[FRIAM] alternative response

[Frank Wimberly]

Actually late 1950s.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 2:17 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> 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.
>
> ---
> 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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>
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