Thoughts on the manifesto of futurist science (1916).

[Giulio Prisco]

Thoughts on the manifesto of futurist science (1916). The ultimate goal of science is mystery. https://www.turingchurch.com/p/thoughts-on-the-manifesto-of-futurist

[John Clark]

At Turing Church Giulio Prisco Wrote:

> Western culture could use an injection of vitality,

At least in the USA the problem is not a lack of vitality, it's a lack of rationality. And vitality is not necessarily a good thing if it's aimed in the wrong direction. I'm not usually big on poetry but I do remember something that W.B. Yeats said about that just before World War II started:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. The center cannot hold."

> Italian futurism and fascism were not natural allies, but were essentially incompatible

I once thought that American transhumanism and American fascism were completely incompatible, but around 2016 I learned to my sorrow I was entirely wrong about that.

 

> as emphasized by top representatives of both. That many futurists joined Benito Mussolini’s fascist party was due to realpolitik more than ideology.

I disagree with that, the foundation of realpolitik is practicality not ideology, and the foundation of practicality is rationality but, as events later proved, there was nothing rational about Benito Mussolini's fascism, things did NOT turn out the way his ideology predicted it would.  I see strong parallels between Italian fascism and its leader and modern day American fascism and its leader.

> Italian futurists were anti-clerical, but not anti-spiritual. On the contrary, many participated in theosophical salons and were open to paranormal phenomena, life after death, spiritualism and all that.

The same thing could be said about American fascism except that they are pro clerical.  And science is open to any idea, new or old, provided there is a rational reason to believe that it might be true.

> I’ll now translate some passages of “La Scienza Futurista” (1916) and comment. The manifesto begins with a strong condemnation of the science establishment that, “hypnotized by the stupid books of the countless university professors of Germany,” is “superficially precise, pettily accurate, idiotically sure of its own infallibility, without any brilliant explosion.”

And according to them one of those German professors who was stupid, petty and idiotic was Albert Einstein.

> I don’t intend to affirm that psi is real or defend any specific result of psi research. I just want to defend the right of scientists to do psi research,

Nobody says somebody doesn't have a right to do psi research, but such people do NOT have a right to demand respect from scientists for such activities if, despite centuries of effort, they fail to come up with anything that is both interesting and repeatable. Instead the interesting stuff is not repeatable and the repeatable stuff is not interesting.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

[Giulio Prisco]

Hi John,

< something that W.B. Yeats said about that just before World War II started…>

This is one of my favorite pieces of poetry as well. Unfortunately, it is very much applicable to our time. However, I don’t read it as an appeal to the rational brain, but as an appeal to the feeling heart.

< I disagree with that, the foundation of realpolitik is practicality not ideology…>

They aligned with the fascist party because they wanted to be left in peace. Sounds practical to me.

< I see strong parallels between Italian fascism and its leader and modern day American fascism and its leader…>

Sorry, I don’t know who is the leader of modern day American fascism. Concerning the leader of Italian fascism, there’s a recent historic novel / biography in three volumes. I read it in Italian, but I see that at least the first book has been translated:

https://www.amazon.com/M-Century-Novel-Antonio-Scurati-ebook/dp/B09132GN4M/

< And according to them one of those German professors who ​was​​ stupid, petty and idiotic was Albert Einstein…>

This is an interesting topic to research. I’ll do so, but my guess is that the Italian futurists were referring to those stupid, petty and idiotic German professors who condemned Einstein. I guess the Italian futurists would have found Einstein interesting, at least because he was irreverent. Throwing stones at old sacred cows and all that. I’ll research and say more.

< Nobody says somebody doesn't have a right to do psi research, but such people do NOT have a right to demand respect from scientists for such activities…>

I’m sitting on the fence with an open mind. If I were a psi researcher, I wouldn’t demand respect. I would just demand to be left in peace, like, do your research and I’ll do mine, and let experiment decide. I might criticize the anti-psi cancel mobs when they seem to forget the science that they loudly claim to defend.

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 7:53 PM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Giulio

>> "I see strong parallels between Italian fascism and its leader and modern day American fascism and its leader"

 

> "Sorry, I don’t know who is the leader of modern day American fascism."

Benito Mussolini staged a coup d'état on October 28 1922 in order to become dictator of Italy, Donald Trump staged a coup d'état on January 6 2021 in order to become dictator of America. The only difference is Mussolini's coup d'état worked, Trump's didn't. But Trump hasn't given up.  

 

>> "Nobody says somebody doesn't have a right to do psi research, but such people do NOT have a right to demand respect from scientists for such activities"

> "I’m sitting on the fence with an open mind. If I were a psi researcher, I wouldn’t demand respect. I would just demand to be left in peace, like, do your research and I’ll do mine, and let experiment decide."

If I was a professor and was on a committee to determine if somebody should get tenure at my university, and all they had done was conduct ESP research that had led, just like everybody else's ESP research, precisely nowhere, then I would definitely vote against granting tenure. This is because, due to finite resources, there's only a limited number of people who can receive it and there are plenty of good mathematicians, physicists. chemists and biologists who deserve it more. If that were to happen the rejected professor would undoubtedly scream that he was being discriminated against, and that would be true, we would be discriminating between good scientists and bad scientists, but he would even claim that he was the victim of censorship, but that would not be true. He's free to say whatever he wishes to say and is free to continue with his "research"; it's just that the university has decided not to continue paying him to do it.  If you pay somebody to conduct yet another investigation into spoon bending to go with the 6.02*10^23 ones that have already been done then you don't have the resources to pay somebody else to conduct research in an area that is almost certain to be more productive.  

