Compatibilism: What's that About?

[DBT]

Pood you clump wrongly. The brain is no more stand alone than is any other organ. Worse the brain is primarily a digital processor with many features. the first clue is that what come in is not directly used by the brain. Whatever enters is transformed to chemical energy before it is cognitively processed. That alone should make it clear that whatever goes on in the brain is, at best, theater. Many of the living animals around you, bugs etc., have no idea of you at all, yet they share genetic material with you. Don't hurt your brain but we wouldn't be us unless we evolved from their ancestors.

Not sure why you, like DBT lately, seems to be rebutting things I never said. But anyway …

Well, the subject is compatibilism. Things may be said that are not necessarily related to what you said, yet are relevant to the subject and the discussion (if that's what it could be called). Plus, something you said may have implications that you may not be aware of.

 

[Jarhyn]

Oh, goody, you got to choose

I absolutely got to choose, through long hours of making this choice, what I will do when someone advances on me in violence. I laid down a list of things to drill on, and then I drilled on those things, and still do. The things I didn't choose do not invalidate the things I do choose, and I see you embarrassing yourself by trying to hide the things I do choose behind the things I don't.

In some ways I even chose my cognitive abilities.

I'm not going to tell you the details of how that choice happened though. It's rather personal, and more than a little fucked up. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed for you.

Again, how exactly do we - supposedly - ''change our physical makeup every time we have a thought?"

Do you not understand that neurons are physical? Do you not understand that when we learn things actual physical biases (connections) change within our neural matrix?

Thoughts are, fundamentally, the manifestation of function caused by changes in our physical makeup.

If you wish to understand how this can be or happens, you will need to do that coursework I keep pushing you at, with respect to learning how neural systems grow/train/operate.

Perhaps even you could take a course on mindfulness to understand more about how people go about modifying their neural configurations.

Some of it even gets a little silly, like doing silly rituals in the bathroom because that's what it takes for some people to remember to brush their teeth regularly.

There are whole courses you can take on behavioral modification, with many of the exercises in the course being performed on self

Now, you still have yet to offer why you might think °°° and ••• cannot exist in a deterministic system.

Besides some begged questions and assumptions that °°° has any "role" here. It's an analytic result, not an operational term. Other operational terms operate ON the analytic result but the result does no actual work of its own.

It belies a very deep misunderstanding to even construct language together that way, to the extent of not-even-wrong.

Mechanisms operate wills, which MAY be mechanisms, but are not necessarily. Wills may be identified as "provisionally free". This freedom also does not operate the will. It merely describes it.

The information does not, generally, process. The information, generally, is processed upon.

"Free will" does not play a role, the person plays the role, will is the role they play, and freedom is whether or not they played their role well.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

you don't get to choose your physical makeup

Yes, we do. We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision.

Oh, goody, you got to choose where you would be born, you chose your parents, your genetic makeup, your circumstances, language, culture, society, brain architecture, cognitive abilities....you have done all of this through the magic of free will?

How, pray tell, do you think you choose your physical makeup every time you have a thought? I eagerly await your thesis.

Sorry, DBT, but Jarhyn is correct. Every time you have a thought, every time you recall an event, you change your neural structure, reinforcing certain pathways and allowing others to delete.

Because our decisions and our thoughts relate to changes in our physical makeup.

How does that relate to you ''actively choosing your physical makeup every time you have a thought?''

A college student is invited to a party, but she has a chemistry exam in the morning, so she decides it would be best to stay home and study. As she reviews the textbook and her lecture notes, the pathways to that information become stronger. The next day, she recalls the answers to the questions easily. She has, by her deliberately chosen action modified her own brain to prepare it for the test.

This is a common practice for anyone who has been to college. I'm sure you must have done it yourself.

You must know by now that thoughts are near the end of the production line? First inputs, then transmission of information, then processing, then conscious representation of thoughts milliseconds after input.

