behavior (addiction, insanity, violent crime) found in them. But, like your monkeys, when humans encounter situations not covered in the original programming, so to speak, we respond with all sorts of self-destructive behavior. Nicotine addiction comes to mind. Any adult who continues to smoke is a lot like the monkey with his fist in the jar...in fact, he's worse off than the monkey, because he knows intellectually that his actions will probably cause him to die too young, and in horrible pain at some point down the road, while the monkey doesn't know that he's about to be harvested.
In 1939, the Austrian psychoanalyst Victor Frankl found himself in the middle of one of the most horrible experiments on human freedom ever conducted. After the Nazis took over Austria, Frankl was taken to a death camp because he was a Jew. There, he was made a slave laborer. He was tortured. German "scientists" performed experiments on him. He was castrated. But, because he was a physician, he was not put on the fast track toward the gas chamber, like so many others in the camp, because he was useful to his captors--he was, for a time the only M.D. there.
All inmates were stripped of their dignity. All veneer of normal human culture, let alone "civilization" was lost to them in very short order. But Frankl observed that some of his fellow inmates succumbed faster than others to the death-camp experience..and he determined that it was not just physical strength that mattered...but the human will. Frankl came to believe that, even though the Nazis had stripped him of everything--family, possessions, status, health, dignity--he still had enough freedom to determine, for himself, how he would respond to his situation. In his book, "Man's Search For Meaning," Frankl writes that he came to believe that with this insight, he was, in fact, "freer" than his jailers. In fact, Frankl came to believe that his free will was, in the end, the only thing that he possessed.
Was Frankl correct? His insights are compelling, but, of couse, he could have been delusional. Perhaps even in these extreme conditions, his reaction to the Nazis was strictly conditioned. But I don't think so.
BC
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Re: Free Will
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>Determinism itself removes blame from an individual because the individual is a victim of the deterministic causes that are actually in control. Without the power of choice, a person cannot be morally responsible. This is a legal defense. Someone who is "insane" is at the mercy of bad brain chemicals, or brain structure, or even bad blood chemistry, like low blood sugar. (This is the twinkie defense!)
Determinism does NOT remove the blame from an individual in any way that could be used as legal defense. This idea is absurd. You are forgetting that the legal system itself is part of determinism, and punishment for breaking a law is a high probability.
For example, an individual has committed a crime. Why did he commit the crime? He found himself in a scenario where he could commit the crime and suffer the consequences (both anticipated and un-anticipated consequences), or he could not commit the crime and suffer a different set of consequences. Determinism says that he chose the only choice he ever really had: commit the crime. In no way does this relieve him of any responsibility for the consequences, legal and otherwise of commiting the crime.
The scenario took place because of the complex cascade of events beginning with the big-bang that led all the way up to the situation in which he commited the crime. Everything, from the consequences imposed by legal system, to the configuration of every particles in his brain, the crime scene, and the entire universe at the point in time where he consciously decided to commit the crime are relevant. If an identical big bang were to take place, the exact same scenario would occur.
So why again did this man commit the crime? Because after evaluating the scenario, his brain came to the conscious, or even unconscious decision that the alternative courses of action will make him worse off.
Just because we consciously experience free will doesn't make it non-deterministic. Free will is determined by the influence our motivations have on all the possible choices we have available. What determins our motivations? The way our brain is biologically created + the sum of experiences and interactions we have with our environment. All of these things are deterministic, but in no way relieves a man of responsibility for his actions :/
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Re: Free Will
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Determinism denies morality. It says there are no real choices because of powers that act upon us lead us inexorably to certain behaviors. If we cannot do anything to prevent our own behavior, how can we be responsible?
Behavioral psychology showed how we respond to rewards and punishments. This put a new face on determinism, whereby we act in accordance to our conditioning. We are all slaves to our conditioning and desires. It made some sense of a justice system that punishes crimes, while invalidating it in the same stroke. (Positive reinforcement, incentives, are more efficient than negatives.) It led to the view of the juvenile delinquent being a mere product of society, not responsible for its own depravity. Behavioral psychology supported rehabilitation and opposed retribution.
Legally, the difference between MURDER and INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER is choice. If a person could not choose to kill, they cannot murder. A epileptic has a petit-mal seizure while driving and careens fatally into another person. It was the epileptic's acts which put the car in motion... Worse, an "insane" person is not even guilty, though conscious. It is because of faulty, deterministic processes in the kook's brain function that led to a lethal act.
A determinist should ask what needs fixing. Inculcation cures errant cogitation? Fix the nut's brain chemicals, or (at some stage of neuro-science), the epileptic's brain structure. As all learned behavior results in a change in brain structure, new conditioning or direct surgery will cure it, right? Maybe, but which structure? Can it be permanent? New synapses continue to grow. The structure might regenerate later, short of a lobotomy.
I don't believe we make moral choices about every little thing in life. I do believe our species is genetically predispositioned--deterministically--to be moral and selectively altruistic. I think every nerve cell that contributes to adaptive behavior is determinism's way of transcending itself. As intelligence arises from this adaptive complexity, it trumps fate at every level.
So what is free will? I never said we are free from the consequences of our acts. Our actions are motivated by their expected consequences. We do have freedom to choose our motivations, and this is where I part company with the determinists. It should be plain to all that a given desire varies over time. Humans have the conscious power to suppress or express internal urges, the same way we ignore most things to focus our attention on the object of our contemplation. Even the most powerful instinct of self-preservation is subordinate to free will.
