GrahamH wrote:

romansh wrote:

GrahamH wrote:
We could say that it becomes so obscured that you can get away with thinking it's free. Or we could suppose that the more constraints you can identify the better you are able to sind your way. I wouldn't call that free will, but I think JP would, as, perhaps, would David McC. It's a somewhat odd idea that free will is optimisation or error minimisation.

I don't think we have any disagreement that is substantive.

And I understand we can have any phenomena defined. Now personally I find it really annoying that common words like souls, angels and even knowledge get redefined and as a consequence any discussion is mired between common and specialist uses. The problem is JP does this ... I don't know whether he realizes how annoying it is (at least to me).

The question that JP and to be fair others avoid is can this error minimization or optimization happened otherwise? And again I am not asking whether we can envisage other error minima or optima ... because plainly we can at times.

This is a question many if not a large majority of compatibilists do not answer.

Happened otherwise? As in could I have acted otherwise? Any optimisation can be seen as finding a peak, or trough that is the best result in the given condition. It is defined by the conditions and what counts as "best". If time and resources allowed we can imagine a exhaustive search for the optimum being as inevitable as a ball rolling down hill. In practice exhaustive search is not possible. It takes too long to be useful, so we can get stuck in local minima. So we could say that which of several possible minima are found depends on the conditions and how they are searched, which is all initial conditions. Given identical conditions we should expect the same minima to be found every time. JP likes to imagine his program is generating creative output, but it's search for minima in the input data. Given the same input it will produce the same output every time, just like the PRNG. What it "creates" is determined by what's there in the input code and data.

GrahamH wrote: or trough that is the best result in the given condition.

romansh wrote:

GrahamH wrote: or trough that is the best result in the given condition.

I must admit I prefer the trough analogy. This is in accord with thermodynamics where matter approaches some energy trough on the way to some local equilibrium. It is difficult (apparently to be sure that the lowest Gibb's (free ) energy has been calculated). Life is always on its way to some local equilibrium (a deep enough trough) where death occurs where as the sun (mostly) is pushing matter around like Sisyphus to some none local lower entropy state while the whole lot is steadily going to big trough in the sky.

Just waxing lyrical ...

GrahamH wrote:

romansh wrote:

GrahamH wrote: or trough that is the best result in the given condition.

I must admit I prefer the trough analogy. This is in accord with thermodynamics where matter approaches some energy trough on the way to some local equilibrium. It is difficult (apparently to be sure that the lowest Gibb's (free ) energy has been calculated). Life is always on its way to some local equilibrium (a deep enough trough) where death occurs where as the sun (mostly) is pushing matter around like Sisyphus to some none local lower entropy state while the whole lot is steadily going to big trough in the sky.

Just waxing lyrical ...

I don't think we can say the trough is thermodynamic equilibrium. Quite the opposite in fact. It's most likely a local decrease in entropy through replication at the level of gene, cell, organism...)

GrahamH wrote:How about these?
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=googl ... =551#spf=1


Are they products of free will? I think JP would say yes.


How about this one? http://imgur.com/gallery/N7VqB1g

archibald wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

romansh wrote:

GrahamH wrote: or trough that is the best result in the given condition.

I must admit I prefer the trough analogy. This is in accord with thermodynamics where matter approaches some energy trough on the way to some local equilibrium. It is difficult (apparently to be sure that the lowest Gibb's (free ) energy has been calculated). Life is always on its way to some local equilibrium (a deep enough trough) where death occurs where as the sun (mostly) is pushing matter around like Sisyphus to some none local lower entropy state while the whole lot is steadily going to big trough in the sky.

Just waxing lyrical ...

I don't think we can say the trough is thermodynamic equilibrium. Quite the opposite in fact. It's most likely a local decrease in entropy through replication at the level of gene, cell, organism...)

Can a decrease in entropy be thought of as a trough?

archibald wrote:Obviously, I'm a bit out of my depth.

I tend to think of optima as peaks as much as troughs.