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

sbb

[Giulio Prisco]

<Benito Mussolini…>

The book I recommended shows that Mussolini was an answer to the concerns of a large number of Italians, mostly young working class men who had participated in WW1, who were feeling that they had been thrown away in the rubbish bin of history. The Italian political establishment ignored them, and Mussolini was the only one who offered an answer.

I’m not an American and I prefer to keep away from US politics, but I have the impression that the same can be said of Trump.

That an answer is questionable doesn’t mean that the concerns it responds to are not valid. 

< ESP research that had led, just like everybody else's ESP research, precisely nowhere…>

This is your opinion. Others, including top scientists like Stuart Kauffman and winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics like Brian Josephson, think that there’s plenty of solid experimental evidence for ESP. As a scientist who has been working in other fields, I prefer to watch with an open mind. If humans have natural ESP abilities, good! If not, no big deal, we’ll just have to engineer equivalent abilities, and we’re doing this already.

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[William Flynn Wallace]

In this day and age, as they say, why would anyone hire someone to do paranormal research? bill w

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[Giulio Prisco]

On 2023. Jun 7., Wed at 10:31, William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

In this day and age, as they say, why would anyone hire someone to do paranormal research? bill w

I believe the military of all major nations do. Just in case.

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[John Clark]

On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 1:28 PM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> ESP research that had led, just like everybody else's ESP research, precisely nowhere"

> This is your opinion. Others, including top scientists like Stuart Kauffman and winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics like Brian Josephson, think that there’s plenty of solid experimental evidence for ESP.

Brian Josephson was a great scientist and in the early 60's when he was only 22 he wrote an absolutely brilliant paper on superconductivity and won a Nobel Prize for it, but very soon after that he abandoned the scientific method. The parapsychology meme virus infected his mind and thus despite such a spectacular early start to his career he hasn't had a creative thought since then, for the last half century he has accomplished precisely nothing. There seems to be no idea so screwy he can't make himself believe it. The poor man has lost his mind.

As for Stuart Kauffman, he has said some things that I've disagreed with, such as: 

 "if mind is partially quantum, nonlocality is possible so psychokinesis is possible and testable, as is telepathy."

But psi has been tested over and over again, and it keeps on failing. And it's not surprising it failed given that because Bell's Inequality is violated we know that nonlocality is real but we also know that phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information, so it can't be involved in telepathy or signaling by way of psychokinesis.

And Kaufman has said some things that I find puzzling, such as: 

"I can find NO direct evidence for free will, but the quantum enigma requires it and it is possible."

I'll know if I agree or disagree with him about that as soon as he tells me what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean.  

And Kaufman has said some things that I can't make heads or tails out of, such as: 

"Evolution creates the very possibilities into which it becomes, without "selection" "acting" to achieve the very adjacent possible opportunities into which it becomes."

Huh?

John K Clark
 

[Giulio Prisco]

John:

< Brian Josephson was a great scientist and in the early 60's when he was only 22 he wrote an absolutely brilliant paper on superconductivity and won a Nobel Prize for it, but very soon after that he abandoned the scientific method. The parapsychology meme virus infected his mind and thus despite such a spectacular early start to his career he hasn't had a creative thought since then, for the last half century he has accomplished precisely nothing. There seems to be no idea so screwy he can't make himself believe it. The poor man has lost his mind.>

That Josephson was a genius at 22 doesn’t imply that he was always right. But I think it implies that he deserves the benefit of doubt. Perhaps he was right on parapsychology, and his detractors were wrong. Perhaps.

< As for Stuart Kauffman, he has said some things that I've disagreed with, such as: 

 "if mind is partially quantum, nonlocality is possible so psychokinesis is possible and testable, as is telepathy."

But psi has been tested over and over again, and it keeps on failing. And it's not surprising it failed given that because Bell's Inequality is violated we know that nonlocality is real but we also know that phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information, so it can't be involved in telepathy or signaling by way of psychokinesis.>

I think you forgot to add something like “as far as we presently know.” Also, yes, correlation doesn’t imply causation, but this cuts both ways. Even if there’s nothing involved that we would call causation, the correlation is still there. A particle doesn’t “tell” its spin to its entangled pair (again, as far as we presently know), but the spin of its entangled pair is (anti)correlated anyway. If you and I consistently happen to think the same thing, isn’t this telepathy?

< And Kaufman has said some things that I find puzzling, such as: 

"I can find NO direct evidence for free will, but the quantum enigma requires it and it is possible."

I'll know if I agree or disagree with him about that as soon as he tells me what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean.  >

I define the free will of an agent as the ability to do things that are not entirely and uniquely determined by the rest of the universe (that is, the universe minus the agent). Kauffman seems to think more or less the same. Much more in my next book. I plan to have the draft ready by the end of the year, and I’ll invite you to read and criticize the draft.

< And Kaufman has said some things that I can't make heads or tails out of, such as: 

"Evolution creates the very possibilities into which it becomes, without "selection" "acting" to achieve the very adjacent possible opportunities into which it becomes."

Huh?>

I think he means that actual history changes what he calls the “adjacent possible” and creates new possibilities that could (or not) become actual.