One thought leads to another. Whether this chain of thoughts is managed consciously or unconsciously, it is clear that the thought output of the production line is itself new information to be processed by that same production line.

Neuronal Mechanisms of Conscious Awareness
''Masking experiments have been instrumental in further defining the temporal gap between stimulus presentation and its conscious perception. Masking refers to the suppression of conscious perception of a target stimulus by another stimulus. The masking effect is enhanced in some patients with focal cerebral lesions (eg, neglect syndrome), but it can also be produced in healthy subjects. In the somatosensory modality, a mask given 50 to 100 milliseconds after the target stimulus to the opposite hand is actually more effective in blocking the target than if presented simultaneously with the target.8 These findings demonstrate not only that conscious perception is delayed but also that the mechanisms leading to conscious perception are particularly sensitive to disruptions at this specific time interval.''

More fascinating neuroscience, but not relevant to the discussion. The brain is subject to manipulation in neurological experiments. The brain is not subject to manipulation when choosing what to have for dinner.

One of the ways we are EXPECTED to do this is to change our physical makeup when that makeup incorporates a ••• (°°° or not) that hurts people: we are expected to read our own physical makeup to the extent we may, and do so regularly, identify the ••• that is not acceptable to the requirement "don't be evil", and then blast that
neural region that made it will back into unformatted activation sequences.

Again, how exactly do we - supposedly - ''change our physical makeup every time we have a thought?"
You need to describe the mechanisms and means by which your contention works.

Conscious awareness tracks and reinforces attention. As neuroscientist Michael Graziano puts it:

"Awareness helps direct signals in the brain, enhancing some, suppressing others, guiding choices and actions."

Graziano, Michael S. A.. Consciousness and the Social Brain (p. 36). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

It is a two-way street, DBT.

 

[fromderinside]

I'm going to feed your dwarf

Speaking about layers of complexity to attempt to handwave the simple observation that °°° and ••• both clearly exist within a determined system is merely a red herring, and a silly one at that.

The more complicated systems merely allow for more complicated and rich versions of °°° and •••.

More simple hand-waving. As I said, the dwarf is more than enough proof, simplistic as it is, that °°° and ••• exist within deterministic systems. Never after that point can you claim honestly or correctly that they do not.

Point I'm making is that just because you call something a determined system does not imply +++ or /// both clearly exist, much less that they exist within a determined system. When light strikes a photic receptor in a human it triggers a specific light sensitive element in that receptor to react. That is not what the being brain receives. No, no, no, no.

The neural process receives a chemical that engages the receptor to develop a potential which is transmitted up the nervous system. That transform is meaningless unless it is executed, arranged, systematically to reflect what the eye receives from the environment. It remains meaningless unless it is stimulated many times over many months. If it is seldom excited it will never report any where near accurately the information received. Finally all programs have errors.

Any variation in wiring makes the meaning of the stimulating signal meaningless or different forever. So the wiring is genetically prescribed as well. Any variation in that coding leads to nonsense. Any variation any aspect of the genetic program changes the form of the next individual to use it.

What I'm pointing out is that any change in environment by accident or program alteration changes the being. You are attributing transform of a definite quality by a being will result of a definite action. First, only if it is properly exposed and retains it's entire program which is chancy. Secondly, the being will perform as it is programed only if it is used in the expected environment.

So climb off you mount mathematics. Maths are still to be discovered, no math is complete, man's mind is limited, programs have errors, existence changes conditions. I'm much happier working from the evolution perspective. Your dwarf needs oxygen.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain is not subject to manipulation when choosing what to have for dinner.

Explain why most adds about food come at dinner time then.

 

[DBT]

Oh, goody, you got to choose

I absolutely got to choose, through long hours of making this choice, what I will do when someone advances on me in violence. I laid down a list of things to drill on, and then I drilled on those things, and still do. The things I didn't choose do not invalidate the things I do choose, and I see you embarrassing yourself by trying to hide the things I do choose behind the things I don't.

