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From: Mark Isaak <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Making your mind up
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2024 09:43:03 -0700
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On 4/26/24 11:57 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 09:32:27 -0700, Mark Isaak
> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 4/26/24 12:27 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:45:37 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 4/22/24 2:12 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>> rOn Thu, 18 Apr 2024 18:36:48 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>>>> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 4/7/24 8:01 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>>> On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 10:22:18 +0000, j.nobel.daggett@gmail.com (LDagget)
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 16:29:20 -0500, DB Cates <cates_db@hotmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On 2024-04-05 11:05 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> There was quite an interesting discussion a few weeks ago on Free Will
>>>>>>>>>>> vs Determinism but it died a death, at least in part due to the
>>>>>>>>>>> departure of some contributors to the Land Beyond GG. I'd like to take
>>>>>>>>>>> up some of the issues again if anyone is interested.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> One point made by Hemidactylus that didn't get developed any further
>>>>>>>>>>> was the way that we sometimes give a lot of time and effort into
>>>>>>>>>>> making a decision - he gave the example of buying a car. It's also
>>>>>>>>>>> common for someone to want to "sleep it on it" before making a
>>>>>>>>>>> decision where the decision is important but it is not clear what
>>>>>>>>>>> decision is best. If a decision is essentially predetermined then what
>>>>>>>>>>> is the point of that time and effort or sleeping on it?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Do you not see that this argument depends on the belief that there was
>>>>>>>>>> an *option* to make the decision earlier under different conditions
>>>>>>>>>> (lack of 'thinking it over' and/or 'sleeping on it'). IOW that free will
>>>>>>>>>> exists. You are 'begging the question'.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It's actually the complete opposite, I am starting with the assumption
>>>>>>>>> that there is no free will and asking what then is the point in
>>>>>>>>> deliberating over the various options. You seem to be taking things a
>>>>>>>>> bit further and saying that if determinism exists then there aren't
>>>>>>>>> any options to begin with but that is just a variation in emphasis, it
>>>>>>>>> doesn't address the question of why we spend so much time pondering
>>>>>>>>> those options when they don't even exist.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> You missed his point.
>>>>>>>> Consider writing an algorithm controlling a robot walking down a path.
>>>>>>>> The robot comes to a fork in the road. Does it take the left fork or
>>>>>>>> the right fork?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The robot has no free will. It can, however, process data.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The algorithm can have layered complexity. Scan left, scan right,
>>>>>>>> process data. Simple-minded algorithm scans 1 sec each way, sums up
>>>>>>>> some score of positive and negatives and picks the best. If it's a
>>>>>>>> tie, it might kick the random number generator into gear.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Alternatively, it can get into a loop where it keeps scanning left
>>>>>>>> and right until one "choice" passes a threshold for "better" that
>>>>>>>> is not just a greater than sign, maybe 10% better or such. From
>>>>>>>> the outside, this is "pause to think". With a little imagination,
>>>>>>>> one can add much more complexity and sophistication into how the
>>>>>>>> robot chooses. It can be dynamically adjusting the thresholds. It
>>>>>>>> can use it's wifi connection to seek external data. It can find that
>>>>>>>> its wifi signal is poor at the fork in the road so back up to where
>>>>>>>> it was better.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Map "go home and sleep on it" to some of that or to variants.
>>>>>>>> Map it into Don's words. The robot could not "choose" left or
>>>>>>>> right until its algorithm met the decision threshold, i.e. it
>>>>>>>> didn't have a legitimate option yet. (hopefully he'll correct
>>>>>>>> me if I have abused his intent too far)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> To an outside observer lacking full knowledge of the algorithm,
>>>>>>>> it looked like it had a choice but inexplicably hesitated.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is *you* who have missed the point. What you have described above
>>>>>>> is an algorithm to process data and arrive at a decision; what I was
>>>>>>> asking about is why we delay once all the information that is
>>>>>>> available or likely to be available *has been processed*. Once all the
>>>>>>> information has been input in your algorithm there is no reason for
>>>>>>> the processor to continue analysing unless you add in some sort of
>>>>>>> rather pointless "just hang about for a while" function; no matter how
>>>>>>> many times your algorithm runs with a given set of inputs, it will
>>>>>>> reach the same decision.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The answer to that is simple: Once all information is in, it has *not*
>>>>>> all been processed. The decider may have thought about price, quality,
>>>>>> ease of cleaning, subjective appreciation of pattern (for both self and
>>>>>> one or two others), and availability, but there are undoubtedly
>>>>>> tradeoffs midst all that data that cannot be expressed in six-variable
>>>>>> differential equation, much less in something that you could decide by
>>>>>> reasoning. Furthermore, there are innumerable other factors that the
>>>>>> decider probably did not consider on the first pass (how does it look in
>>>>>> various other lightings? What, if anything, would it imply about our
>>>>>> social status? Is it going to remind me of Aunt Agatha's horrible
>>>>>> kitchen?) All of that processing takes time,
>>>>>
>>>>> Which goes back to the question I have already asked here about the
>>>>> underlying principle of Cost versus Benefit in Natural Selection; if
>>>>> the benefits from a trait or characteristic outweigh its cost, then
>>>>> that trait Is likely to be selected for; if the cost outweighs the
>>>>> benefits, then it will likely be selected against; if cost and benefit
>>>>> more or less balance out, then it is really down to chance whether or
>>>>> not the trait well survive.
>>>>>
>>>>> What you have said above highlights that there is significant cost
>>>>> involved in this pondering in terms of brain resources. Can you
>>>>> identify any benefits that would outweigh the cost of such pondering
>>>>> when the final decision is predetermined?
>>>>
>>>> I think you can identify such benefits yourself. For example, suppose a
>>>> tribe is faced with a decision of moving elsewhere or staying in a
>>>> marginal environment. Pondering the pros and cons can be life-saving.
>>>
>>> It can only be life-saving if they have control over the decision
>>> (free will). If the decision is made for them (determinism), then the
>>> pondering makes no difference.
>>>
>>>> As
>>>> for the cost, that is part of the predetermination (if, indeed, the
>>>> decision is predetermined).
>>>
>>> I have asked the question in the context of decisions being
>>> predetermined or at least beyond the control of the people making
>>> them.
>>
>> I get the feeling that predetermination means, to you, that if I am
>> predetermined to choose to buy this house (say), then no matter what I
>> think, or even if I don't think at all, I will end up deciding to buy
>> that house. I could move to Tibet, scramble my brain with acid, and
>> spend all my conscious time playing Candy Crush, and still, in a day or
>> two, the though will come to me, "I need to buy that house."
>>
>> That's not how predeterminism works. In a predetermined world, I find
>> myself in need or want of a house, contact a realtor who shows me
>> available listings; I visit those houses which are in good price range
>> and neighborhoods; probably I am influenced by external factors such as
>> the amount of traffic I had to fight through to get there or how hungry
>> I am at the time. The good and bad points of the different houses being
>> fed into my mind, I eliminate some obvious non-candidates, and let my
>> gut guide me to the best of the remaining.
>>
>> That is predetermination at work.  Note that it appears, to all
>> observers, exactly the same as non-predetermination. That's why the Free
>> Will issue has never been resolved.
> 
> No, that is not at all how determinism works. It does not say that if
> you move to Tibet you will somehow feel the to buy that house inn the
> USA. What determinism says is that if you move to Tibet, you will
> decide to buy a different house but that decision has not been a free
> will one, it was a result of your conditions changing (moving to
> Tibet). Your change of country, however, was also not a free will
> choice, it in turn was the result of other conditions and preceding
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