Dennett?

[Friam mailing list]

How was Dennett's public lecture?

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[Friam mailing list]

Hi Steve,  want to make sure  you have my new email:
[hidden email]. Best. Stu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Guerin" <[hidden email]>
To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 8:35 AM
Subject: [FRIAM] Dennett?

> How was Dennett's public lecture?
>
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[Friam mailing list]

I enjoyed Dennett's clarity and fairness, and his philosophical bent was
refreshing, but ultimately disappointing.

He explored whether catastrophes can be avoided in a world as
deterministic as Conway's Life.  This may not seem relevant after
Quantum Mechanics, but he claims that there are interesting problems in
the deterministic perspective.  He avoids Conway catastrophes by
bringing in hackers ex machina -- the gods who arrange the gliders and
eaters in such a way that they don't collide. Then, since a universal
Turing machine can be constructed in Life, and since we expect to be
able to implement evolution on computers, he puts the hackers back into
the machine via evolution.  Therefore catastrophes are avoidable (not in
evitable) in deterministic universes.

Cute, but not quite convincing, and not what I would call a serious
answer or even an important question.
-Roger

[Friam mailing list]

Stephen Guerin wrote:
> How was Dennett's public lecture?
>

I thought it was quite interesting.

It certainly was a moment of high dramatic content when the
philosopher/cognitive scientist from Tufts announced to his Santa Fe
audience that he was using Conway's Life as a virtual laboratory for
exploring determinism, and assigning problem sets in it to his students.
  Pity that his chosen version is Windows only -- I've found the source
for a very fast java version.

But I have to say that he appears to have written "Free Will Ignored" to
go along with "Consciousness Ignored", since his discussion of
"determinism does not imply inevitable" sort of ignores the fact that
"determinism does imply determined" which is what every schoolboy means
when they discuss the conflict between free will and determinism.  His
thought seems to be specialized in ducking the subject that it appears
to be addressing, and then he acts hurt when people point it out.
There's a difference between opening a new aspect of an old question and
changing the old question beyond recognition.

That aside, I think the core of the talk was quite cogent.  The point is
that living in a deterministic universe does not mean that life cannot
learn to act in a way that alters the outcome of situations.  Life can
evolve to avoid bad stuff and to pursue good stuff.

It's odd that he seems to have independently converged to Stu's
definition of the agent, as an independent entity which does work to
avoid or pursue an outcome.  (It's also interesting to think what Stu's
science of structures that allow one to perform work cycles would look
like in the virtual lab of Conway's Life.  Or is there no way to define
work in Conway's Life?)

It's even odder that this same language of pursuit and avoidance
permeates Braitenberg's "Vehicles:  Experiments in Synthetic Psychology"
  which is (yikes) almost 20 years old now.

So all we need is someone who can explain how the decision to pursue, to
avoid, or to do nothing can be held in abeyance indefinitely in the
mind, yet still be part of a deterministic universe.

-- rec --

[Friam mailing list]

I was raised as a Presbyterian.  Apparently the official doctrine of that
Church is that souls are predestined for salvation or not.  As they
explained it when I was in high-school, this may be true but you had better
act as if it you had the choice to be a good person or not.  This is
probably a misunderstanding but it came to mind as Dennett was explained his
position.

I felt that the issue is not so much inevitability as predictability which
may be the same thing you mean when you say "determinism does imply
determined" .

Frank
---
Frank C. Wimberly                                   505 995-8715 or 505
670-9918 (mobile)
140 Calle Ojo Feliz                                  [hidden email]
or [hidden email]
Santa Fe, NM 87505
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/wimberly

----- Original Message -----
From: Roger E Critchlow Jr
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dennett?




Stephen Guerin wrote:
> How was Dennett's public lecture?
>

I thought it was quite interesting.

It certainly was a moment of high dramatic content when the
philosopher/cognitive scientist from Tufts announced to his Santa Fe
audience that he was using Conway's Life as a virtual laboratory for
exploring determinism, and assigning problem sets in it to his students.
  Pity that his chosen version is Windows only -- I've found the source
for a very fast java version.

But I have to say that he appears to have written "Free Will Ignored" to
go along with "Consciousness Ignored", since his discussion of
"determinism does not imply inevitable" sort of ignores the fact that
"determinism does imply determined" which is what every schoolboy means
when they discuss the conflict between free will and determinism.  His
thought seems to be specialized in ducking the subject that it appears
to be addressing, and then he acts hurt when people point it out.
There's a difference between opening a new aspect of an old question and
changing the old question beyond recognition.

That aside, I think the core of the talk was quite cogent.  The point is
that living in a deterministic universe does not mean that life cannot
learn to act in a way that alters the outcome of situations.  Life can
evolve to avoid bad stuff and to pursue good stuff.

It's odd that he seems to have independently converged to Stu's
definition of the agent, as an independent entity which does work to
avoid or pursue an outcome.  (It's also interesting to think what Stu's
science of structures that allow one to perform work cycles would look
like in the virtual lab of Conway's Life.  Or is there no way to define
work in Conway's Life?)