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 1:03 PM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Giulio

> > "psi has been tested over and over again, and it keeps on failing. And it's not surprising it failed given that because Bell's Inequality is violated we know that nonlocality is real but we also know that phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information, so it can't be involved in telepathy or signaling by way of psychokinesis."

 

> I think you forgot to add something like “as far as we presently know.

If it turns out that we really can send information faster than light then we'd have to dump both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into the trash, but before we do anything that drastic I'd want to see something a LOT more convincing than a third rate stage magician like Yuri Geller bending a spoon.  

> "Also, yes, correlation doesn’t imply causation, but this cuts both ways. Even if there’s nothing involved that we would call causation, the correlation is still there. A particle doesn’t “tell” its spin to its entangled pair (again, as far as we presently know), but the spin of its entangled pair is (anti)correlated anyway. If you and I consistently happen to think the same thing, isn’t this telepathy?"

But if you're talking about particles, spin, and Stern Gerlach magnets then it could be a perfect correlation, or a perfect anticorrelation, or anything inbetween depending on how different the directions are that you and I independently and arbitrarily decided to call "up". If the difference between what you choose to randomly call "up" and what I choose to randomly call  "up" is ø then the probability there will be a perfect anti-correlation is [COS(ø)]^2.  So you won't know if I'm thinking what you're thinking, or I'm thinking the exact opposite of what you're thinking, or something inbetween. 

> I define the free will of an agent as the ability to do things that are not entirely and uniquely determined by the rest of the universe (that is, the universe minus the agent).

Obviously an agent is not uniquely determined by the external environment but is also determined by the previous state the agent was in, that's one reason two people don't behave the same way when confronted with identical conditions.  Another possibility is that he behaved the way did because he was determined by absolutely nothing, not logic, not emotion, nothing. He did it for no reason, he behaved UNreasonably.  And the very definition of "random" is an action without a cause. In other words you did what you did because of your heredity, or because of your environment, or because of both, or because of neither and you did it for no reason at all and was just an act of pure randomness.

So where does this thing called "free will" enter into this?  I think it's just a case of you don't know what you're going to do until you actually do it, and when you do it you say to yourself I guess I decided to do it of my own free will, but it's no more mysterious than the fact that a computer doesn't know what the answer to the calculation it is working on is until it has finished the computation.

John K Clark

[Giulio Prisco]

John:

< If it turns out that we really can send information faster than light then we'd have to dump both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into the trash…>

All depends on what you mean exactly by “send information.” Space itself can stretch faster than light in GR, naked singularities and closed timelike loop solutions exist in GR, and QM has entangled correlations. 

< the directions are that you and I independently and arbitrarily decided to call "up"…>

The subtle point here is what “independently and arbitrarily” means exactly.

< Obviously an agent is not uniquely determined by the external environment but is also determined by the previous state the agent was in…>

According to conventional Laplacian determinism, both the external environment and the previous state of the agent are determined by the state of the universe long ago, long before the agent existed. Not so in global determinism, where past and future are codetermined in a timeless loop. The agent is an integral and irreducible part of the loop, and this is free will.

Sorry for the very short reply, lots of things to to this morning at the same time, I wish I could do them all in a timeless loop, more soon.

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2023 at 18:36, Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

John:

< If it turns out that we really can send information faster than light then we'd have to dump both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into the trash…>

All depends on what you mean exactly by “send information.” Space itself can stretch faster than light in GR, naked singularities and closed timelike loop solutions exist in GR, and QM has entangled correlations. 

< the directions are that you and I independently and arbitrarily decided to call "up"…>

The subtle point here is what “independently and arbitrarily” means exactly.

< Obviously an agent is not uniquely determined by the external environment but is also determined by the previous state the agent was in…>

According to conventional Laplacian determinism, both the external environment and the previous state of the agent are determined by the state of the universe long ago, long before the agent existed. Not so in global determinism, where past and future are codetermined in a timeless loop. The agent is an integral and irreducible part of the loop, and this is free will.

What you call global determinism is more deterministic (for want of a better term) than causal determinism. If causal determinism is false then there can be truly random events. But in a timeless world, such as a block universe or God’s perception of the universe, even causally undetermined events are fixed. If that is consistent with free will, as compatibilists believe, then we have free will.

Sorry for the very short reply, lots of things to to this morning at the same time, I wish I could do them all in a timeless loop, more soon.

On 2023. Jun 8., Thu at 14:21, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 1:03 PM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Giulio

> > "psi has been tested over and over again, and it keeps on failing. And it's not surprising it failed given that because Bell's Inequality is violated we know that nonlocality is real but we also know that phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information, so it can't be involved in telepathy or signaling by way of psychokinesis."

 

> I think you forgot to add something like “as far as we presently know.

If it turns out that we really can send information faster than light then we'd have to dump both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into the trash, but before we do anything that drastic I'd want to see something a LOT more convincing than a third rate stage magician like Yuri Geller bending a spoon.  

> "Also, yes, correlation doesn’t imply causation, but this cuts both ways. Even if there’s nothing involved that we would call causation, the correlation is still there. A particle doesn’t “tell” its spin to its entangled pair (again, as far as we presently know), but the spin of its entangled pair is (anti)correlated anyway. If you and I consistently happen to think the same thing, isn’t this telepathy?"