Once again; your brain acquires information and processes that information unconsciously milliseconds prior to your conscious experience.

You as a conscious entity (being formed and generated by the brain) have no input in the underlying activity that generates you and your perception of conscious thoughts, decisions, and actions.

Your conscious will is a product of that underlying processing of information and has no input into decision making or altering outcomes.

The non-chosen state and condition of the system determines outcomes, what is thought, decided and acted upon.

Determined actions are not freely willed actions.

Not being freely willed actions, it is false to claim that determined actions are an example of free will. Nothing is being freely willed, determinism does not allow it.

 

[DBT]

you don't get to choose your physical makeup

Yes, we do. We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision.

Oh, goody, you got to choose where you would be born, you chose your parents, your genetic makeup, your circumstances, language, culture, society, brain architecture, cognitive abilities....you have done all of this through the magic of free will?

How, pray tell, do you think you choose your physical makeup every time you have a thought? I eagerly await your thesis.

Sorry, DBT, but Jarhyn is correct. Every time you have a thought, every time you recall an event, you change your neural structure, reinforcing certain pathways and allowing others to delete.

I thought we were done rehashing this?

The fallacy that Jarhyn invoked is equivocation.

It is not 'you' that changes the condition of the system, especially not through will. but information acting upon the system.

The system is being constantly changed by inputs. It is not the same from moment to moment, not because ''you change the system'' but because the external world acts upon it (and its own physical processes of change, which is not willed)

Therefore what Jarhyn said - ''We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision'' is patently false.

We cannot choose our physical makeup. Decisions come after inputs and processing.

The claim was absurd, his deceptive wording implies dualism, an Homunculus, a chooser of physical states.

Cognitition;
''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realization that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.''

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The brain is not subject to manipulation when choosing what to have for dinner.

Explain why most adds about food come at dinner time then.

The manipulation by a television ad is neither coercive nor undue. It will not force you to do something against your will. If it did, then you would buy everything that you saw advertised. Consider the restaurant menu, with attractive photographs of different dinners. They can certainly influence you, but not unduly so.

But in most of the cases of brain anomalies that DBT reports from neuroscience sources, we're talking about a brain with a specific flaw in a specific area, that causes a deficit that may directly affect the person's ability to choose. Or, the results of a study involving direct manipulation of a specific area, to cause a specific effect. For example, the manipulation of the area that produces a sense of confidence in one's choice can directly alter the choosing process. The point of such experiments is to locate specific functions within specific areas of the brain.

 

[Jarhyn]

The brain is not subject to manipulation when choosing what to have for dinner.

Explain why most adds about food come at dinner time then.

The manipulation by a television ad is neither coercive nor undue. It will not force you to do something against your will. If it did, then you would buy everything that you saw advertised. Consider the restaurant menu, with attractive photographs of different dinners. They can certainly influence you, but not unduly so.

But in most of the cases of brain anomalies that DBT reports from neuroscience sources, we're talking about a brain with a specific flaw in a specific area, that causes a deficit that may directly affect the person's ability to choose. Or, the results of a study involving direct manipulation of a specific area, to cause a specific effect. For example, the manipulation of the area that produces a sense of confidence in one's choice can directly alter the choosing process. The point of such experiments is to locate specific functions within specific areas of the brain.

Yeah, part of my job is cracking open massive systems and prodding them in specific ways to find where bug behaviors may be manifesting.

I realize that just because I personally can provoke a bug somewhere, that doesn't mean the bug that I'm seeing elsewhere only comes from there, or that it originated there, or any of that.

I have to find the original decision that sent up the bug.

Watching this bullshit over neurology and groping experiments there is like someone prodding an avionics package with a few bits, finding out that "this particular program controls the flaps, nothing else must be doing that!" and pretending there is no FMS in there that is controlling everything including the flap controller.

@DBT

Information acting on, and out and through the system, is a "will".

