> On Sat, Jul 05, 2003 at 11:19:43PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > > > As a useful fiction to persuade people, certainly (actually persuade > > assumes free will, > > If you say so. Of course, that is a meaningless statement. > > > But, "ought" is rather meaningless without free will. > > That's okay. Free will is rather meaningless.
Morality is about "ought." This leads one to conclude that, since morality is meaningless without "ought", morality is rather meaningless. > > I'll be happy to admit that the causal chain in people's actions > > includes hearing words. But, that doesn't seem all that critical to > > me. > > I see. So humans would behave the same as they do if they never learned > to communicate with each other? No, just as a star would not be the same if the origional density in that part of space were a factor of 100 lower. What is critical to may arguement is that, as long as one is a naturalist, human behavior is determined by the actions of nuclei and electorns obeying the laws of QED. > > I think your argument relies on complexity changing the fundamentals. > > You think wrong. We've been through this before. I guess you forgot. No, you stating something is false doesn't make it false. Fundamentally, lighting and human interaction are simply QED at work with the exact same building blocks. So, unless complexity changes the fundamentals, they are inherently the same. > > > It is absurd to compare a mind -- which is complex in a way > > > that cannot be modeled by a few simple equations, is capable of > > > abstraction, logic, and calculation -- to something like a star or > > > a lightning bolt which can be modeled and predicted accurately by a > > > few equations. > > > No, it is not absurd. I chose lightning and stars for a reason, not > > just because I was grasping for metaphors. It is impossible to predict > > where lightning will strike at a given time on a given day. I'm rather > > surprised you claim that it is simple; the inability to ever predict > > popup thunderstorms is classic. It is one of the best examples of > > macroscopic indetermancy. > > Your exact words were: > > "It makes no more sense saying a man ought not to kill another man in > cold blood than would make sense to argue that a lightning bolt ought > not to have killed that golfer." > > No, it IS absurd. Following your lead, I was not discussing predictions > of WHERE a lightning bolt would strike. I was discussing how the > lightning bolt behaves when it strikes a golfer. Oh, then I wasn't clear in defining my origional example. I was thinking of all the factors involved. Sorry for the lack of clarity. The point is that, in each case, all that is involved is the behavior of protons, neutrons, electrons, virtual photons and photons according to QED. > I have a good chance of being able to make a difference in what the > policeman will do by my actions (assuming I am nearby). I'm rather > surprised that you didn't understand this simple concept, Dan. Have you ever thought that I'm not stupid and actually understood your points. There is the possibility that I'm trying to make a point that is not being communicated clearly. My point is that if all human behavior is reduced to QED, then anything that is true about QED is true about human behavior. Anything that is not true about QED is not true about human behavior. Just as the actions of a machine governened by simple mechanical laws may not be intuitive at a glance, the results of QED are not always intuitive. > > Indeed, the behavior of stars, humans, and lightning bolts are all > > dependant on gravity and the physics of the standard model. One could > > even argue that the star takes more physics to explain than humans, > > since one may have to consider QCD as well as the standard model. > > No, Dan, you are making a couple mistakes. First, it is not necessary > to model the star so precisely to be able to make useful predictions of > what it will do. A few equations give a lot of useful results. But the question wasn't "is there a simple phenomenological model that allows us to bypass a full theoretical analysis?" The question is "what are the consequences of assuming that human behavior is simply a product of the physics underlying biochemistry?" >and, even if you do use QCD, you are still basically simulating a > bunch of atomic (or sub-atomic) particles, each of which is obeying the > same equations. So the number of lines of code is fairly small, even if > you need a lot of memory and number crunching power. In contrast, to > model a mind you will need millions or billions of lines of code. I thought we were talking about modeling a brain. In that case, we have simply protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. following QCD. One can ignore the strong force and probably ignore the weak force in modeling the brain. One cannot ignore the weak force and probably cannot ignore the strong force in modeling a star. >That is one reason why we still don't have very smart programs, but we can > describe stars much better. Or, it could be that the actions of the mind is consistant with but not reducable to phenomenon. There is no emperical evidence against this, you know. > > I really expected you to know this, since you have a BA in physics. > > You really need to work on the accuracy of your insults, Dan. I do NOT > have "a BA in physics". But, unlike you, mistakes ARE what I expect from > you on this subject, someone who believes his fantasy world is real -- > after all, why worry about accuracy when your fantasies are true? If you are the Eric Reuter at www.erikreuter.net then this is a very pedantic arguement, based on my saying you have a BA instead of BS. When I graduated from college, I received a BA instead of BS because I passed the foreign language requirement for a BA. My point was illustrating the amount of physics you probably studied. I always thought it helpful to deal with the ideas that someone wishes to put forth insteads of watching for i's that are not dotted just so. We appear to differ on this. > > Which partly explains why you have so much trouble with free-will > concepts. It is apparently quite counter-intuitive to you. Proof by insult again? The basis of reductionism is that there is nothing new introduced by complexity. There are times where one makes a quick phenomenological model based on the general principals of the underlying theory that does not work out when one actually turns the crank on the theory. That is what I meant. But, that doesn't mean that one cannot rule out a perpetual motion machine even though complex mechanical machines can behave in a counter-intuitive manner. Let me restate my main point here, so it is very clear. From a naturalist perspective Fundamentally, the behavior of lightning is nothing but electrons, protons, etc. and QED. Fundamentally the behavior of humans is nothing but electrons, protons, etc. and QED. Since it makes no sense to argue that protons, electrons, etc. ought not to behave according to QED, it makes no sense to either say that lightning bolts or human beings should behave in a certain manner. > > > accurately predict what a mind will do with a simple model: you need > > > to simulate it in its full complexity, essentially creating another > > > copy of the mind. Furthermore, you can persuade a person not to do > > > something; but you cannot persuade a lightning-bolt not to strike. > > > > That is a convenient fiction. > > No, it is fact, for the common usage of persuade. Right, but common usage assumes something you consider useless. If you don't accept free will; persuade is no more than a convenient fiction. > > So, you are willing to give up any description of human beings that is > > not directly reducable to QED? > > Unless and until someone has an experiment that demonstrates that there > is more than that, sure. OK, that means that there is no reason to accept any internal experiences as more than convenient fictions, or at most, interpretations of theory. (Interpreations, btw, are inherentaly metaphysical, not scientific.) Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