But if you're talking about particles, spin, and Stern Gerlach magnets then it could be a perfect correlation, or a perfect anticorrelation, or anything inbetween depending on how different the directions are that you and I independently and arbitrarily decided to call "up". If the difference between what you choose to randomly call "up" and what I choose to randomly call  "up" is ø then the probability there will be a perfect anti-correlation is [COS(ø)]^2.  So you won't know if I'm thinking what you're thinking, or I'm thinking the exact opposite of what you're thinking, or something inbetween. 

> I define the free will of an agent as the ability to do things that are not entirely and uniquely determined by the rest of the universe (that is, the universe minus the agent).

Obviously an agent is not uniquely determined by the external environment but is also determined by the previous state the agent was in, that's one reason two people don't behave the same way when confronted with identical conditions.  Another possibility is that he behaved the way did because he was determined by absolutely nothing, not logic, not emotion, nothing. He did it for no reason, he behaved UNreasonably.  And the very definition of "random" is an action without a cause. In other words you did what you did because of your heredity, or because of your environment, or because of both, or because of neither and you did it for no reason at all and was just an act of pure randomness.

So where does this thing called "free will" enter into this?  I think it's just a case of you don't know what you're going to do until you actually do it, and when you do it you say to yourself I guess I decided to do it of my own free will, but it's no more mysterious than the fact that a computer doesn't know what the answer to the calculation it is working on is until it has finished the computation.

John K Clark

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Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jun 9, 2023 at 1:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If it turns out that we really can send information faster than light then we'd have to dump both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into the trash…>

> All depends on what you mean exactly by “send information.”

I mean that according to the laws of physics as we currently understand them it may be possible to send a causal influence faster than the speed of light but it's impossible to send a signal faster than the speed of light. And by "signal" I mean a causal influence that contains information, and by "information" I mean the thing that we measure by using bits or qubits.

> Space itself can stretch faster than light in GR,

Yes space can move at any speed, but moving space doesn't move information. 

> naked singularities and closed timelike loop solutions exist in GR, and QM has entangled correlations. 

General relativity allows those things but it doesn't demand them, and there is no evidence they actually exist in our universe. And it's not clear to me how even if naked singularities do exist they would allow faster than light communication, but it is clear to me that closed timelike loops would create logical paradoxes.  

>>the directions are that you and I independently and arbitrarily decided to call "up"…

> The subtle point here is what “independently and arbitrarily” means exactly.

 

 I can't prove that superdeterminism is wrong, but I can prove it's silly.

 

> What you call global determinism is more deterministic (for want of a better term) than causal determinism. If causal determinism is false then there can be truly random events. But in a timeless world, such as a block universe or God’s perception of the universe, even causally undetermined events are fixed. If that is consistent with free will, as compatibilists believe, then we have free will.

By that definition a coin has free will when you flip it, and everything having free will is equivalent to nothing having free will because meaning needs contrast and in this case they would no longer be any. 

John K Clark

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2023 at 17:26, John Clark <

> What you call global determinism is more deterministic (for want of a better term) than causal determinism. If causal determinism is false then there can be truly random events. But in a timeless world, such as a block universe or God’s perception of the universe, even causally undetermined events are fixed. If that is consistent with free will, as compatibilists believe, then we have free will.

By that definition a coin has free will when you flip it, and everything having free will is equivalent to nothing having free will because meaning needs contrast and in this case they would no longer be any.

No, the compatibilist definition of free will is the common sense or layperson’s definition: you act “of your own free will” if you do what you want to do rather than being forced. Determinism is irrelevant to this, except that if your actions were undetermined to a significant extent you would be unable to act purposefully and therefore unable to exercise your free will. Daniel Dennett describes this as the only sort of free will worth having.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 1:23 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> By that definition a coin has free will when you flip it, and everything having free will is equivalent to nothing having free will because meaning needs contrast and in this case they would no longer be any.

> No, the compatibilist definition of free will is the common sense or layperson’s definition:

 The common sense definition of "Free Will" makes no sense.

 

> you act “of your own free will” if you do what you want to do rather than being forced.

But why do you want to do it? There are only 2 possibilities, you wanted to do it for a reason or you wanted to do it for no reason, in other words it was random.  There's just no getting around it, you and I are either a roulette wheel or a cuckoo clock. I can live with that.

 

> Determinism is irrelevant to this,

But if somebody forces you to do something by putting a gun to your head then, because of changing circumstances, you now want to do what the person with the gun wants you to do.

> except that if your actions were undetermined to a significant extent you would be unable to act purposefully

If there was no reason for me doing what I did then my actions were unreasonable, a.k.a. random, a.k.a. stupid. That's why artificial intelligence research is so much more interesting than artificial consciousness research.

John K Clark

 

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2023 at 23:07, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 1:23 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> By that definition a coin has free will when you flip it, and everything having free will is equivalent to nothing having free will because meaning needs contrast and in this case they would no longer be any.

> No, the compatibilist definition of free will is the common sense or layperson’s definition:

 The common sense definition of "Free Will" makes no sense.

 

> you act “of your own free will” if you do what you want to do rather than being forced.

But why do you want to do it? There are only 2 possibilities, you wanted to do it for a reason or you wanted to do it for no reason, in other words it was random.  There's just no getting around it, you and I are either a roulette wheel or a cuckoo clock. I can live with that.

Normally you do it for a reason. You pick the chocolate rather than vanilla ice cream because you like chocolate more. It’s your choice because you made it, using your brain. It’s a free choice because no-one held a gun to your head and forced you to choose it. You are responsible for the choice and therefore you have to pay for the ice cream.

