> From: glenn morton <mortongr@flash.net>
> Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 19:18:09 -0000
> To: James W Stark <stark2301@voyager.net>
> Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Subject: Re: re:Re: Preprogrammed
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "James W Stark" <stark2301@voyager.net>
>
>> Jim's comment [about my replacement of the random number generator by
>> stockmarket movement for Sierpinski's Gasket} The analogy here is much better
>> and, yes, those shareholders would have human free will. I doubt that their
>> behavior follows the mathematical equations behind Sierpinski's gasket.
>> end of this comment
>>
> Then you truly don't understand Sierpinski's Gasket. The behavior of the
> market is not what makes the gasket. The random number generator is not what
> makes the gasket. The gasket is made by a decision tree imposed upon a
> randomly varying source function. There is no 'rule' in the random or
> pseudorandom numbers. The rule comes into play in the decision tree for what
> direction to move. All I need to produce the gasket is two independent time
> series that I can use for making the decision.
No, I do not understand how you are using it. The mathematics behind it are
simple. However, To say that there is no rule in the random or pseudorandom
numbers makes no sense. You can not take the rule that generates the numbers
out by fiat to apply the gasket. The rule behind the tree is just a
different equation or part of an equation in the gasket.
>
>> Jim's comment Thanks for including Penrose's views from The Large, the Small
>> and the Human Mind. I only have two of his books, The Emperor's New Mind
>> and
>> Shadows of the Mind. However, that intelligence at this level would be a
>> fixed smart program with designed reactions. It has no free will. It is an
>> artificial intelligence. end of this comment
>>
> I wish you would provide some evidence for the above assertions. How do you
> know that there is no free will in the paramecium?
Obviously, no one "knows". Its existence depends on what theoretical model
one is trying to use!!
> Have you talked to one,
> or is this your prejudice. If you say that getting food is not 'acting
> freely' then I would contend that we humans aren't free either. It is about
> supper time and in a few minutes I will be forced, by these instinctual
> pangs of hunger, to go feed by growing belly.
Oh, come now. You read like your up tight.
>
>> Jim's comments Thanks again for the fill-in. Yes, randomness could enter the
>> decision process here, but it would not be human free will. Your definitions
>> of free will and randomness appear to be just high order programs. These
>> would not be non-deterministic. I see several levels of free will ranging
>>from fixed programs to a non-programmable free will. Spiritual free will that
>>humans use is a force not a fixed program. end of comment
>>
> If random processes 'would not be non-deterministic", which is what I see
> you saying above, then please tell me the 5 lottery numbers for Wednesday's
> Texas lottery. If they're not non-deterministic, then they must be
> deterministic. So please determine them for me and I will give you a few
> dollars as a token of my gratitude. :-)
>
> What you are saying does not seem to be what I would expect from someone of
> your background. How can a random number be deterministic? ARe you confusing
> deterministic with naturallistic? Jim's comments [about Libet and
> Kornhuber's experiments]
>
>> Your conclusion may be true, if you accept the face value of the
>> interpretations. I have learned to be more skeptical. I find too much
>> scientific reporting that is structured to "find" what the scientist intended
>> to find. i.e. a deterministic free will. I will have to read Tipler's book
>> and possibly Libet's. I am familiar with readiness potential but not with the
>> concept of an Omega Point Boundary Condition.
>>
> Forget the Omega point--the Hubble constant revisions sank Tipler's mad
> hatter dreams. What I was citing him for concerned Libet's work.
OK.
>
> What you say above,is that you don't feel that you, as a mathmatician, have
> to accept data that is out of your field. THis is what gets the YECs in
> trouble all the time. What you say is something I hear from them all the
> time.
I find it amazing how you manage to see what is not there. I accept all
relevant information.
>
> Secondly, I will put this loudly. NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT A DETERMINISTIC
> FREE WILL. IN MY VIEW DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL ARE ALMOST ANTITHETICAL
I agree
> AND CAN ONLY BE UNITED VIA SOME SYSTEM LIKE THE GASKET.
I do not see it.
> Why do you ignore what I said about it in my last note? Maybe you don't
understand where I am putting free will into the gasket analogy--
I did not think that I did. Are you placing it with the tree? The only
possibility seems to be the random generator.
>it is in the motion of the dot, not the outcome of thousands of choices.
And what controls the motion of the dot. Don't claim that it is free will.
> Or is this a case where you don't have to accept what someone says at face
value?
I see no face value to accept, only a confusing claim.
>
>>> Glenn says: But once again, how can we be free when we don't even know what
>>> we did?
>>>
>> Jim's comment This depends on the situation. We use our free will to build
>> [reaction] habits. That reaction can be outside our field of awareness. They
>> can be triggered by our emotions. We use free will to make selections during
>> conscious evaluations. end of this comment
>>
> And this is what I was saying with my interpretation of Libet's
> experiments.
