Free Will

Well I am sorry but I am not into philosophy.
I think philosophy is ability to create 500 hundered pages long book without saying anything but only making it look as it means something because sentences are grammaticly correct.
For me philosophy was unsuccesfull attempt to understand nature by locking your selfl inside of dark room and then trying to figure out how world works simply by thinking about it.
Philosophy was a big failure and gave absolutly no answers about our world just a bunch of speculations.
Now, I have nothing about speculations as a starting point to try to design and create experiments that might prove it correct or wrong as it is done in science.
But if those speculations remain just that then we have endless conversations about what might be and no argumets that can be used to prove any of those.

After philosophy came science and provided us with real knowledge about how nature probably works. Every assumption that science does is there to be replaced with new theories as soon as some new knowledge that doesn't fit in old assumption is aquiered.

Now if you want to have theory where reality is just product of our mind, or if you say something like object circels around subject or subject circules aroun object this is all greate but people can inventd infinite number of such hypoteticl theories. And from the sea of such different interpratations of world which one to choose. Do we choose the one which is backed by inifinte number of experiments, makes sense and it is quite easy to understand, or do we stick to those that didn't make a single step forward after being defined, use some hard to understand terms in which everyone gets lost, have no backup in any experiments and so on.

In order to function we need to make decisions.
In order to make decisions we need to have some rules which we follow to make those decisions.
You know where I stand and how I see the world.

Choose any of the alternative positions on how the world functions, choose some situation and provide solution which would follow from that theory.

Fine,

but I'll leave you to ponder one quotation which I suggest is the reason that you posted here in the first place.

Well I would say that criteria for "worth leaving" depends on how we are programmed. If we are programmed to have to leave in a green room and as soon as we get deprived of that we commit suicide because we are programmed to think "It is not worth leaving unless I am in a green room".
Many people live to indulge their emotions, some need to suffer to feel alive. It all depends on the programm and there can be inifinte number of different programs.
Most people don't want truth, they don't go about trying to understand how things work. Those people prefere to think that truth is what they want it to be and therefore invent terms like God, free will, heaven, spirits and so on.

What I don't understand about your position is your failure to see its inconsistency. Namely, as soon as you talk about "program" you imply "intent by a programmer" but that of course leads down a path to "divine purpose".

Its no good trying to rehash the definition of "program" in terms of "conditioning". That won't wash. So your only alternative is to give up your simplistic computer jargon and move into mainstream philosophical dialogue about "consciousness", "knowledge" and "existence".

So how do you think I should call "result of the program" if this is what I think is bothering you?
I also think we should use as simple language as possible to transfer our thoughts.
For instance I don't know what consusnes means (I can't even spell it ).

We are somewhat pre-programmed by our genes, culture and environment. However, within each culture, there are so many variables at play it's impossible to pin-point to any "program (as in computer)."

Why not.
Computer can have as many variables as it is designed to use.
Number of variables doesn't change the principles how computer works.
Computer that works on one variable follows the same principals as computer that works on million variables.
Calculation process might be more complex, results of such process might be seen as more complex but at the end it oil boils down to sending electrical impulses to different muscles, releasing some chemicals like adrenalin, whatever.
Physical laws don't change just because some system is complex and lest nobody has yet observed this to be true.

Your correct materialist position vori confuses c.i. He's only a materialist when he wants to be.

ci,

Genes certainly "program structure" and those structures are necessary for "life function" but not sufficient for it. Organic functioning involves the interactions between different genetic structures and interactions with their unstructured "world". On the other hand computer programming is both necessary and sufficient for artificial functioning according to the purposes of the programmer.

...which is essentially what you said ci !

What does this mean: "On the other hand computer programming is both necessary and sufficient for artificial functioning according to the purposes of the programmer."
Once again I must say I have very hard time following you.

And what's with the genes. They are just one of many influence that model our brain and how it functions. You can introduce chemicals, high electric voltage, organic implants whatever to change how your brain works. We are now designing computers using sand but in the future we might be able to construct brain like computers/structures using exact material our brain is made. And how such artificialy created brain will have to look like doesn't have to be defined through genese as nature is doing. It can be defind by some 3D computer model, or by some mathematical formular like Artificial Neural Netwriks are currently designed, or by some new programming language specialy designed for this purpose.

Genes are nothing more then instructions, invented by nature, on of how to make things. You can think of genes as a simple programming language like JAVA or C++ which simple says put that molecule there and the other one on top of it and so on.