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Re: Free Will
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I once defined "freedom as the absence of absolute knowledge. Many would define freedom as choice, but it seems that choice is the result, and not the definition of freedom. Whether freedom is a preexising state of the individual, or a universal condition that emerges from the chaos created by the entropy paradigm, I do not know.
However, "free will" is activated by certain mechanical processes: we must have a nervous system that makes us seek to preserve and expand our lives, by avoiding danger, by sexual reproduction, by seeking to preserve our lives via religion so that we don't die, etc.
In making such choices, we are embedded in a "sea" of complex reality and the choices of others, so that we must react to their choices as they react to ours in a kind of infinite regression.
Ultimately, whatever choices we make, we know that we will die. It is likely that religion arose, along with philosophy, in an attempt to define "life after death".
But this is derived from mechanical processes extended to an ever more complex level.
What is not defined is, who is the "I" that makes the choices. This question also creates an infinity of answers so that our conceptual apparatus never despairs of possible answers.
Godel's theorem shows that our thinki ng in such complex systems will remain incomplete, which leaves us with freedom but no way of arriving at an absolute answer, which makes "freedom" perpetual but in some ways negative. Chaitin has pointed out that in any axiomatic system there exists an infinity of undecideable propositions, so that we always face "reality" as individuals without solid guidelines.
Freedom is, it would appear, the absence of absolute knowledge. However, choices other than those that best preserve our life and happiness, and our reproductive opportunities, would seem meaningless, or at least subject to infinite conceptualization , like ideas about "God".
Yet freedom is meaningless without such speculation.
In spite of our thoughts on freedom, we seem to conform to mathematical theorems, and we also seem to get caught in feedback loops like any computer, the difference being that we can separate or "exit the system" when necessary.
But wouldn't we describe intelligence or self awareness as simply the ability to exit the system and not be subject to useless concepts? Ah, but which concepts are useless?
Would that not require a guiding intelligence in some form? The mind cannot completely exit any system without ceasing to exist. Yet cesing to exist may be the only exit into that higher system of intelligence. |
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Re: Free Will
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Hey doojie, how's things-
Are you woundering if we can put to work a cause-effect?
Can we be the originator of so-called 'will'?
If so, i'd offer yes we can- although, i'd suggest that's what we are, it's not what we do.
C
-Is it possible to be of, (ourselves), or a party to being ourself.. or if it's clearer- (self-conscious/deliberate) of being ('will'/ourselves).
That's to say, are we precisely depiction in & of will?
If so..
-significant of this, and consequently.. can we without some sense of what (we 'will' be).. be the originator of (will/cause-effect)?
In other-words, if i want to drive a FERRARI tomorrow, would i have had to driven one today to be a party to accomplishing this?
If we're original thought, then no- but it's good practice to cultivate feeling for what we suppose in bridging timeliness.
The gap of today and tomorrow, or significant PROGRESSION that is, i want to drive the FERRARI and tomorrow it is so, is supported by our surroundings, not impeded, to what we project or draw ourselves into being, or more accurately, to what is ourselves.
Perceptable restrictions of freedoms and liberties are (our) employ of existing projections/PROGRESSIONS)?
If this is true as well, we simply need learn to accept what and who we are in bridging seperation of perceptable reality, or timely expression of ourselves.
'Put your hands in your head'
-Supertramp
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Re: Free Will
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"You make me wonder if Kurzweil isn't trying to pass a Turing Test here. Your response is about as sensible."
:)
You sound like some bitchy non-sexed nuns i had to put up with in the first grade.
Let's start here if your interested.
"In making such choices, we are embedded in a "sea" of complex reality and the choices of others, so that we must react to their choices as they react to ours in a kind of infinite regression." -doojie
"..are we precisely depiction in & of will? -C
I'm not asking a question, i'm saying this is the reality. I know this because this is what i am.
"Perceptable restrictions of freedoms and liberties are (our) employ of existing projections/PROGRESSIONS)?" -C
Again, this isn't a question.
I said earlier at the start:
"Are you (woundering) if we can put to work a cause-effect?
Can we be the originator of so-called 'will'?
If so, i'd offer yes we can- although, i'd suggest that's what we are, it's not what we do."
We can't be much of (wonderment) or expressive will, if we're walkin' around preoccupied with non-existent issues where none-exist in the first place.
We are free, to do as we 'will'. Given we allow this and understand the methodology of ourselves. The duality or depiction of conflict in and of MAN v. Society that we're riding is the stampede of superstitious practitioners.
"...we simply need learn to accept what and who we are in bridging seperation of perceptable reality, or timely expression of ourselves." -C
C
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Re: Free Will
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I think the problem lies in the fact that we put two terms ('free' and 'will') together that don't belong together.
"You're not here to make a choice, but to understand the choices you've already made."
People love the phrase "free will", because it makes their "will" the original cause (at least the original cause of their actions).
It would be more appropriate to say "free desire."
You see, it comes down to the notion of "becoming."
All of a person's actions derive from the notion of what they desire to become.
For example, a person goes to law school. This is because they want to "become" a lawyer. If I get thirsty, I take a drink of water. Because I want to become someone who is not thirsty. All actions arise from this desire, to become. But desire is only 1/2 of the coin. The other 1/2 is identity. The only difference between identity and desire, is identity is who I 'am' now, and desire is who I wish to 'become'.
This is important, because between the two, there is a feedback mechanism that gives rise to actions...
Consciousness is a strange attractor, an implicit infinite
One cannot 'create' consciousness, but we can create structures that become increasingly aware of it |
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