> Determinism is irrelevant to this,

But if somebody forces you to do something by putting a gun to your head then, because of changing circumstances, you now want to do what the person with the gun wants you to do.

> except that if your actions were undetermined to a significant extent you would be unable to act purposefully

If there was no reason for me doing what I did then my actions were unreasonable, a.k.a. random, a.k.a. stupid. That's why artificial intelligence research is so much more interesting than artificial consciousness research.

John K Clark

 

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Stathis Papaioannou

[William Flynn Wallace]

> except that if your actions were undetermined to a significant extent you would be unable to act purposefully

As a Determinist I have to say that there is nothing that is undetermined.  Either something in you or in your environment determines behaviors.  Determine = cause      bill  

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[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 6:29 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But why do you want to do it? There are only 2 possibilities, you wanted to do it for a reason or you wanted to do it for no reason, in other words it was random.  There's just no getting around it, you and I are either a roulette wheel or a cuckoo clock. I can live with that.

> Normally you do it for a reason. You pick the chocolate rather than vanilla ice cream because you like chocolate more. It’s your choice because you made it, using your brain. It’s a free choice because no-one held a gun to your head and forced you to choose it. You are responsible for the choice and therefore you have to pay for the ice cream.

It may not have been a gun but something made you choose chocolate rather than vanilla; either that or you chose it for no reason and your choice was random.  We're back to cuckoo clock or roulette wheel.

John K Clark

[Stathis Papaioannou]

Usually the reason is that you prefer the one you choose. If you go with your preference it is called a “free” choice, if you go with the preference of the person holding a gun to your head it is called a “forced” choice. There is a real and important distinction here: people want to be able to make their own choices and they don’t like to be forced. That is the layperson’s understanding of the term “free will”, and most modern philosophers agree that that is all there is to it, and the debates about whether we can be free in a determined world are misguided.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[William Flynn Wallace]

I have read that there are people in science who think that thinking things in terms of cause and effect is old hat, or should be.  We do have a strong tendency to use cause and effect as as understanding of what is going on.  Maybe these people just want to know 'what' and 'how' and leave 'why' out of the question.  Nondeterminists.  bill w

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 at 00:04, William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have read that there are people in science who think that thinking things in terms of cause and effect is old hat, or should be.  We do have a strong tendency to use cause and effect as as understanding of what is going on.  Maybe these people just want to know 'what' and 'how' and leave 'why' out of the question.  Nondeterminists.  bill w

If it’s not determined it’s random. It is still an open question in physics whether there are random events at the quantum level.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 6:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> if you go with the preference of the person holding a gun to your head it is called a “forced” choice. There is a real and important distinction here: people want to be able to make their own choices and they don’t like to be forced

I don't think there is a distinction at all.  People may not want to know they are being forced but they are always being forced whether they know it or not. I wish to eat a candy bar because I'm hungry and I'm hungry because my blood sugar is low, if you put a gun to my head and tell me not to eat it then I no longer wish to eat a candy bar. It could be low blood sugar or it could be a gun but either way I am being forced to act the way I do.  I wish to jump over a mountain but the force of gravity prevents my wish from being fulfilled; does that mean I don't have this thing that you call "free will"?

  John K Clark

[William Flynn Wallace]

I don't think that any creature performs random behaviors.  Just imagine a person behaving randomly: he sits, he sings a line of a song, he twitches his right foot, and so on.  THis is more or less random and you never see anything like it, even in psychotic fits, which I have observed.

Bill w

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

So if someone locks you up in prison, forces you to do things at gunpoint, steals all your money, that’s not a problem for you, because it isn’t fundamentally different to your physiology forcing you to do things.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 7:19 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I don't think there is a distinction at all.  People may not want to know they are being forced but they are always being forced whether they know it or not. I wish to eat a candy bar because I'm hungry and I'm hungry because my blood sugar is low, if you put a gun to my head and tell me not to eat it then I no longer wish to eat a candy bar. It could be low blood sugar or it could be a gun but either way I am being forced to act the way I do.  I wish to jump over a mountain but the force of gravity prevents my wish from being fulfilled; does that mean I don't have this thing that you call "free will"?

>> So if someone locks you up in prison, forces you to do things at gunpoint, steals all your money, that’s not a problem for you, because it isn’t fundamentally different to your physiology forcing you to do things.

Some forces increase my happiness, other forces decrease it.  

John K Clark

 

[William Flynn Wallace]

It could be low blood sugar or it could be a gun but either way I am being forced to act the way I do  stathis

If the gun wasn't there, then you have a choice of eating it or not.  You can suppress your wants, right?  bill w

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

The forces that are felt as an intrusion, decreasing your happiness, result in you “acting against your will”. It is a real and important difference. It is also empirically verifiable: we can observe if someone is forced to do something they don’t want and if we ask they they will tell us about it.

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Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 7:40 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Some forces increase my happiness, other forces decrease it.

> The forces that are felt as an intrusion, decreasing your happiness,

Not necessarily. You would be aware if you won the lottery and it would cause your life to undergo a sudden interruption, but I don't think it would decrease your happiness    

 

> result in you “acting against your will”. It is a real and important difference. It is also empirically verifiable: we can observe if someone is forced to do something they don’t want and if we ask they they will tell us about it.

They are unlikely to be able to tell you about the particular biochemical reaction that caused them to make the choice that they did,  but that doesn't mean they were not forced. 