When, if ever, you realize that phrases like your "invented by nature" constitute a particular philosophical position, we might start communicating. Until then you are preaching (yes preaching) the reductionist case. Preachers don't listen to ideas which don't fit their framework. Your "don't understand" actually means "won't understand".

computer programming is both necessary and sufficient for artificial functioning according to the purposes of the programmer.

But I really didn't understand what you wanted to say with that last sentence and I really wanted some extra explanation which is why I asked for more info. People who don't want to understand don't ask questions and when they don't understand something they ussually don't admit it from fear.

I know that my view of the nature probably has some name in philosphy. With all these posts I am just trying to point out why I think that this view is better then all the others.

And I am listening to the ideas you have. For instance when you say, in another thread, that language is needed to think I try to give you counter arguments as why I think this is not so.

And I try to construct those arguments in the simplest possible manner. I am trying to make my posts as simple as possible, with lots of simple examples using simple words and terms and I think that you probably didn't have problem understanding any of my posts.

On the other hand your posts are ussually very short and at least for me very hard to understand becuase you are using some very complicated alien constructs. It doesn't seem to me that you are acctually to motivated to make your posts easy to understand.

Also I think you will be very much suprised as how much effort I am giving trying to understand position of anyoneone I am discussing with.
I never go into discussion expecting that I can convince that other guy that my way of thinking is correct. I don't know why is this so but through my experience it was shown that this was mission impossible. So I discuss things trying to find the answer for that. I discuss things trying to understand how that other person thinks and how it is possible that he can't see what I see wen what I am seeing seems so simple, logical and easy to understand and follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_sufficient_conditions

Quite frankly, if you don't understand these basic logical terms you will be out of your depth in any debate.

Will you define any fresco?

Ehm, but of course I understand what it means necessary and sufficient, they sure are some basic terms, but I am not quite sure in what sense were you using them in your sentence:
"computer programming is both necessary and sufficient for artificial functioning according to the purposes of the programmer."

Are you using necessary to say that "artificial functioning" can only be achieved through computer programming?

Are you using sufficient to say that for "artificial functioning" you can use computer programming and don't need anything else?

What does it mean: "according to the purposes of the programmer"

Intelligent organisms/systems/computers don't need to be created with any purpose in mind. For instance nature didn't create us to have some purpose. We were created through long sequence of random changes. Those changes which were proven usefull to the organism were transfered into next generation. Those changes that were proven very bad for their owners got them killed before they had chance to reproduce and transfer those changes to the next generation.

This also shows that computer programming is not necessary for artificial functioning. Simple take a bucket, throw in some random stuff, cook it for a while electrify it and wait few milion years for life to crawl out. You will get artificial functioning organisms that can climb walls although they weren't created with specific purpose in mind to climb walls.

All this might completely miss the target if I missuderstood what you ment with "computer programming". This is why I asked you to clarify your statement. Did you by "computer programming" meant tha someone has to sit in front of computer and write some code or maybe you meant somethig else?

vori
Its all rather simple really.

When you write


You have made the unfounded assumption that natural systems are the same as artificial systems. You seem to make this assumption from the observation that some artificial systems can be purposefully manufactured to mimic natural systems in very limited respects. Your inductive illogic then leads to ridiculous claims equivalent to such statements as:
" because planes mimic some of the aspects of bird behaviour, we can explain "the bird" including its nesting behaviour and courtship rituals."

Thus, "the physics of flight" is both necessary and sufficient for the purposes of a plane designer but ONLY necessary NOT sufficient for the life of a bird.

1. You have made the unfounded assumption that natural systems are the same as artificial systems. You seem to make this assumption from the observation that some artificial systems can be purposefully manufactured to mimic natural systems in very limited respects.

Well not really.
I am using this examples of artificial systems that mimic human behaviour to show how different human capabilities are not really that special/mysical/unique as considered by some and can be easily duplicated/copied to some extend and in some cases makinf them look silly compared to computers like playing chess, calculating lots of numbers, memorizing stuff and so on.

My assumption that artificial system could do everythin that natural system does is based on the assumption that both of those system are created from the same stuff, atoms. And if this is so then it is only a question of rearanging them in correct complex way to get the exact same behaviour of human or bird.

But what you don't "get" is that we've invented "atoms" etc for our own predictive purposes. They have no existence in their own right.

We invented word atom which we then use to label some our observation.
That observation which we decided to call atom might exist objectivly or it might be imagined by us but I thought that we agreed that we can't know which one of those is truth and that we are not discussin any more if something exists on their own or if it is just some kind of product of our brain.

So when you say "They have no existence in their own right." I am a bit confused because I thought that since we can't now that we will not assume that nor discuss tit.