Freewill

[Kuciwalker]

Dammit, Aggie said something intelligent. Now I'm confused

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Weeeelllllllllll... that's sort of true and sort of false.

A nerve pretty much either fires or doesn't fire. The brain conveys intensity by the rate at which the nerve fires.

It also fires or not based on a much more complicated logical structure than do logic gates in a computer. And with much higher errors.

[Kuciwalker]

That doesn't correspond to a spectrum of possible outputs. I can have a complicated program that returns only a 1 or a 0.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


My issue with that is that it applies equally to people as to electrons (well, not so much electons, since they have a manageable number of possible states, but definately to something like amoebae). Thus the free will = sentience claim. In addition, I think free will would exist in a purely deterministic world.

Amoebae have free will. Just less than you or I.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Amoebae have free will. Just less than you or I.

I'd have to disagree with your definition of free will, then, which renders this rather moot.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
That doesn't correspond to a spectrum of possible outputs. I can have a complicated program that returns only a 1 or a 0.

Your output is not simply a string of 1s and 0s, though. You need timing on those outputs to fully comprehend the output. Thus it is a spectrum of possible respones.

You're misconstruing the parameters of the problem.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I'd have to disagree with your definition of free will, then, which renders this rather moot.

I'm the only one to present a reasonable definition of it, though

(and one which I came up with when I was 15, I might add)

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Your output is not simply a string of 1s and 0s, though. You need timing on those outputs to fully comprehend the output. Thus it is a spectrum of possible respones.

You're misconstruing the parameters of the problem.

I'd also like to point out that in no way, shape or form should I ever be confused with a biologist of any sort.

I just know that neurons are a hell of a lot more prone to quantum uncertainty than are logic gates.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Your output is not simply a string of 1s and 0s, though. You need timing on those outputs to fully comprehend the output. Thus it is a spectrum of possible respones.

Which is what I said before.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I'd also like to point out that in no way, shape or form should I ever be confused with a biologist of any sort.

I just know that neurons are a hell of a lot more prone to quantum uncertainty than are logic gates.

This is true, both because the processing mechanisms inside the neuron (of which we know little) are most likely proteins, and their interactions are just quantum-mechanical, and because the firing mechanism is prone to being set off by a small degree of randomness (as soon as the neuron fires a little bit, it fires all the way).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I'm the only one to present a reasonable definition of it, though

(and one which I came up with when I was 15, I might add)

I consider my definition reasonable.

(I also came up with it when I was 15 )

[KrazyHorse]

check your PMs

[Agathon]

If you really want to be free, you need to be free of your own character and do a Luke Rinehart.