I have pointed to many concrete examples of physical systems acting of their own, clearly defined "wills". You are making special pleading, and a particular eggregious kind, to claim that neurons cannot do what the Turing machine can.

Neurons can do everything the Turing machine can.

It's literally a set of instructions.

You can read a set of instructions ya? I know I can. And that I can execute those instructions line by line.

Concrete example of wills right there, by a neural machine.

But moreover, I could sit down right now and decide to create a will. I did that with brushing teeth: I intentionally sat down, based on my desire to brush my teeth in the absence of effective invasives to do so, and established a structure of thought that resulted in more tooth brushing. I changed the physical structure of my brain.

I didn't have to even change the environment much to do it. I just made some text posts on a message board or two!

The information I processed came from me.

The fact is, you really seem to wish to abandon the responsibility you have to reflect on your behavior and make real decisions whether to continue that behavior or cease it.

I can say for sure, that if I knew someone who was into doing something really bad, like killing folks or hurting kids, and they couldn't not kill or hurt kids - if they lacked the free will others have to live in peace and would forever - the next person they should kill is themselves. It would be a massive fight to control themselves long enough to light that fuse, but that's what such folks should do.

nothing about the neurology of a lazy short-circuited notifier of action and sensation is at all surprising or damaging to the idea of agency. Just because there's a "flaps controller" on an avionics package doesn't mean that it's not also taking marching orders from the FMS.

 

[Jarhyn]

Once again; your brain acquires information and processes that information unconsciously milliseconds prior to your conscious experience

No, *I* acquire information and process that information, actively, myself, milliseconds before another system tells me what I just did with a slightly unreliable narration.

I understand that the purpose of that review is to allow me to re-think what I just decided milliseconds after I decided it and to be able to redirect that output towards processors that analyze and warn and so to say NO still milliseconds before execution completes.

Then miliseconds later, that same section narrates that I did THAT, often unreliably.

You as a conscious entity (being formed and generated by the brain) have no input in the underlying activity that generates you and your perception of conscious thoughts, decisions, and actions

And yet I as a conscious agency can make the back of my hand feel a way, or even evoke feelings in my private no-no zone that feel really good.

I'm pretty sure I could train a section of my brain to generate a visible "imaginary friend" though all the parts I know that could do that wouldn't generate a very useful or friendly "friend". I'm about the friendliest thing in my head and I downright prickly.

Research Mindfulness some time. You HAVE tools. You, DBT just bury your head in the sand relating them because you don't want to accept responsibility for something, or perhaps you don't want to a cept someone else had a responsibility over something? But usually I would expect this would be more over actions one feels they have no control over moreso than actions of others.

Point I'm making is that just because you call something a determined system does not imply +++ or /// both clearly exist,

I demonstrated definitions of °°° and ••• entirely in relation to deterministic systems and causal necessity.

The implication that all the things and qualities used to assemble the definition exist imply that the thing defined operates as described.

"let °°° be 'when causal necessity determines that an object shall pass through a given configuration or one of a set of given configurations'"

And let's define another word:
"let ••• be 'a set of configurations which through causal necessity determines some future aspect of systemic behavioral moment'"

They both clearly exist. These are the definitions you need to address if you wish to make any claim at all over whether °°° and ••• exist in determined systems.

You might ask "is the behavioral moment °°° through (given, but arbitrary, requirement)?"

You could then render an answer of "yes" or "no".

You might ask "what is the contribution to the behavioral moment of THIS, what is it's •••? Is it's ••• such that it is °°° towards it's requirement?" To which you may receive an answer in terms of "this ••• is not sufficient to meet the (given, arbitrary requirement); it is not °°° with regards to that outcome".

Their definitions imply they both clearly exist, in deterministic systems, because of what deterministic systems are.

Furthermore, I demonstrated that both these exist in our universe be ause they exist in something simulated by our universe, which is in our universe.

