Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: unspun
"Computer science has become our latest lazy idol in the alchemist's imagination of the hubristic mastery of life."

All very well and good, but please respond to the logical trail.

1. Boris says that asserting free will is asserting that "my outputs are not functions of my inputs."

2. To which "Xm177e2" responds that there is a "mechanism" (a black box) which "processes" other things--things other than inputs.

3. To which Boris replies that those other things look suspiciously like "inputs"--for else how would the "mechanism" "process" them? Here we have a mechanism that processes something other than inputs; exceeding strange.

4. Boris adds that either the "mechanism" operates by rules (an 'algorithm' for brevity) or it does not. If it does, it cannot be free. If it does not, it cannot be free because it is random (unruled).

So the ball is back in your corner.

--Boris

79 posted on 07/06/2003 11:24:05 AM PDT by boris (The deadliest Weapon of Mass Destruction in History is a Leftist With a Word Processor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies ]


To: boris
4. Boris adds that either the "mechanism" operates by rules (an 'algorithm' for brevity) or it does not. If it does, it cannot be free. If it does not, it cannot be free because it is random (unruled). So the ball is back in your corner.

This tends to be where the devotee of Information Theory as Ontological Essence Dogma posits that all is randomness, somehow formed by an unexplained presence of energy and divergence, out of uniformity and somehow then formulating itself into patterns, that we call "behavior."

That's certainly not a belief that I share. I doubt you'll find many epileptics who do, either.

80 posted on 07/06/2003 11:38:18 AM PDT by unspun ("Do everything in love." - No I don't look anything like her but I do like to hear "Unspun w/ AnnaZ")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson