What is the External Indicator of Volition (choice)?

[StrictlyLogical]

32 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

I don't understand, we won't really know how to create something with free until we know how free will works, but ... knowing how something works means it is deterministic.

That sentence should be read with the one immediately prior to it…. in mind   !

[Eiuol]

2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Deterministic thinking machines will be able to fool us into thinking they have free will only in the sense that it will mimic it.

How does this fix the contradiction between the next 2 sentences? You said that the reason deterministic machines (whatever exactly that means) don't have free will is because you know exactly how they work. You made a syllogism. It doesn't change depending on whether one is organic or not, and I don't have a reason to suppose it should.

2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Be careful not to equate free will as such with human free will, there likely is a yet to be discovered "fundamental" or "minimum" unit of exhibited behavior that an animal or machine (or injured human being) can have which would qualify as a primitive building block a lowest end of the spectrum type of free will. 

What's the difference between free will as such and human free will? 

We already know what such minimum behaviors would be. Observe jellyfish, honeybees, alligators, elephants, humans. These range of behaviors are enough to notice free will. Just take your pick what you want to consider a building block, and go from there.

[2046]

4 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

urge we approach the problem in the more effective manner, as scientists, not hero worshippers.

Not to mention I always love it when they, who are a them and definitely not a we, say how "we" should do anything

[StrictlyLogical]

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

4 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

 

How does this fix the contradiction between the next 2 sentences? You said that the reason deterministic machines (whatever exactly that means) don't have free will is because you know exactly how they work. 

I said, to ET that we’ll know it is deterministic because we know how it works… meaning we know what is under the hood, in spite of appearances.

As in … an animatronic dinosaur will fool us into thinking it is biological only in the sense that it mimics biological dinosaur on the outside.  We will know it’s just an animatronic because we know how it works.

 

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

What's the difference between free will as such and human free will? 

I think free will as a genus includes species which are more sophisticated (human) and less sophisticated (jellyfish) in a whole range.  I am suggesting to ET not to equate the genus as such with a particular species.

[StrictlyLogical]

23 minutes ago, 2046 said:

Not to mention I always love it when they, who are a them and definitely not a we, say how "we" should do anything

Thank you for honestly contributing to the discussion, or at least earnestly stepping in, on behalf of ET.

 

ET, please accept my apology if I erroneously invoked a “we” in the context of our discussion.  I intended no offence, and if I have wronged you in any way, I apologize.

My reply to you ET, was quite sincere.

[Eiuol]

4 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

an animatronic dinosaur will fool us into thinking it is biological only in the sense that it mimics biological dinosaur on the outside.

Then it is not because you know how it works, it's because you know that it is an animatronic dinosaur. Knowing how it works doesn't change what it is. 

[StrictlyLogical]

47 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Knowing how it works doesn't change what it is. 

I never said that … I understand you don’t like the way it was worded.  

I hope you can give me the courtesy of letting it go now that you know what was meant.

[dream_weaver]

2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

3 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

I don't understand, we won't really know how to create something with free until we know how free will works, but ... knowing how something works means it is deterministic.

That sentence should be read with the one immediately prior to it…. in mind   !

After reading this, the recollection of volition as a "type of causality" came to mind. 

While maybe not quite coming to a full circle comes to mind, grasping free-will/volition as a subtype of causality was raised in this "compatibilism" thread a while back.

Consider it a recursive approach: weighing volition as a subtype of causality against determinism as the whole enchilada of causality. 

[Eiuol]

8 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

I hope you can give me the courtesy of letting it go now that you know what was meant.

Your clarification didn't help. Because you still said it is because you know how things work. So no, I don't really know what was meant.

12 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

After reading this, the recollection of volition as a "type of causality" came to mind. 

I'm actually not so sure that it should be described as a type of causality. Although maybe we could call information processing something like a type of explanation, something related to Aristotle's 4 causes (as I said before, it doesn't translate into "cause" in the same meaning as English). In that sense it probably could be a type of causality.

[Easy Truth]

 

This may be a relevant post.

 

[StrictlyLogical]

9 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

 

This may be a relevant post.

 

What from this, in particular, interests you?

[Eiuol]

23 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

As in … an animatronic dinosaur will fool us into thinking it is biological only in the sense that it mimics biological dinosaur on the outside.  We will know it’s just an animatronic because we know how it works.

To add to this, your additional clarification in the other thread about hydraulic watches only confirms what I'm trying to say. When you describe how something works, that is, how the physical parts move, a material cause by my understanding, what we could call a mechanical cause in this context perhaps, we are only talking about the nature of the things the entity functions with. This might be gears, it might be neurons, but either way, it focuses strictly on the parts. Of course there is appeal in saying that it is sufficient to know the nature of an entity is psychological capacity based on only the nature of these parts (ie the material of the entity). If there are gears, how could it be conscious? It doesn't help. Neurons are not conscious either. If you want to appeal to emergence, that's fine, but I'd argue this becomes discussion of formal cause. The pattern or abstract nature of how the entity operates as a whole. 

We would know the dinosaur is an animatronic dinosaur because of its pattern of behavior. It doesn't seek things in the environment, it doesn't seek goals. Metaphorically, it goes in a straight line, never having way of adapting. It has no desires, and we know this without opening anything. And from there we can infer how it is built, and how it works. 

Which then gets into what I was pointing out earlier: vegetative, nutritive, and intellectual. Not that is completely opaque what it means to say "we know how it works", but it is unclear. "How it works" actually means many things that we need to break down into several questions at least, if it doesn't mean material cause anyway.