[FRIAM] falsifying the lost opportunity updating mechanism for free will

[Frank Wimberly]

Your abstract description, that Russ asked you to clarify with an example,
reminded me of my life:

Me - I have to file these papers, bring in the mail, call the pharmacy, put
away the car, read Glen's email, chase the coyote out of the meadow, etc

Grandson - Grandpa, has to login to the computer so I can play Garry's Mod,
Grandma has to get me a soft drink, and I'm going to ask for a brownie, etc.

Wife - Frank has to figure out why all the words in the emails I write have
squiggly red lines under them, Matthew has to wash his hands, I have to
clean all the face masks and disinfect the groceries, I have to start
dinner after finding out what they want, etc.

All these agendas are executed simultaneously.

I have no free will.

Frank

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 3:44 PM ∄ uǝlƃ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Exactly! That's the point of the exercise. Marcus and Jon have pointed out
> that discussions of free will get bogged down in all sorts of meandering
> extra stuff. This is an attempt to have a discussion about it that doesn't
> go that way. The objective is to build a machine that might *look* as if it
> has free will.
>
> The system does not *decide* to produce A or B, it simply produces A or B.
> The individual branch point (and the path taken) is *not* what I'm mapping
> to free will. (Yes, I've already been WRONGLY accused of redefining the
> term.) I'm saying that the aggregate phenomenon we mean when we say "free
> will" *might* be generated/simulated by this mechanism. I'm not mapping
> free will to one small part of the mechanism. I'm mapping it to the *whole*
> mechanism, multiple processes, including individual branch points, the
> composer, the memory, etc.
>
> To answer specifically, a process can take branch A or B purely
> deterministically (with a rule like "always take path A"), pseudo-randomly
> (where it will always take branch A if the seed is the same), or actual
> randomly. Those are all options we can play with. But I'm not proposing any
> of those (by themselves) map to what we call free will. The whole mechanism
> is what I'm trying to map to free will, to simulate free will with.
>
> On 6/18/20 2:29 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> > Variables taking on values isn't something I normally associate with
> discussions of free will.
> >
> > Although since you mentioned it, how does the system decide whether to
> process A or B? Isn't that what you want to explain?
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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