John K Clark  

 

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Stathis Papaioannou

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[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 7:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You can suppress your wants, right?

Right, you can suppress your wants, but only if you want to. And there is either a reason that you want to or there is not a reason that you want to. It's cuckoo clocks or roulette wheels again.  

John K Clark

 

 

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 at 00:53, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 7:40 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Some forces increase my happiness, other forces decrease it.

> The forces that are felt as an intrusion, decreasing your happiness,

Not necessarily. You would be aware if you won the lottery and it would cause your life to undergo a sudden interruption, but I don't think it would decrease your happiness    

 

> result in you “acting against your will”. It is a real and important difference. It is also empirically verifiable: we can observe if someone is forced to do something they don’t want and if we ask they they will tell us about it.

They are unlikely to be able to tell you about the particular biochemical reaction that caused them to make the choice that they did,  but that doesn't mean they were not forced. 

On this basis you could claim that there is no important difference between any two arbitrary objects or concepts: you just note the similarities and declare the differences unimportant.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[William Flynn Wallace]

If by 'forced' you mean 'involuntary', then I disagree.  Only reflexes are involuntary.  Sure, powerful forces can make us do things, but not 100% of the time.  Martyrs.  bill w

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 at 03:10, William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

If by 'forced' you mean 'involuntary', then I disagree.  Only reflexes are involuntary.  Sure, powerful forces can make us do things, but not 100% of the time.  Martyrs.  bill w

The terms are not infrequently used as synonyms. For example, involuntary, compulsory, mandatory were all used to describe vaccination during the pandemic.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 8:42 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> They are unlikely to be able to tell you about the particular biochemical reaction that caused them to make the choice that they did,  but that doesn't mean they were not forced. 

>On this basis you could claim that there is no important difference between any two arbitrary objects or concepts: you just note the similarities and declare the differences unimportant.

You are absolutely correct. And that's exactly why the common sense definition of the term "Free Will" makes no sense, and that's also why "Free Will" causes so much nonsense and confusion in the fields of philosophy and law.

 John K Clark

 

[Stathis Papaioannou]

There would be confusion in every field if you could arbitrarily ignore differences between concepts and declare them the same.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 10:10 PM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If by 'forced' you mean 'involuntary', then I disagree. 

But I don't mean that because the word  "involuntary" implies volition and volition is a synonym for "will ". So saying "if I did it involuntarily then I don't have free will" is equivalent to saying "if I don't have free will then I don't have free will". Like all tautologies that's certainly true but it's not very useful, especially in a case like this when the very thing you're trying to figure out is the nature of volition.

John K Clark

 

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 6:53 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> You are absolutely correct. And that's exactly why the common sense definition of the term "Free Will" makes no sense, and that's also why "Free Will" causes so much nonsense and confusion in the fields of philosophy and law.

> There would be confusion in every field

Sure, but there is no point in deliberately adding to that confusion, and there are countless examples of the term "free will" adding to confusion and zero examples of it producing more clarity  ... Well...OK... I might be exaggerating a little, there might not be countless examples, but there are an aleph-null infinity of examples of it doing nothing but causing confusion.

 

> if you could arbitrarily ignore differences between concepts and declare them the same.

I'm not asking anybody to ignore anything, I'm just pointing out that  some concepts have many gradations. However "free will" is not a concept, it's just a string of ASCII characters and as such it is not correct and it is not incorrect, it's just gibberish.  

John K Clark

 

 

[Stathis Papaioannou]

It’s pretty clear the way it is used by laypeople, even children. It’s gibberish the way some philosophers and theologians have historically used it. Most modern philosophers are smart enough to recognise the gibberish and call it out.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 7:29 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It’s pretty clear the way it is used by laypeople, even children.

Pretty clear?  If the meaning of "free will" was clear then juries would not be tying themselves up into ridiculous logical knots trying to determine if a murderer was legally sane or not.  If the meaning of "free will" was clear defense lawyers would not be pointing out that their client had a lousy childhood, or had something a little strange in his genome, or pointing to a smudge on a MRI picture of the murderer's brain and saying that smudge made him commit the murder as if any of that had any relevance as to what should be done with the murderer.

> It’s gibberish the way some philosophers and theologians have historically used it.

No. It’s gibberish the way ALL philosophers and theologians have historically used it.

 John K Clark

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 at 12:47, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 7:29 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It’s pretty clear the way it is used by laypeople, even children.

Pretty clear?  If the meaning of "free will" was clear then juries would not be tying themselves up into ridiculous logical knots trying to determine if a murderer was legally sane or not.  If the meaning of "free will" was clear defense lawyers would not be pointing out that their client had a lousy childhood, or had something a little strange in his genome, or pointing to a smudge on a MRI picture of the murderer's brain and saying that smudge made him commit the murder as if any of that had any relevance as to what should be done with the murderer.

Did Donald Trump sexually assault E Jean Carroll? It depends on whether the incident actually happened (that’s part of doing something of your own free will) and whether Carroll consented to the contact “of her own free will”. You don’t think the court should continue these two factors?

> It’s gibberish the way some philosophers and theologians have historically used it.

No. It’s gibberish the way ALL philosophers and theologians have historically used it.