At that point you are reduced to special pleading: "Neurons can't do that!!!111"

Except they can.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

you don't get to choose your physical makeup

Yes, we do. We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision.

Oh, goody, you got to choose where you would be born, you chose your parents, your genetic makeup, your circumstances, language, culture, society, brain architecture, cognitive abilities....you have done all of this through the magic of free will?

How, pray tell, do you think you choose your physical makeup every time you have a thought? I eagerly await your thesis.

Sorry, DBT, but Jarhyn is correct. Every time you have a thought, every time you recall an event, you change your neural structure, reinforcing certain pathways and allowing others to delete.

I thought we were done rehashing this?

You were getting the neuroscience wrong, so I stepped in. The other stuff you are getting wrong seems to be too firmly grasped to pry you away from them.

It is not 'you' that changes the condition of the system, especially not through will. but information acting upon the system.

'You' includes the very system that you're discussing, the human brain and its neural architecture. One of the functions of that brain happens to be modeling 'you' as a specific object in the real world, along with the chair you sit on, the computer where you type your comments, etc. Another function of that system is to explain, both to yourself and others, what 'you' are currently doing or what it was that 'you' did, and why 'you' did it (Gazzaniga's "interpreter").

The system knows the difference between itself and external objects. And it has reportable knowledge of certain aspects of itself, such as its own thoughts and feelings, but lacks reportable knowledge of the internal mechanisms producing these thoughts and feelings. All it knows is that it thinks and it feels, and that these thoughts and feelings are the stuff by which it must explain what it is doing.

The system is constantly changing itself. Although it comes with a brief portfolio of innate behaviors, the vast majority of its behaviors are acquired through learning. And learning always changes the system. It is how the system adapts itself to the challenges of its environment. This adaptation is performed by the system upon itself, not by direct manipulation of individual neurons, but by conscious attention to the task at hand. It's how we learn first to crawl, then walk, and then run. After the skill is acquired it becomes automatic, and we do it with little if any conscious attention.

The system is being constantly changed by inputs. It is not the same from moment to moment, not because ''you change the system'' but because the external world acts upon it (and its own physical processes of change, which is not willed)

The system is willing to be changed if it finds that change to be beneficial, but the system may resist being changed, especially around the age of 2 or 3 years old, when it becomes aware of the benefits of exercising its own control. And later in life it will decide for itself what college to attend, and what knowledge and skills it is willing to work to acquire.

Therefore what Jarhyn said - ''We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision'' is patently false.

I hope you understand now why what she said was accurate. Every thought and every memory recall changes the brain in some small fashion.

We cannot choose our physical makeup.

And yet I see many people at the gym doing exactly that. There are some things we cannot change. And yet many other things that we can change.

But, according to neuroscience, what goes on in our head directly modifies the brain at the neuronal level. So, Jarhyn is correct on this one.

Decisions come after inputs and processing.

Of course. But the system is performing that processing and making those decisions, and that system a part of what is 'you'.

The claim was absurd, his deceptive wording implies dualism, an Homunculus, a chooser of physical states.

You're over-reacting. The system can choose to alter its physical state by exercise and nutrition. The system can choose to alter its mental state by taking a college course in psychology.

Cognitition;
''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realization that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.''

Your link failed, but I found the article here: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mi...will?msclkid=15ec22e0ad0511eca6d5bca134668b57 by doing a google search on this part of your link: electrical_stimulation_produces_feelings_of_free_will.php

This would be an excellent example of undue influence through neuroscience manipulation. Michel Desmurget and his team were able to give the patient the sense that they wanted to move their arm by electrically stimulating a region in the parietal cortex. And then by stimulating the premotor cortex they actually moved the patients arm without their awareness.

Like I was mentioning to FromDerInside, these studies help us to understand how different areas of the brain are responsible for different functions, like one area giving the sense of the intention to move while another area actually produced the movement.

Fortunately, when choosing between the salad and the steak in the restaurant, neither our parietal cortex nor our premotor cortex are being manipulated by neurosurgeons, so our brain, acting on our behalf, was free to decide for itself what we would order for dinner.

