Andy the Android and self determination in a deterministic universe.

Capracus said:
It’s an obvious violation of the conditions of determinism. Unless Andy is the whole of the universe, he can’t be the origin of his determination.
Andy is a cog in a wheel in a vast universal machine, and cogs only act in response to the action of the wheel they’re set in. Every action Andy makes is related to the action of the universal constituents that make up his entity and every entity that exists around him. Andy is an expression of the action of those combined elements, not the motivation behind them.
Everything that exists is a universal element, including pixie dust if it indeed exists. Everything that exists, and has ever existed is an element that represents the determined process that governs Andy’s existence.
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well what we do know is that if not for Andy's programming he would be just that, elemental pixie dust.
You fail to grasp that it is the programming that he manipulates to suit himself that affords him self determination with in all that elemental pixie dust.
He has taken all that predetermining pixie dust and by virtue of his own programming learned how to predetermine his own pixie dust... lol
 
Capracus said:
Andy is a cog in a wheel in a vast universal machine, and cogs only act in response to the action of the wheel they’re set in. Every action Andy makes is related to the action of the universal constituents that make up his entity and every entity that exists around him. Andy is an expression of the action of those combined elements, not the motivation behind them.
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yeah yeh yeah, the puppeteer has a plan for everything... including the plan that gets Andy to gain self determination...
The other thing you may need to consider is the difference between relative and absolute terms.
When Andy achieves the ultimate in self determination he would have learned how to take all that pixie dust and make it all disappear. ( Annihilate the universe... from something to nothing) or he can create his own universe and migrate...and leave all that pixie dust behind...
 
Quantum Quack said:
yeah yeh yeah, the puppeteer has a plan for everything... including the plan that gets Andy to gain self determination...
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I get the impression you think the only thing required to achieve an otherwise impossible task is to be given sufficient motivation.

"All we have to do to calculate the last digit of pi is give a computer the correct instructions. Computer: calculate the last digit of pi."
"I can't do that."
"You must, because I programmed you to."
"OK, doing it now."
 
Quantum Quack said:
standard dictionary meanings in context...
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Taken from just plugging the phrase into Google...

self-determination
/ˌsɛlfdɪtəːmɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
noun: self-determination
  1. the process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own government.
    "the changes cannot be made until the country's right to self-determination is recognized"
    • the process by which a person controls their own life.
      "services for the mentally ill should aim to promote individuals' capacity for self-determination"
So presumably we're talking of "the process by which a person controls their own life"?
And therefore the definition rests upon one's understanding of what it means to be in control of one's own life.

Okay, then, to your questions:
  • Do the android(s) eventually achieve self determination?
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Maybe, maybe not.
It depends upon the complexity of the programming.
If I have the number that starts 0.something, then no matter how many times the numbers after the decimal point are changed, it will never equate to higher than 0.99999... recurring.
But with sufficiently complex programming there is no reason to think that it couldn't achieve the same notion of self-determination that you think humans have.

  • By the end of how many generations can we say the Androids have gained a certain freedom from universal deterministic starting conditions? ( rhetorical?)
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It will never be achieved.
However you define "self determination", it is a wholly predetermined course of events, from the starting conditions to now.
No escape.
Any sense or understanding of "self determination" necessarily fits within the assumption of philosophical determinism, not outside it.
One can therefore not escape the container of philosophical determinism...
... unless one starts down the path of the supernatural and all that malarky.
 
Baldeee said:
Any sense or understanding of "self determination" necessarily fits within the assumption of philosophical determinism, not outside it.
One can therefore not escape the container of philosophical determinism...
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Well said,
self determination does not escape the container of determinism as it is but a facet of it.
 
DaveC426913 said:
I get the impression you think the only thing required to achieve an otherwise impossible task is to be given sufficient motivation.

"All we have to do to calculate the last digit of pi is give a computer the correct instructions. Computer: calculate the last digit of pi."
"I can't do that."
"You must, because I programmed you to."
"OK, doing it now."
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Yeah and if Andy was self programming he would say,
"Sure Boss, no problemo Boss, I'll let you know the last digit when I finish"
then shortly after...
"ahh there you go, the last digit is a 7 repeating"
...and get on with what ever Androids do other than exercises in futility. In other words lie just like humans do... lol


Or maybe he pulls out an AK 45 and asks "Are you trying to tell me what to do?" just like Humans do ( metaphor)
and the human programmer looks at the gun and says "No boss, no problemo boss, not trying to tell you what to do.."
 
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So after Andy learns to serve his own needs, how is he not self determining?
The thing is that the programing he is doing is not anything other that virtual information, code. The universes determinism hss no impact upon that code. The code has no atomic structure, nor does it have any predetermination from the universes starting conditions directly impacting upon it. The code is written by Andy for Andy and nothing else.
 
Quantum Quack said:
the primary motivation is to evolve self determination and defend it if he must. That's in his initial core programming
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Just because you are motivated to do something doesn't mean it is possible.
You can't calculate the last digit of pi.
The conjecture is that being motivated to be self-determining doesn't mean you can make yourself self-determining.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Just because you are motivated to do something doesn't mean it is possible.
You can't calculate the last digit of pi.
The conjecture is that being motivated to be self-determining doesn't mean you can make yourself self-determining.
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sure....
how does that address the issues raised though?
Just finished watching a marvelous Russian made series called "Better than Us"
Involving a robot that is programed to learn to self determine.
The future of self determining AI is here.....


Highly recommend it, if you can tolerate listening to Russian with English subtitles.
 
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