[FRIAM] Hard problem vs. free will

Sun Jun 28 12:35:17 EDT 2020

Yes, good point. I would say the personality determines the spectrum of predictability. A narcissistic person will lash out immediately if it is criticized. An altruistic person like the Dalai Lama will smile or say someone kind if it is criticized. The stronger the personality, the higher the predictability.As a person I also have the free will to become the person I aspire to be. If I want to be an artist, I can draw all day or visit an art school and one day I will be an artist. If I then walk around and see a beautiful landscape as an artist, I will probably want to paint it. My personality as a creative painter determines my decisions. Free will >> Personality >> Probable Action-J.
-------- Original message --------From: doug carmichael <doug at dougcarmichael.com> Date: 6/28/20  17:34  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Hard problem vs. free will On free will. Isn’t there a spectrum of predictability? She will get up in the morning and have coffee, but I am less sure about her reaction to the front page of today’s New York Times. That spectrum of predictability (people will stay on the socially sanctioned side of the road when driving) is enough for society to hold together. (and we may be losing it)I like Bergson’s view. A simple one cell organism responds to things in its environment, like light or ph and its reaction  predictable. As the organism gets more complex, the range of things it can respond to in the environment such as  shapes and tastes - and the range of responses,  increases - until the point where predictability is impossible. This is free will. Seems reasonable to me.On Jun 28, 2020, at 7:39 AM, Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:The two questions are related. We cannot predict how someone else will act and we don't know what it is like to be someone else because we don't know the history of the other person. To use Nick's words we don't know the personal slice of the world for this person, how it has experienced the world so far.If we could predict how someone else will act there would be no free will. If we could experience what it is like to be someone else directly there would be no hard problem of consciousness. I think intimate knowledge of someone allows you to predict how the person will act to a certain degree. You could say two minds have merged into one. The two persons still have free will, but they are "similar wills" so to speak.In the same way intimate knowledge of the history of person allows you to experience the world as the person does, for example by seeing a movie about the life of a person. Watching this movie you experience the same events that the person has experienced.In this sense being married for 25 or more years is like watching the same movie, the movie of your life :-)-J.-------- Original message --------From: Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> Date: 6/28/20  16:07  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] God I am not sure I agree with the arguments from you Russ. You say "People aren't the same, but they are similar - and human society functions because we can predict to some extent what other people are likely to do [...]. We have also evolved the ability to 'put ourselves in somebody else's skin', taking into account the obvious external differences."But we cannot predict what someone else will do, only if we know the person really well - for instance if it is your wife or husband for 30 years. In whodunit films it becomes clear in the end why people have acted they way they did, but only in hindsight. In hindsight we almost always can say why people acted the way they did, but we cannot predict it beforehand. You say hindsight is 20/20 for this in English, right?We also haven't evolved the ability to "put ourselves in somebody else's skin". It is not impossible, but can be very difficult and requires detailed knowledge and imagination. This is the reason why Hollywood has invented cinemas to show us how what it is like to be somebody else (the GoPro cameras in modern days have the same function).Therefore I tend to disagree with both statements. -J.-------- Original message --------From: Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> Date: 6/28/20  15:07  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] God Russ,Your views on these matters are very similar to my own.Frank---Frank C. Wimberly140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505505 670-9918Santa Fe, NMOn Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 2:11 AM Russell Standish <lists at hpcoders.com.au> wrote:Hi Nick - finally took a look at your paper. I didn't read it to the nth detail, but from what I understand, your scepticism about "ejective anthropmorphism" (nice term by the way) stands on two legs:

1) What exactly is priveleged about introspection?

2) That the process of ejective anthropomorphism starts from an
identity between the target behaviour and the observers behaviour,
which is structy false. The example being given of a dog scratching at
a door to get in.

In response, I would say there is plenty of privelege in
introspection. For example, proprioception is entirely priveleged -
that information is simply now available to external observers.

In terms of the identity of target and observer behaviour, it doesn't
need to be identical, but it does need to be analogical. The most
important application of this skill is prediction of what other human
beings do. People aren't the same, but they are similar - and human
society functions because we can predict to some extent what other
people are likely to do. I believe this is why self-awareness evoved
in the first place. Something similar may have evolved in dogs, which
are social pack animals. We have also evolved the ability to "put
ourselves in somebody else's skin", taking into account the obvious
external differences. So we can imagine being a dog, and wanting to
get through a door, what would we do. We know we cannot stand up, and
turn the door knob, because we don't have hands, so what would we do,
given we only have paws. Scratching behaviour does seem a likely
behaviour then. That, then is analogical.

So, I'm not exactly convinced :).

Cheers

On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 04:32:05PM -0600, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> Sorry Russ.  It was in a hyperlink: 
> 
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311349078_The_many_perils_of_ejecti
> ve_anthropomorphism
> 
> 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 Russell Standish
> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2020 4:27 PM
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] God
> 
> On Sat, May 23, 2020 at 09:59:37PM -0600, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> > Hi Russ,
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Hawking my wares again.  I am sorry but SOMEBODY has to read this 
> > crap.  The argument of this paper is that the flow of inference is 
> > actually in the other direction.  We model our view of ourselves on our
> experience with others.
> > 
> 
> What paper? What argument?
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr Russell Standish                    Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders     hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
>                       http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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Principal, High Performance Coders     hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
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