[FRIAM] alternative response

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

I don't think we can ever set up such a test until we have come to an agreement concerning what free will is freedom FROM. 

N

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 ? u?l?
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 4:27 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

I don't think so. I *attempted* to lay out a structure that would help us refine the question away from fuzzy concepts like "free will" into more concrete concepts like pattern recognition, truncation error, etc. And even if you work within the bounds I set, you can still argue *either* way, for or against free will.

So, I'm not trying to set anything up to self-fulfill as a failure. Those who believe in free will have a duty to demonstrate it with a constructive proof. That's all I'm saying below. In many ways, the more *falsifications* we have of candidate hypotheses, the *easier* it will be to (eventually) construct that proof. To read falsificationism as self-negating is a mistake, I think. Failure is a Good Thing. It's the only way we learn.

On 6/16/20 2:42 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Glen said:
>> Exactly! If humans have free will, we can program a machine to have 
>> it too (someday, anyway). And since we don't know how to *construct* 
>> free will and the evidence against it is accumulating, it's 
>> reasonable to claim it doesn't exist and the burden is increasingly 
>> on those who believe in it to make their case.
> 
> It feels like we are engaging in self-negating discourse when we speak 
> in this way?
> 
>     "I assert there is no such thing as free will, and now I will 
> prove/demonstrate that and if you are not too stubborn, you too will 
> come to agree with me on this"
> 
> I'm not attacking Glen (or his specific phrasing above), just calling 
> it out as an example of what runs through the whole discussion 
> (including the one running in my own head and never making it to the list).


--
☣ uǝlƃ

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