[FRIAM] alternative response

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Yes.  I don't think Nick is every going to write such a paper (as opposed, say, to participating along with a bunch of you in writing such a book).  However, as I work through the correspondence of the last week (Gawd what a splatter), I have yet to see any support for the idea that there is any fundamental reason why a computer could not be constructed to exhibit any free will that humans have.  

It begins to seem to me that "free will" and "emergence" are the same sort of concept and likely to die by the same sword.  Once you define "free will" as that which is "spontaneous" (i.e., not explained by anything), you have to prepare yourself for the moment when it is explained.  

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen?C
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 2:24 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

Well, the reason I'm throwing this idea out there in the first place is because parts of it map (roughly) to LOTS of algorithms I've run across over the years. Nick was asking and I'm simply trying to spitball something that might be constructive. You're free to analogize to your heart's content. 8^D If Nick tries to write a paper with something like this in it, HE would have to do a LOT of literature searching to trace each element.

On 6/16/20 1:17 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> I've only read your first paragraph but isn't that exactly what Samuel's checker program did by revising regression coefficients as it gained experience.  We're talking late 1960s.

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