[FRIAM] alternative response

[Marcus Daniels]

Digital computing systems have been carefully designed to avoid noise, but it is present in all kinds of analog systems.    Whether that noise arises in a deep way from truncation error doesn't begin to get us the everyday intuition about free will.

On 6/15/20, 9:39 AM, "Friam on behalf of glen∉ℂ" <friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

    Hm. First, I'd propose the homunculus is tiny in scope and impact with respect to every other process. I'd even argue that it's so tiny, it doesn't (can't) transform states. Maybe it doesn't have memory at all. It might simply be a random bit flip. And the only time it would matter at all is if the rest of the system in which it's mostly enslaved sits on some fragile cusp where the bit flip matters. Maybe whatever free will we have is vanishingly small. E.g. out of 1 million people, maybe only 1 of them ever did anything of their own free will ... and it was only that one decision when they were 2 years old. Everything else is determined. Second, despite being determined, it's *lossy*, irreversible. And when we use the phrase "free will" in our everyday conversation, we're really talking about that loss, the information lost when we truncate others or others truncate us. The existence of the lossy, truncating collective doesn't preclude the existence of the tiny, tiny impact randomness.

    On 6/15/20 9:21 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
    > How does the free will homunculus transform states?  By state I mean all of the function definitions,  memory, hyperparameters, etc.?
    > In a biological system how do the biochemistry and electrodynamics evolve?   Does the homunculus get to choose which physics it likes?   How does it do that?
    > It doesn't matter if the system or homunculus has to face uncertainty.   That just means the homunculus has to manage risk.
    > For people to say they "believe in free will" is to say they couldn't, in principle, simulate human social systems with fidelity.

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