The collection of hundreds of functional areas in the brain, each with its own specialty, does not prevent the brain as a whole from making choices on our behalf. So, when the waiter brings us the bill for our dinner, he does not have to sort out which specific area of the brain should receive the bill.

 

[Jarhyn]

Cognitition;
''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realization that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.''

Your link failed, but I found the article here: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mi...will?msclkid=15ec22e0ad0511eca6d5bca134668b57 by doing a google search on this part of your link: electrical_stimulation_produces_feelings_of_free_will.php

This would be an excellent example of undue influence through neuroscience manipulation. Michel Desmurget and his team were able to give the patient the sense that they wanted to move their arm by electrically stimulating a region in the parietal cortex. And then by stimulating the premotor cortex they actually moved the patients arm without their awareness.

I come to the realization of looking at the concept that there is clearly an object in the brain that has the entire job of measuring °°° with respect to a given •••.

It is a very useful machine: dump the ••• which are not possibly °°°. Or to counter that system with an assessment that it IS °°°.

In this way, people do not waste time and energy on stupid ••• that will not be °°° with respect to a goal satisfaction.

Of course there will be a place in the brain where a "high" signal can be rendered artificially to short-circuit the assessment. I would be interested in knowing where those signals go AFTER that junction. Because clearly something is set up to DECIDE on the information of that signal.

 

[fromderinside]

I call BS:

As for whether there are descending neural influence and control of activity perhaps a couple snippets of recent research in the area will open eyes.

Query: the extent of descending neural activity on behavior

About 146,000 results (0.12 sec)

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

An example: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13311-018-0639-y


Query: the extent of descending innervation in sensory system in humans

About 34,400 results (0.19 sec)

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

An example:

http://thuvien.thanglong.edu.vn:8080/dspace/bitstream/TLU-123456789/2089/1/TVS.001307-%20An%20Anatomical%20Viewpoint-LWW%20%282013%29_1.pdf

______

Don't mess with the resource giant. But if you have to look up something you think supports your position. I'd love to bury you in contrary results.

 

[Jarhyn]

As for whether there are descending neural influence and control of activity perhaps a snippet of recent research in the area will open eyes.

About 146,000 results (0.12 sec)

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

Yet another hand wave.

Neural Systems may implement any structure of a Turing machine.

Turing machines may incorporate interpretation of lists of instructions by various mechanisms.

Therefore humans, neural systems at their core, may incorporate interpretation of lists of instructions by various mechanisms.

It's trivially easy to prove: put a list in someone's hands, ask them "do these things in this order until (situation: success) or (situation: success unachievable)".

They have a •••. It has a notable absolute measure of °°° on "success".

Yawn.

Hard Determinism of the gaps.

 

[fromderinside]

As for whether there are descending neural influence and control of activity perhaps a snippet of recent research in the area will open eyes.

About 146,000 results (0.12 sec)

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

Yet another hand wave.

Neural Systems may implement any structure of a Turing machine.

Turing machines may incorporate interpretation of lists of instructions by various mechanisms.

Therefore humans, neural systems at their core, may incorporate interpretation of lists of instructions by various mechanisms.

It's trivially easy to prove: put a list in someone's hands, ask them "do these things in this order until (situation: success) or (situation: success unachievable)".

They have a •••. It has a notable absolute measure of °°° on "success".

Yawn.

Hard Determinism of the gaps.

Neural systems are different than Turing machines.

Your notion of triviality brushoff is a common indicator of a problem with computer programs. I worked as a SSSA engineer for about 10 years at a military facility. I know something about the limitations of programs and computers. It was one of my tasks to find ways to prolong the utility of programs. Computer programs degrade from the buildup of programming errors and logical element failures.

Oh, did I knock you off your kiddy car. Go ahead wave off the failure of System 370. I'll bet you avoid documenting your software.