It's even odder that this same language of pursuit and avoidance
permeates Braitenberg's "Vehicles:  Experiments in Synthetic Psychology"
  which is (yikes) almost 20 years old now.

So all we need is someone who can explain how the decision to pursue, to
avoid, or to do nothing can be held in abeyance indefinitely in the
mind, yet still be part of a deterministic universe.

-- rec --


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Meets Fridays 9AM @ Museum Hill Cafe
Archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
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[Friam mailing list]

I should have said "predictability in principle".
---
Frank C. Wimberly                                   505 995-8715 or 505
670-9918 (mobile)
140 Calle Ojo Feliz                                  [hidden email]
or [hidden email]
Santa Fe, NM 87505
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/wimberly

----- Original Message -----
From: Roger E Critchlow Jr
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dennett?




Stephen Guerin wrote:
> How was Dennett's public lecture?
>

I thought it was quite interesting.

It certainly was a moment of high dramatic content when the
philosopher/cognitive scientist from Tufts announced to his Santa Fe
audience that he was using Conway's Life as a virtual laboratory for
exploring determinism, and assigning problem sets in it to his students.
  Pity that his chosen version is Windows only -- I've found the source
for a very fast java version.

But I have to say that he appears to have written "Free Will Ignored" to
go along with "Consciousness Ignored", since his discussion of
"determinism does not imply inevitable" sort of ignores the fact that
"determinism does imply determined" which is what every schoolboy means
when they discuss the conflict between free will and determinism.  His
thought seems to be specialized in ducking the subject that it appears
to be addressing, and then he acts hurt when people point it out.
There's a difference between opening a new aspect of an old question and
changing the old question beyond recognition.

That aside, I think the core of the talk was quite cogent.  The point is
that living in a deterministic universe does not mean that life cannot
learn to act in a way that alters the outcome of situations.  Life can
evolve to avoid bad stuff and to pursue good stuff.

It's odd that he seems to have independently converged to Stu's
definition of the agent, as an independent entity which does work to
avoid or pursue an outcome.  (It's also interesting to think what Stu's
science of structures that allow one to perform work cycles would look
like in the virtual lab of Conway's Life.  Or is there no way to define
work in Conway's Life?)

It's even odder that this same language of pursuit and avoidance
permeates Braitenberg's "Vehicles:  Experiments in Synthetic Psychology"
  which is (yikes) almost 20 years old now.

So all we need is someone who can explain how the decision to pursue, to
avoid, or to do nothing can be held in abeyance indefinitely in the
mind, yet still be part of a deterministic universe.

-- rec --


=========================================================
FRIAM Complexity Coffee listserv
Meets Fridays 9AM @ Museum Hill Cafe
Archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

[Friam mailing list]

>It's odd that he seems to have independently converged to Stu's definition of the agent, as an independent entity which does work to avoid or pursue an outcome.

This reminds me of Objectivist ethics, where the definition of a value is "something you act to gain or keep". (Obviously you must do work to gain or keep it.) Time to reread John Galt's speech in "Atlas Shrugged"?

-$ven-

[Friam mailing list]

Roger asks:
  >>Or is there no way to define work in Conway's Life?

Possibly not: it appears to mostly be play. see:
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~cgseife/conway.html

Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On Behalf
Of Roger E Critchlow Jr
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 9:54 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dennett?




Stephen Guerin wrote:
> How was Dennett's public lecture?
>

I thought it was quite interesting.

It certainly was a moment of high dramatic content when the
philosopher/cognitive scientist from Tufts announced to his Santa Fe
audience that he was using Conway's Life as a virtual laboratory for
exploring determinism, and assigning problem sets in it to his students.
  Pity that his chosen version is Windows only -- I've found the source
for a very fast java version.

But I have to say that he appears to have written "Free Will Ignored" to
go along with "Consciousness Ignored", since his discussion of
"determinism does not imply inevitable" sort of ignores the fact that
"determinism does imply determined" which is what every schoolboy means
when they discuss the conflict between free will and determinism.  His
thought seems to be specialized in ducking the subject that it appears
to be addressing, and then he acts hurt when people point it out.
There's a difference between opening a new aspect of an old question and
changing the old question beyond recognition.

That aside, I think the core of the talk was quite cogent.  The point is
that living in a deterministic universe does not mean that life cannot
learn to act in a way that alters the outcome of situations.  Life can
evolve to avoid bad stuff and to pursue good stuff.

It's odd that he seems to have independently converged to Stu's
definition of the agent, as an independent entity which does work to
avoid or pursue an outcome.  (It's also interesting to think what Stu's
science of structures that allow one to perform work cycles would look
like in the virtual lab of Conway's Life.  Or is there no way to define
work in Conway's Life?)

It's even odder that this same language of pursuit and avoidance
permeates Braitenberg's "Vehicles:  Experiments in Synthetic Psychology"
  which is (yikes) almost 20 years old now.

So all we need is someone who can explain how the decision to pursue, to
avoid, or to do nothing can be held in abeyance indefinitely in the
mind, yet still be part of a deterministic universe.

-- rec --


=========================================================
FRIAM Complexity Coffee listserv
Meets Fridays 9AM @ Museum Hill Cafe
Archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com