I’m sure you use the “gibberish” all the time. If you go to a restaurant you order something and then pay for it, because you did it of your own free will and are responsible for the bill. You don’t argue that the concept is gibberish, no different to any other physical interaction on the universe, and therefore you aren’t responsible and don’t owe any money. If you did, you would not be able to function in society.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 8:58 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Did Donald Trump sexually assault E Jean Carroll? It depends on whether the incident actually happened

Yes.

 

> and whether Carroll consented to the contact

Yes.

> “of her own free will”.

As to that I can say neither yes or no because it's just a string of ASCII characters that mean nothing . It's the same reason a burp is neither true or falls . 

> You don’t think the court should continue these two factors?

Yes I think the court should consider those two factors, my problem is I don't see a third factor but apparently you do. I don't care if she consented because of her upbringing, or because of her genes, or because of a smudge seen on a MRI photograph of her brain, or because of a random quantum fluctuation. I'm only interested if she consented or not.

> I’m sure you use the “gibberish” all the time. If you go to a restaurant you order something and then pay for it, because you did it of your own free will and are responsible for the bill.

Of my own free will, I consciously chose to go to a restaurant.
Why?  
Because I want to.  
Why ?  
Because I want to eat.  
Why? 
Because I'm hungry?  
Why ? 
Because lack of food triggered nerve impulses in my stomach, my brain 
interpreted these signals as pain, I can only stand so much before I try to 
stop it.  
Why? 
Because I don't like pain. 
Why?  
Because that's the way my brain is wired.  
Why? 
Because my body and the hardware of my brain were made from the information in my genetic code  (lets see, 6 billion base pairs 2 bits per base pair 8 bits per byte that comes out to about 1.5 gig, ) the programming of my brain came from the environment, add a little quantum randomness perhaps and of my own free will I consciously decide to go to a restaurant.

The bottom line is  I ordered the food itand so am responsible for the bill.

 

> You don’t argue that the concept is gibberish, no different to any other physical interaction on the universe, and therefore you aren’t responsible and don’t owe any money. If you did, you would not be able to function in society.

I agree that the concept of responsibility is necessary for a society to function, but there is another concept to consider, justice, and justice and responsibility are intrinsically linked with the concept of punishment. I think the only logical reason to punish anybody for anything is to discourage similar acts in the future; if it can't do that then there is no point to the punishment. It's the difference between justice and vengeance. It's true that the reptilian part of everybody's brain can also sometimes get enjoyment from making somebody we don't like suffer just for the sake of suffering, but I'm not proud of that part of my brain and so the more recently evolved segments of that organ have decided to refuse to defend such a feeling.

John K Clark

 

 

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 at 15:08, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 8:58 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Did Donald Trump sexually assault E Jean Carroll? It depends on whether the incident actually happened

Yes.

 

> and whether Carroll consented to the contact

Yes.

> “of her own free will”.

As to that I can say neither yes or no because it's just a string of ASCII characters that mean nothing . It's the same reason a burp is neither true or falls . 

It means if she actually wanted to go through with it, or at least communicated to Trump that she was happy for him to grope her.

> You don’t think the court should continue these two factors?

Yes I think the court should consider those two factors, my problem is I don't see a third factor but apparently you do. I don't care if she consented because of her upbringing, or because of her genes, or because of a smudge seen on a MRI photograph of her brain, or because of a random quantum fluctuation. I'm only interested if she consented or not.

There is no third factor: consent incorporates all of these things. It includes whether she was intoxicated or intellectually disabled and said “yes”, because that does not count as consent. There are nuances, and that’s why we have courts in the first place: otherwise the punishments could quickly and cheaply be handed out by the police on the spot, like a speeding fine.

> I’m sure you use the “gibberish” all the time. If you go to a restaurant you order something and then pay for it, because you did it of your own free will and are responsible for the bill.

Of my own free will, I consciously chose to go to a restaurant.
Why?  
Because I want to.  
Why ?  
Because I want to eat.  
Why? 
Because I'm hungry?  
Why ? 
Because lack of food triggered nerve impulses in my stomach, my brain 
interpreted these signals as pain, I can only stand so much before I try to 
stop it.  
Why? 
Because I don't like pain. 
Why?  
Because that's the way my brain is wired.  
Why? 
Because my body and the hardware of my brain were made from the information in my genetic code  (lets see, 6 billion base pairs 2 bits per base pair 8 bits per byte that comes out to about 1.5 gig, ) the programming of my brain came from the environment, add a little quantum randomness perhaps and of my own free will I consciously decide to go to a restaurant.

The bottom line is  I ordered the food itand so am responsible for the bill.

 

> You don’t argue that the concept is gibberish, no different to any other physical interaction on the universe, and therefore you aren’t responsible and don’t owe any money. If you did, you would not be able to function in society.

I agree that the concept of responsibility is necessary for a society to function, but there is another concept to consider, justice, and justice and responsibility are intrinsically linked with the concept of punishment. I think the only logical reason to punish anybody for anything is to discourage similar acts in the future; if it can't do that then there is no point to the punishment. It's the difference between justice and vengeance. It's true that the reptilian part of everybody's brain can also sometimes get enjoyment from making somebody we don't like suffer just for the sake of suffering, but I'm not proud of that part of my brain and so the more recently evolved segments of that organ have decided to refuse to defend such a feeling.

And that’s where the nuances concept of responsibility comes into it. If you didn’t do it, or you didn’t know you were doing it, or you did it accidentally, punishing you won’t deter you or deter others like you. Punishing you would harm you and cost the community time and money for no benefit.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 10:40 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is no third factor: consent incorporates all of these things. It includes whether she was intoxicated

The human body operates on chemical energy, if she didn't do what she did because of alcohol she did it because of some other chemical.  