>>
>>>
>>> Glenn continues: Free will must be tied to randomness. In this way God
>>> limited His knowledge as well as our knowledge. And because our knowledge
>>> is
>>> limited, He needed to come, in the form of the Messiah, to tell us about
>>> Himself.
>>>
>>> I would interpret Libet's experiments as follows: We are tied to some
>>> randomizing agent. We inform this agent of what we want to do in the
>>> future--bend our finger. Then that agent must act on our account before we
>>> are informed of his action. The person sitting at the experiment already
>>> agreed to bend his finger and then delegated the action to the randomizer.
>>>
>> Jim's comment The decision to move the finger was already made and delegated
>> to a smart program agent. Action was committed to a random generator. end of
>> this comment
>>
> we agree on this point.
>
>>> I have been arguing all throughout this thread for a NON-DETERMINISTIC model
>>> of free will. How on earth can you possibly say that. Have I not said over
>>> and over that free will must be tied to randomness? That is certianly NOT
>>> arguing for a deterministic universe, unless your definition of
>>> deterministic
>>> is totally different than any definition I have ever heard.
>>>
>> Jim's comments It is your association of free will to randomness that creates
>> the impression of a deterministic worldview. So does the subject title.
>>
> First, don't blame me for the subject title.
No blame was placed on you. I only located what triggered my impression.
>That was started by Burgy. bad
> Burgy, bad, :-) ]
Yuck
>
> Secondly you are using deterministic in the most funny way I have ever seen
> it used. Have you looked it up in a dictionary?
Why do you feel a need to be sarcastic?
> I really think you mean naturalistic.
You are awful quick to conclude what others see in what you write. My
concern is still the valid use of human free will versus its false treatment
as a fixed program. Your use of free will appears to be a fixed program,
which makes it deterministic.
>
>
> The literature that you quote use deterministic arguments. Non-determinism
> demands the existence of human free will. Randomness does not. The lack of
> understanding lies in the meaning given to randomness. The meaning of
> randomness in science is not consistent. It may be seen as an indication of
> either high order or low order. We need to realize that the meaning of
> randomness depends on its theoretical context. Ludwig Boltzmann locked the
> definition of randomness for the microworld to an assumed equality for
> chance events so that he could create a statistical property of a collection
> of molecules that would mimic entropy, a macroscopic property of gases. That
> randomness was believed to be a state of low order. Yet, David Bohm saw
> randomness as an infinitely high degree of order. It would be a fixed order
> that is unpredictable. If we look at random real numbers, we again see a
> correlation of randomness to high order, not disorder.
>
> Using Yockey's terminology we see randomness correlation with high
> COMPLEXITY. Order is sequences like:
> 010101010101010101010101010101010101010... Randomness is very similar to
> highly organized. The last sentence is highly organized but it is like a
> random sentence. tsmfp,rdd od brtu do,o;st yp johj;u pthsmoxrf/ yjr ;sdy
> drmyrmvr od johj;u pthsmoxrf niy oy od ;olr s tsmfp, drmyrmvr/
>
> The last sentence is random right? (or at least pseudo random)?
And, therefore this randomness is not free will. If your free will does not
enter the system with the random generator, I see no source except fiat
insertion.
>
>
> Rudy Rucker in Infinity and the Mind tells us that "a sequence of digits is
> random if there is no finite way of describing it."
>
> Agreed.
>
> A real number is random "if it has an irreducibly infinite amount of
> information." . Its order is very unique. Thus, randomness is equated with
> unnameability. It is a complexity of high degree of order.
>
> You are using a nomenclature that is very likely to lead you astray.
This is Rudy's choice of terms. He is consistent with Yockey's complexity
definition.
>Order is the opposite of complexity.
The word order by itself may be low or high. Complexity suggests a higher
order.
>
> Computer generated "random" numbers represent a very high order rather than
> no order. You seem to want both low order and high order. The randomness of
> a smart agent in our brain uses a high order randomness. It has no free will
> (low order) in it.
>
> You should look at Molecular Biology and Information THeory by Hubert
> Yockey. He cleans up the nomeclatural problems.
>
>>>> Jim's comment: You have more faith in quantum mechanics for spiritual
>>>> answers than I do.
>>>>
>>> No, you misconstrue what I have faith in. I have faith in God and see his
>>> hand in quantum. I am interested in how he has used it to give us free
>>> will.
>>> It is not quantum that gives, but God.
>>>
>> Jim's comment Sorry, perhaps I should have used trust rather that faith.
>>
>
> And why shouldn't I have trust in quantum. It has brought about the digital
> revolution, and indeed the computer on which you are corresponding with me
> ..is based upon quantum mechanics.
Do scientists referring to quantum theory generally imply a randomness of
high order? How do they explain human free will? The use of indeterminate
avoids the possible implication of any free will.
> glenn
>
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