Q: OK. What IS entropy, really?
A: It's simple basically because you know about the second law -- that energy spreads out and disperses rather than staying concentrated, i.e., localized in one place. Entropy just measures what happens in that kind of process of energy dispersing. And that's why your text says that entropy is always increasing in the world -- it's because spontaneous reactions/events are what are always happening and they happen because then energy spreads out!. (Actually, we should always say "entropy change" because we're measuring the difference in energy distribution "after" some happening versus the "before".)
...
Entropy change doesn't measure "disorder"! (What are the dimensions of "disorder"? Malarkeys per minute or some such nonsense? The scientific dimensions of entropy change are joules/Kelvin.) Entropy change in chemistry measures the spreading of molecular motional ENERGY. (For more details of that kind of energy of molecules moving ["translating"] and rotating and vibrating, see http://2ndlaw.oxy.edu/entropy.html. Your professor could check the site for instructors at http://entropysite.oxy.edu/entropy_isnot_disorder.html)

GrahamH wrote:Good to see you coming around, JP. The only mystery now is why you want to call something so impersonal, unconscious and lacking forethought "free will".

archibald wrote:

John Platko wrote:

archibald wrote:He's a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

"Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is a philosophical organization based on the spiritual teachings of all religions, dedicated to a process of inner development under the guidance of a spiritual teacher......

Radha Soami is a Hindi expression meaning ‘Lord of the Soul’ in English. Satsang means 'association with Truth' and describes a group that seeks truth....

The philosophy teaches a personal path of spiritual development which includes a vegetarian diet, abstinence from intoxicants, a moral way of life and the practice of daily meditation......"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radha_Soami_Satsang_Beas

How meditation helped Yuval Harari write "Sapiens," a terrific book
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_t ... editation/

Sounds like a good way to work on sub constructors to enhance "free will"jp to me.

I might not use the word constructor or the term free will, but yes.

Interestingly, a lot of meditation seems to involve temporarily letting go of certain basic ideas, such as self and will.

John Platko wrote:

GrahamH wrote:Good to see you coming around, JP. The only mystery now is why you want to call something so impersonal, unconscious and lacking forethought "free will".

Traditional historical usage - i.e. it's what the term means.

romansh wrote:

archibald wrote:

GrahamH wrote:Good to see you coming around, JP. The only mystery now is why you want to call something so impersonal, unconscious and lacking forethought "free will".

I reckon that my unfree will can be (even if is not always) personal, conscious and involve forethought (and hindsight).

But if you throw in enough unfree constructors then your unfree will becomes free.

romansh wrote:

GrahamH wrote:
We could say that it becomes so obscured that you can get away with thinking it's free. Or we could suppose that the more constraints you can identify the better you are able to sind your way. I wouldn't call that free will, but I think JP would, as, perhaps, would David McC. It's a somewhat odd idea that free will is optimisation or error minimisation.

I don't think we have any disagreement that is substantive.

And I understand we can have any phenomena defined. Now personally I find it really annoying that common words like souls, angels and even knowledge get redefined and as a consequence any discussion is mired between common and specialist uses. The problem is JP does this ... I don't know whether he realizes how annoying it is (at least to me).

The question that JP and to be fair others avoid is can this error minimization or optimization happened otherwise? And again I am not asking whether we can envisage other error minima or optima ... because plainly we can at times.

This is a question many if not a large majority of compatibilists do not answer.

GrahamH wrote:

romansh wrote:

GrahamH wrote:
We could say that it becomes so obscured that you can get away with thinking it's free. Or we could suppose that the more constraints you can identify the better you are able to sind your way. I wouldn't call that free will, but I think JP would, as, perhaps, would David McC. It's a somewhat odd idea that free will is optimisation or error minimisation.

I don't think we have any disagreement that is substantive.

And I understand we can have any phenomena defined. Now personally I find it really annoying that common words like souls, angels and even knowledge get redefined and as a consequence any discussion is mired between common and specialist uses. The problem is JP does this ... I don't know whether he realizes how annoying it is (at least to me).

The question that JP and to be fair others avoid is can this error minimization or optimization happened otherwise? And again I am not asking whether we can envisage other error minima or optima ... because plainly we can at times.

This is a question many if not a large majority of compatibilists do not answer.

Happened otherwise? As in could I have acted otherwise? Any optimisation can be seen as finding a peak, or trough that is the best result in the given condition. It is defined by the conditions and what counts as "best". If time and resources allowed we can imagine a exhaustive search for the optimum being as inevitable as a ball rolling down hill. In practice exhaustive search is not possible. It takes too long to be useful, so we can get stuck in local minima. So we could say that which of several possible minima are found depends on the conditions and how they are searched, which is all initial conditions. Given identical conditions we should expect the same minima to be found every time. JP likes to imagine his program is generating creative output, but it's search for minima in the input data. Given the same input it will produce the same output every time, just like the PRNG. What it "creates" is determined by what's there in the input code and data.

John Platko wrote:Why is it ok for a term like Atom to be endlessly redefined to fit the best understanding of physical reality we have but terms like: soul, and angel must remain as they were conceived thousands of years ago without the benefit of what we now know and without the advantage of the modes of explanation we now have available?