Neurons fail too. They degrade and they are impacted by external variables. Your absolute is off the table. Next.

KISS

 

[Jarhyn]

Neural systems are different than Turing machines

Yes, though they may implement any system of Turing machine Algorighms, they may implement them in different ways and invent new algorithms on account of the interfacrs between neural groups being incapable of rendering "unacceptable" output.

I know something about the limitations of programs and computers

In the 90's or even the 80's? Yawn

As has been pointed out, proven in fact, Turing machines may have •••, humans may also have •••, we have proven repeatedly that ••• is an available property within deterministic systems, and ••• is trivially observable as being °°° or not °°° with respect to some systemic configuration usually embedded in the •••.

Neural Systems MAY implement any Algorighm of a Turing machine.

The "may" is very specially selected language. It's interesting that you have devolved to personal attacks and snipes. I must be getting close to striking a nerve.

Now I am going to repeat something: anyone whose behavior is so very awful, such as killing people or hurting children, should recognize that they have the responsibility to kill themselves.

 

[fromderinside]

Neural systems are different than Turing machines

Yes, though they may implement any system of Turing machine Algorighms, they may implement them in different ways and invent new algorithms on account of the interfacrs between neural groups being incapable of rendering "unacceptable" output.

Now this is reasonable and it is kind of like how I envision humans being. I don't think unacceptable is appropriate. Rather I think in order to get past the social threshold one needs be designed as being in control and aware. After all one must respond in a world in which one is formed. There is vey little price to pay to be responsive rather and proactive since to be proactive requires knowing what is coming which is unattainable in a respondent world.

I know something about the limitations of programs and computers

In the 90's or even the 80's? Yawn

As has been pointed out, proven in fact, Turing machines may have •••, humans may also have •••, we have proven repeatedly that ••• is an available property within deterministic systems, and ••• is trivially observable as being °°° or not °°° with respect to some systemic configuration usually embedded in the •••.

Neural Systems MAY implement any Algorithm of a Turing machine.

The "may" is very specially selected language. It's interesting that you have devolved to personal attacks and snipes. I must be getting close to striking a nerve.

Now I am going to repeat something: anyone whose behavior is so very awful, such as killing people or hurting children, should recognize that they have the responsibility to kill themselves.

Ah. Hit a nerve. I retired in the 2000s and I was still highly involved in developing A/C design, operation and support S/W. Your refusal to admit systems developed by women and developed on computers designed and built by women all fail. Too bad. You'll find failure hard to accept and you will fail.

I stated both fail. Guess you missed the both thing. It isn't important that both can do this and ideally they will do that. It's important to realize both will fail and neither is complete.

Your rant about awful people is tinged with envy of truth told. We don't actually get to choice because we remain within the determined paradigm. I accept that a being can evolve systems to keep one believing one is in control. Believing is internal, fictional not caused. It is why I point to the differences between objective and subjective. There is a place for choice, mind, consciousness, but it is an illusory place developed by beings to remain social and internally driven.

 

[Jarhyn]

Rather I think in order to get past the social threshold one needs be designed as being in control and aware.

This is nonsense which does not parse. Maybe this means something in your head, but you will need to use many words skillfully arranged and carefully re-read a few times to communicate it.

Unless you mean to say you are a religious hard determinist who believes a god designed us to be what we are.

We are not. One did not need to, for us to be as such.

Processes merely need to be started for which the growth of mathematical application is possible: [if more (direction a)] > [go (direction b)]

Then that mutates, and as the relationship gets more accurate to the math, the thing survives more.

Sometimes A = B.

But things get interesting insofar as a neuron is a machine with more than just a simple linkage.

It has levers! It can have it's connection weights changed. It can have it's biases changed. It can have it's refractory period adjusted.

And all of these things can be done by other neurons.

The thing is, none of that needs to be designed.

Most notably I am one of those chunks of neurons, best guess something somewhere near the prefrontal cortex. I have access to levers on a large number of neurons. I can send signals in general to do stuff.