 

> or intellectually disabled

Obviously anybody who wants to have sex with Donald Trump must be pretty stupid, but I don't see the relevance.

 

> and said “yes”, because that does not count as consent.

That's what the lawyer would say, but I am not a lawyer.  

 

> There are nuances,

Yes there are nuances to everything, but you're never gonna get perfect justice especially if you try to stick something called "free will" into the mix. Fortunately pretty good justice is possible, but this is a classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the good and so what we end up with is not perfect justice but crappy justice.  

 

> and that’s why we have courts in the first place: otherwise the punishments could quickly and cheaply be handed out by the police on the spot, like a speeding fine.

It's hard enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what a person did several years previously, it's impossible, and unnecessary, to also prove what was going on inside their head when they did it; unnecessary if your only goals are to protect people and preserve society   

> And that’s where the nuances concept of responsibility comes into it. If you didn’t do it, or you didn’t know you were doing it, or you did it accidentally, punishing you won’t deter you or deter others like you.

 

If while I'm strangling somebody to death I'm thinking nothing but beautiful thoughts and believe that I'm just wring out a wet dish cloth then I must be an extremely dangerous man and must be dealt with appropriately.   A lifetime prison sentence would not guarantee that someday I'd be able to wring out another wet dish cloth, but a few dozen amps passing through my body would solve the problem in less than a minute.

 > you did it accidentally, punishing you won’t deter you or deter others like you. Punishing you would harm you and cost the community time and money for no benefit.

If you could prove that you committed murder because a random cosmic ray particle hit your brain at just the wrong place and prove that it was a one time only event and that a repetition of such a bazaar occurrence is no more likely to be repeated in you than anybody else then yes, in those extremely odd circumstances I would vote not guilty if I was on the jury. But if the cosmic ray particle permanently damaged your brain and turned you into a homicidal maniac then I would vote guilty.

John K Clark

yxw

[Giulio Prisco]

My short take on free will: I’m an integral part of the universe and I’m not uniquely determined by the rest of the universe (the universe without me). Determinism is only global, with retrocausality, therefore in particular I’m not uniquely determined by the state of the universe long before I was born. I’m an integral part of the cosmic feedback loop and a dancer in the cosmic dance. This is free will.

[William Flynn Wallace]

 I think the only logical reason to punish anybody for anything is to discourage similar acts in the future; if it can't do that then there is no point to the punishment. 

Serial killers and murders involving drugs aside, the typical husband kills wife situation yields a curious fact:  they are extremely unlikely to do it again.  Lowest recidivism of any category. You don't have to lock them up to assure that punishment will control future murders - they just won't do it again, so punishment means nothing - no effect.  Of course we punish them anyway.

Which brings up parental attitudes.  In one study a teen was acting out at home and at school - not studying, not doing chores, etc.  So a counselor set up a reward program:  the kid got points for school grades, points for doing chores, etc.  Records were kept and the teen got rewarded with, say TV time, when he had a good week.

Over a period of a few months, the teen really turned into a good kid.  Then the parents wanted to change the program.  They believed that if you did something wrong you should be punished.  Never mind that punishment had no effect, or perhaps ever a deleterious effect.  So they did start to include  punishment for not meeting quotas and the teen reverted to his former acting out.

The triumph of moral beliefs over positive results.  We yeah, we know people are stupid.    bill w

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[John Clark]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 1:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Serial killers and murders involving drugs aside, the typical husband kills wife situation yields a curious fact:  they are extremely unlikely to do it again.  Lowest recidivism of any category.

I question the accuracy of a report like that because it must be based on a very small sample size, there can't be many people who were convicted of murdering their wife who went on to have the opportunity to get married again. I tend to think that in most cases your second murder will be easier than your first period 

> You don't have to lock them up to assure that punishment will control future murders - they just won't do it again, so punishment means nothing - no effect. 

It makes little sense to have a law against murder if there is no punishment for breaking the law,  and punishment does more than just prevent the murderer from committing another murder, it also provides a deterrent to others not to murder their wife.

John K Clark  

 

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[William Flynn Wallace]

John, I am too lazy to do the research, but the issue of deterrence  has been done, of course, and my memory tells me that it just doesn't work for most criminals, least of all for most murderers.  I don't know what the current state of affairs is. So I asked chatgpt:

Controversial.  Many think that such murders are basically emotional, not rational decisions based on anticipation of being punished.

Of course the bot waffled, but sort of came down on the side of no deterrence for murderers.    bill w   

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[Keith Henson]

For me, Minsky had the last word on this concept.

Keith

On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 10:48 AM William Flynn Wallace

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEY5UJvvMYhDTQqtZtvLLWigBLE7Xg-CRhLdMTr0PmL%3DLA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 at 21:39, Keith Henson <hkeith...@gmail.com> wrote:

For me, Minsky had the last word on this concept.

Marvin Minsky was a hard determinist. He thought that you couldn’t be free since your actions were determined by prior events in your brain or environment. But this implies a bad definition of the word “free”: that being free would require that your actions were NOT determined by prior events in your brain or environment, in other words that they just happen for no reason. But no-one has the false belief that their actions happen for no reason, or that that is what freedom would require. 

--

Stathis Papaioannou