[FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the machine or just clever wiring?

[steve smith]

On 6/10/25 3:26 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> This conversation is well into bad faith now.  I’m done.
>
Let me dig into my reserves of "good faith" for those who might not have 
already exercised their free will by choosing to exit the conversation 
(ok... THAT was bad faith also! )

FWIW, the *only* thing I have to offer in opposition to the 
monistic/deterministic/no-free-will view is my own "experience" which is 
*at best* proof (to me) by example... it is not hard for me to grant 
that other "beings like me" have the same experience of "free will" (and 
other /qualia/).

My mystical/abstraction-oriented/woo self tends to *grow* the scope of 
"beings like me" and even without the benefit of various organic 
alkaloids (et al) that others here might use to get into that mood?   
I'm pretty open to granting AI/ML models something *like* (my) 
consciousness, and by *extension* something *like* (my) free will...   
while *simultaneously* (read Lewis Carrol's Red Queen character) 
believing that determinism IS.

My snarky flipness was maybe a reflection of the inner tension I feel in 
this discussion... that I can take either or both sides pretty 
effectively and don't find the arguments of one extrema very compelling 
to my other extrema (and vice-versa).   The epitome of ambi-valence?

Maybe there is useful meta-argument which helps resolve that? Maybe 
everyone else is able to get a good grip on one extrema or the other and 
recognize the opposite one acutely absurd?


> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *steve smith
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 10, 2025 2:24 PM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the machine or just clever 
> wiring?
>
> On 6/10/25 9:44 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
>     Consider a robot with sensors roughly comparable to humans.
>
>     The robot has access to all the energy it wants.  It has a large
>     memory and generous computing resources.   It has executive
>     processes with onboard state-of-the-art LLMs to access vast
>     information and can run a wide variety of appropriate programs to
>     plan its next actions.  It can use the LLMs to write new programs.
>      It can tune or fine-tune the LLMs constantly from new data.   It
>     remembers its actions and their consequences.   It has video and
>     audio recordings of every moment.  It has time series data of its
>     sensors since it was activated.   Because of its general
>     self-tuning ability, any guidance from its authors (like for the
>     LLM) can be overridden.    It has americium-241 onboard hardware
>     random number generator that drives its LLM sampling and any other
>     stochastic algorithm.
>
>     Does this robot have free will?  Why or why not?
>
> Probably not unless it's brain is /positronic/.
>
> For a /proof by anecdote/, read the corpus of Asimov's work.  ;/
>
> Then go release an Orca into the wild and holler "Free Willy" at the 
> top of your lungs.  If you survive being arrested and convicted for 
> your declaration of putative "public exposure", then note that the 
> entire global population are taking up the practice of head-butting 
> sailboats....   free will much?
>
>     The perils of Free Will(y)?
>
>
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