Sometimes I even watch it happen faster than it can be narrated to me, and I'm not sure whether I feel it before I see it, and I'm fairly sure it's being doctored to be all shown about in time as to where things are predicted to be rather than where they are.

Now, I'm pretty sure this process that does all this training and management is rather small. Maybe big as individual functions go, but relatively small. Lots of sensitive skin, lots of organ mass, lots of muscles, joints that move in a lot of ways and have to improvise, for that matter WALKING like we do...

It also means that the process that does all this training and management has to learn well how to do that job in such a way that it functions compatibly with all the others that do similar else they get ejected from the gene pool.

Your refusal to admit systems developed by women and developed on computers designed and built by women all fail.

What the everliving sexist fuck.

Seriously. What. The. Fuck.

Ignoring, after that, the stunning display of Freudian proportions... computer systems have bugs, yes, but those bugs say nothing about the fact that the system still proves systems may hold a •••.

The important part that you seem to keep failing to understand is that the neuron's ability is to arbitrarily implement mutable algorithmic behaviors. There's something that puts together sequences that are lists of instructions to be carried out by other things, monitors how things go, makes corrections and even "jumps in" when improvisation is required, reviews how things went, and based on that review either accept the emotions that arise as a result of those observations or rejects them. It's in here. It's me.

It's nothing to do about failures and "completion".

If someone is an awful person, someone who abuses children or kills folks, they can make a choice to end themselves.

It has nothing to do with belief. Systems inside the bounds of the flesh I control directly manufacture whole directives which are, materially, triggers to action, similar to the way a methylation physically pops the transcriber from it's transcription of DNA.

It is mechanism tumbling about, perhaps a little bit messier on account of the fact that it's got a LOT of analog components, but still just mechanism.

It just happens to be a mechanism that generates it's own instructions from whatever madness it has going on.

There is no illusion as to the fact that there is a piece of me spinning out instructions to be interpreted and executed and reported back on. These are •••.

And whether those instructions execute, or reach an unrecoverable error as relates their execution to a "success" code, that determines whether it was a °°° •••.

Sometimes, I identify that the vector that the ••• would put me on would lose its moment against an obstacle and so cannot return success. It is not even provisionally free.

This is the first edge of the sword, the edge that cuts for us. Namely, it cuts away wasted effort.

Then there is the identification that "success" of a will would have consequences. Sometimes the consequences are to self, sometimes to others, but that there are consequences.

That's the other edge: If we can save ourselves from wasted effort, and we most certainly can, then we can also save ourselves from hurting others.

It requires accepting rather than resisting review.

And if the person in review is a compulsive serial killer or child molester, that probably means killing themselves.

 

[fromderinside]

Next time write to yourself. What you wrote to me wasn't intelligible or responsive. I thought you'd appreciate me using something other than you, being, the, one, or him. Obviously not. You get hung up on male/female issues.

Or we aren't machines and philosophy is human centered. One needs a way to get to what humans do from our perspective when we try to integrate us into a philosophical que. Determinism doesn't permit such as choice or mind or will. However the way we look at the world can be manipulated to attach such to our philosophical demand for personal inclusion. That is to say treat that which originates from within us under that from which happens to us. Ergo objective and subjective.

However since I put this out there may different ways and you don't seem capable of adjusting maybe you should just ignore what I write so I don't confuse you any further.

Anyway I'm not going to try to show how doing so would permit us to integrate all into a pretty nice deterministic package. That can't be done unless you buy into that which is determined from the outside and that which is determined from within.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Anyway I'm not going to try to show how doing so would permit us to integrate all into a pretty nice deterministic package. That can't be done unless you buy into that which is determined from the outside and that which is determined from within.

I find it simplifies things to presume perfectly reliable cause and effect inside, outside, and even at the quantum level. Causal necessity then becomes a grand triviality that is easily dismissed.