[FRIAM] alternative response
Frank Wimberly
wimberly3 at gmail.com
Tue Jun 16 16:17:44 EDT 2020
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.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 2:05 PM glen∉ℂ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
> Right. What I set up was in preparation for an argument about exactly
> that. Can a system (any system we know about) be programmed to factor in
> its experience so that the next time around, the probabilities will be
> different, even if only slightly so? Personally, I could go either way. FW)
> I can see a situation where, immediately after some branch was taken, the
> memory structure would dampen/lower (or raise) the chances of that branch
> being taken again. NFW) Or, alternatively, maybe each situation is so
> concrete, so forcibly contextual, that there is no such thing as "coming
> around again". In the former, "free will" exists in the form of
> successively modified ("deliberate") behavior [†]. In the latter, it
> doesn't. I'm sure there are other ways to make the argument either way.
> This argument boils down to pattern recognition, similarity between
> "traces", approximation, and truncation.
>
> I'm sure it's not obvious how/if the (FW) case fits the typical
> understanding of free will [‡]. But I think I can make the argument that
> the scopes/degrees of the branch-points (including the speed of the events,
> size of the clusters of events, etc.) suggest whether it falls under what
> we'd normally call "free will". Scope that is too small/fast (biochemistry
> up to limbic system) is below the threshold. Scope that is too large (being
> reared in a society that forces some behavior like eating meat) is above
> the threshold. But somewhere in between might be an adaptive trend that
> kinda-sorta fits our usual understanding.
>
>
> [†] I think this is distinct from, though related to, the concept of
> _learning_ or entrainment. I think there's a sweet spot in between ignorant
> and enslaved that we target with our concept of free will.
>
> [‡] One of the phenomena this setup could help test is the idea that "you
> never know what you'll do until you're in that situation." I.e. the first
> time you experience something (like a fist fight, or a hit of whiskey, or
> whatever), there can be no free will. The 2nd time, maybe. The 100th time,
> for sure. But the common understanding is that the "decision" is made 100
> times. This setup violates the vernacular in that the "decision" is smeared
> out through the nearly-repeated experiences. But at some point, you fall
> out of the "free will zone". After 50,000 glasses of whiskey, we might say
> you no longer have free will. You're a slave to your addiction.
>
> Another phenomenon this setup might help think about is whether *some*
> machines have free will but others don't. E.g. if the components that
> remember and adjust the probabilities for the next time around are damaged,
> the machine can't "deliberate" like it normally would ... or the free will
> zone (event/process scopes in the sweet spot) might be shorter or longer.
>
> On 6/16/20 11:28 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > But you also gamed this proposition:
> >
> > < That memory of lost opportunities is what we call free will. >
> >
> > Many people apparently believe they can defy their programming and think
> it is reasonable to expect people to do the same. But punishing the sin
> and the sinner are the same, and it only matters if the "trace" ever can be
> exercised again.
>
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