[FRIAM] free will

Tue Feb 25 16:56:53 EST 2025

On 2/24/25 10:03 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> What is special, if anything, about organisms that have nervous 
> systems built on organic chemistry that could enable something else?
>
Poised Realm?

OrchOR?

I doubt both equally, but I think that is what both are trying to address?

> *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Frank Wimberly 
> <wimberly3 at gmail.com>
> *Date: *Monday, February 24, 2025 at 8:51 PM
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] free will
>
> No
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2025, 4:27 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>
>     If a LLM had constant inputs from cameras, microphones, chemical
>     sensors, and sensiomotor feedback, and was continuously training
>     and performing inference, could it have free will?
>
>     *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Jochen Fromm
>     *Sent:* Monday, February 24, 2025 1:08 PM
>     *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>     <friam at redfish.com>
>     *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] free will
>
>     Actually I don't care much about views or traffic. I don't think
>     many people read it except the ones from this list. But I like
>     discussions about interesting topics. I mentioned the blog post
>     here because I wasn't sure if I have (maybe unconsciously) stolen
>     an idea from one of you. Humans often forget where they have first
>     seen or heard an idea. Daniel Dennett mentions in his book "I've
>     been thinking" that he was afraid of plagiarism (on page 61-63)
>     and describes it as the great academic sin.
>
>     I believe LLMs work like humans in this respect: they are like
>     money laundering machines for copyrighted ideas who wash away the
>     copyright. They also tend to hallucinate, like we do in dreams at
>     night. And they are excellent in predicting the next word in a
>     sentence (or action in a sequence), similar to the motor cortex.
>     They are in many ways similar to us. It is fascinating and a
>     little bit frightening what these LLMs and AIs can do already today.
>
>     To come back to the question of free will: I am not sure if free
>     willed actions are only those that are caused by conscious
>     thoughts. I believe conscious thoughts can be used to prevent
>     actions that we do not want. The first steps to a free will is to
>     become aware of all the hidden influences that try to control it.
>
>     We have an "Influenceable will". When we become aware that our
>     will is influenced by ads or propaganda or some kind of marketing,
>     we can take steps to reduce this hidden influence for example by
>     making the conscious decision to stop doing what the ads ask for
>     (for example stop buying McDonald's Big Macs although the ads
>     promise us happiness and joy if we do it).
>
>     -J.
>
>     -------- Original message --------
>
>     From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>
>     Date: 2/23/25 11:59 PM (GMT+01:00)
>
>     To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>     <friam at redfish.com>, Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net>
>
>     Subject: free will
>
>
>     I put a comment Jochen's blog.   Why dont we carry on over there
>     and help him generate traffic.  I have attached here a couple of
>     papers that support the view that people are lousy predictors of
>     their own behavior.  If we [and only if] we take free willed
>     actions to be those that are caused by conscious thoughts, then
>     surely we must know what we are going to do before we start to do
>     it and be much better at making such predictions than are the
>     people around us.
>
>     N
>
>     -- 
>
>     Nicholas S. Thompson
>
>     Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>
>     Clark University
>
>     nthompson at clarku.edu
>
>     https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
>
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