A bit like Trump rewriting the White house to remove any predetermination by Obama.
Is free will possible in a deterministic universe?
- Thread starter Sarkus
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Well, except it's a flawed analogy to the universe. Since the universe didn't have a designer, it couldn't have been programmed to rewrite itself.
Why do you think it would need a designer?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I was drawing an analogy between a deterministic universe becoming nondeterministic and a programmed computer becoming reprogrammable.
The fixed-programming computer can be imbued with self-adaptability by its programmer.
The universe has no designer so how can it be imbued with nondeterminism?
So it's a flawed analogy.
A question for you , ( I believe you have had programming experience so you might be quick to grasp the concept?)
You take a core program that drives an Android and partition it into, say, 4 blocks.
Blocks A,B,C,D.
The role of these blocks of programing is to set up the subjective starting conditions for when the android is activated for the first time. ( a raw operating system with basic functions if you like)
There is a fifth block called the EB (evolution block)
The EB block basically states that subject to the needs set out in Blocks A,B,C,D the android is to gradually over time rewrite or other wise adapt all code from A,B,C,D blocks and make them his own unique core programming. Based on the androids unique, environmental, perspective and experience in a relatively short period of time manages to transform ever core block into his own.
Android Goals: Self determination, Sustainability, symbiosis, survival, uniqueness, improvement, replication etc.
Fuels: CO2, ( to scrub atmosphere of excess C02), then vegetation/Co2 mix (once optimum atmospheric balance is achieved.)
So that core blocks
A,B,C,D with the help of EB ====> AEB, BEB, CEB, DEB.
The Core blocks have been evolved and are completely different to the original starting set, (possibly in a different and unique Prog.language as well.)
They are unique to the android. ( call it Programmed DNA or PDNA)
They are ongoing in their evolution. (according to the unique experience of the android.)
The android then at a certain stage in his evolution sets about replicating/reproducing himself to create another unique Android using his experience gained (PDNA) to write the starting blocs A,B,C,D in a unique and evolved form. The process repeats itself..for the new and improved android.
- Do the android(s) eventually achieve self determination?
- By the end of how many generations can we say the Androids have gained a certain freedom from universal deterministic starting conditions? ( rhetorical?)
Google generic..
I started a new thread on this:
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/an...rmination-in-a-deterministic-universe.162373/
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This is the crux.
How does a program rewrite code? It doesn't know what it's doing.
...you could have it program itself: copy code to the end of the program, so it runs what it has just written.
Append [THISPROGRAM] to [THISPROGRAM]
Append [THISPROGRAM] to [THISPROGRAM]
Yep.
Always remembering that the aspect of the universe with the most effect on those choices, the writer and enactor of much of that "script", is the living entity itself. The primary mechanism by which the universe makes such choices is that living entity.
The "universal determination to order the universe" employs mechanisms, the self being one of them. Self determination is routine - it's part what the part of the universe we call the "self" does all day long.
Now, back to the topic: we have a self, it has a will, it has capabilities, among those capabilities is the making of certain choices and otherwise behaving according to that will.
All that is observed, physical, replicably demonstrable fact. It is as settled as the existence of ears and eyeballs.
The discussion is about the freedom of that will.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
That's not programming; that's merely scripting - the consecutive execution of multiple programs....you could have it program itself: copy code to the end of the program, so it runs what it has just written.
Append [THISPROGRAM] to [THISPROGRAM]
The key being that the programs being run have already been written by a programmer.
...but the program is then running what it has written itself.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Where exactly did it write any program?
How did it do that. since it doesn't know how to program - or how to know what it should program, even if it could?
It was programmed to do so.
...but then THE PROGRAM does it...
...but then THE PROGRAM does it...
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The elemental constituents that comprise a living entity are qualitatively no different than those outside of it, and the countless elements within the entity must conform to the same determined script as the countless elements outside of it, so in this context, where do you see the actual origin of the script?
The living entity from one perspective is analogous to a musical composition, where the musicians, instruments and sheet music are the constituent elements, and the living entity is just one of many particular tunes that are expressed by that universal orchestra. There is no living entity, or behavior of such without the universal soup that sustains and orders it.
What is the self? Is it a singular intrinsic element, or a combined effect by all of the elements contained in a body? If it’s the latter, which is most reasonably likely, which of the countless universal behavioral constants are most responsible for the expression of the self?
We have a bag of universal deterministic stuff that we label the self, and it has determined qualities and behaviors like any other bags of universal deterministic stuff. The question is why do we classify the behavior of the bags labeled self as will, and classify the behavior of the non-self bags as invariant determined action?
There is no such thing as "the origin" of whatever you mean by "script".
Define it however you prefer, as long as you don't contradict observation - such as by claiming that the nonself universe is controlling the human will like a puppeteer. Most of the factors that affect the will at any given moment are internal ones - they exist, and act, within the living being. That is observed physical reality.
There are living entities in the real world, and they are largely ordered by internal factors acting over time.
Yep. It also has qualities and behaviors that are unlike most other bags of stuff, or even unique to that kind of bag of stuff.
We classify nothing as "invariant" determined action thereby different from determined action of other kinds, as far as I know. What does that mean?
Meanwhile, the bags we label living beings differ from the bags we label nonliving entities in several significant respects, some of them at least partly behavioral. We name one of them, which is a feature of many such bags, "will" - we also have names for other such features and capabilities we observe and measure, such as "perception", because it's handy to have names for stuff we are observing and discussing.
There is no mystery about that.
In the previous post you asserted that the living entity was in some way an author in much of the universal script the entity must follow. In what ways does the living entity “author” its own determined script?
Since the self is composed of, and exists in the constituents of nonself universe, how is it not subject to the nonself universal will?
But those living entities and their internal workings are compositions of the same universal elements that exists in the nonliving entities, universally determined chemical properties don’t get reordered based on an entities ability to walk, talk and think.
Of course a bags qualities will be based on the mix of their stuff, but that grants none of the bags freedom from the determined order of their constituent stuff, or the determined order of their interaction with other bags.
The collisions of material bodies(billiards for example)will produce essentially invariant trajectories based on like material, spacial and energy characteristics of the event. The same reasoning can theoretically be applied to any kind of behavioral event, including those involving living entities.
So when the gravity of the bag we call the Moon tugs on a passing bag we call a meteor, the Moon can be said to will the meteor towards it. And when the Moon is impacted by the meteor, it demonstrates perception of the impact by shaking and ejecting material into space. It’s a determined quality of the Moon to attract meteors and experience their impacts. Likewise, it’s a determined quality of humans to attract other humans and experience their impacts(think football). Regardless of the composition of the bag, its motivation is dictated by the greater whole, each bag is just a cog in a vastly bigger wheel.
So you are claiming that the non-self universe has a..... will?
Please confirm and explain...
Are you suggesting that the Universe is self determining?
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You have got it, spot on !!!!It was programmed to do so.
...but then THE PROGRAM does it...
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
How many free wills can dance on the head of a pin?
None. Free-will does not exist.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Why should that logically follow? Moreover, what is the "self universe"? Does it have a will?
IMO, you have this backwards.
The Universe is self-forming into regular patterns. The only possible way this can be done is via a mathematical function and a "dynamic movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction" (path of least resistance). The result is Determinism.