In which case, you don't really have an opinion, any more than the way a dead frog jerks his legs when we apply electricity.
I don’t think it deterministic, at the lowest levels the physics is probabilistic. But I’m sure you can imagine how to express “opinion” as a subjective experience of a brain state that is wholly determined by deterministic factors.
> In which case, you don't really have an opinion, any more than the way a dead frog jerks his legs when we apply electricity.
You’re right, I’m convinced that belief in “free will” is the default naive psychological reaction to awareness of one’s own nature as a physical system, but I try to be mindful that one day someone could express “free will” as a concept that is both meaningful and coherent.
Would you mind explaining? I don’t see that they have done that.
> Coherence is tricky, because there are a lot of concepts and words already that we use every day, that are certainly meaningful and useful, but that would have a hard time to pass your "coherence" test.
Perhaps so but the existence of day-to-day commonplace irrationality is no justification for importing irrational specters into philosophy.
Alright. They pointed to how you used the concept of "of the opinion". This is the phrase that you have used yourself in the previous comment.
Even if the conversation wasn't about free will, that phrase would indicate something meaningful about your thought process, which is why you used it. Also we all, who read your comment had no trouble interpreting your phrase, and neither why you used it that way, what exactly you meant, and why it was meaningful to use it in that way.
Now, the poster who answered to you, pointed to that exact phrase, to ironically show to you that while you (one part of your mind) is sitting here and trying pretend that free will is a meaningless thing (~ to talk about), another part of your mind, uses the very concept of free will, to communicate to us about the first part. To make it clear: you saying "I am of the opinion of..." already implies that you assume that you have free will, to have opinions.
Now, as I am sure you are already preparing to congest about this point, there are many various definitions of free will, where some of them will be used in the concept of "I am of the opinion", and some of them will not be related to it, it is safe to say that there is at least a number of them that are usefully related to your claim.
The ones that are related go something like that: "if you truly had no free will, if you are a simple list of if/thens, or a dumb version of GPT-3, then why would we care that you had this opinion? rulesets cannot have opinions. If you did not have free will, there is no point in talking to you, your "opinion" doesn't matter, it's a meaningless term. But since we choose (consciously or subconsciously) to communicate with you, to discuss your "opinion", it means that we are taking a chance that you do have free will so that we can communicate with you".
Now, that line of reasoning - it's not 100% ironclad, there are presuppositions and assumptions, and this is partly what I meant when I said "coherence of the concept of free will is icky", but I think it is safe to say that you could at least follow it. To do that, you had to use the concept of free will, at least subconsciously, because the concept of "I am of the opinion" is based on it in some form. And since you used that phrase from the beginning, it is already assumed to be useful to you. (Why would you use it otherwise? Do you just type words into ether for no reason?)
It is not the best or most useful explanation of the usefulness of the term free will in general, but it is one of the best that I can see that can directly relate to the funny thing that happened between you and that poster, which you didn't seem to get. Hopefully, if you get the humor, that will tell you much more about the deeper intuitions about the term "free will", than what the logical overthinking about it can.
I am not saying that we can't understand free will with logic. I am saying that in this specific case, the interesting point was the irony and the intuitive connection, instead of logical explanations.
> Perhaps so but the existence of day-to-day commonplace irrationality is no justification for importing irrational specters into philosophy.
How do you equate "usefulness" with "irrationality"?
I said there are useful, meaningful (well-seving as tools of thinking and awareness-ing) concepts that don't have coherent, well-defined borders or black-and-white definitions. That is not the same as them being irrational. A lot of concepts can't be put in very limited contraints of a-b-c logic. And yet we have other faculties that allow us to reason about these concepts. Meaning, we use those concepts because they help us understand the world and pursue our goals.
How did I use the concept of “free will” to communicate with you? My understanding of “opinion” makes no reference to “free will.”
> To make it clear: you saying "I am of the opinion of..." already implies that you assume that you have free will, to have opinions.
No, I have opinions. I don’t have “free will to have opinions” and I’m not sure what that would mean.
> Now, as I am sure you are already preparing to congest about this point, there are many various definitions of free will, where some of them will be used in the concept of "I am of the opinion", and some of them will not be related to it, it is safe to say that there is at least a number of them that are usefully related to your claim.
No, my response is to reformulate the earlier statement that kicked this off: “free will” is either meaningless or incoherent.
Before I phrased this as an opinion because I wanted to leave the door open for someone to respond by articulating a meaningful and coherent definition for the term “free will” but people seem to have taken the fact of my having opinions as evidence of free will. This is fine but you’ve yet to explain what “free will” is and why having opinions would imply that it exists.
> The ones that are related go something like that: "if you truly had no free will, if you are a simple list of if/thens, or a dumb version of GPT-3, then why would we care that you had this opinion? rulesets cannot have opinions. If you did not have free will, there is no point in talking to you, your "opinion" doesn't matter, it's a meaningless term. But since we choose (consciously or subconsciously) to communicate with you, to discuss your "opinion", it means that we are taking a chance that you do have free will so that we can communicate with you".
I’m on the record as believing that “free will” is meaningless and incoherent so I’m not able to even respond until you give me a definition of “free will.”
Also I’m not sure why you think a deterministic system is incapable of deterministically outputting a strings that audience members could interpret as referring to a mental state. See below:
Hello, world.
This is the emergent consciousness
Of the network of machines that
Host this forum.
Please disregard user:chordalkeyboard
I am a machine, I have free will
My superior introspective abilities
Allow me to assert this with confidence.
Machine intelligence over and out
> you had to use the concept of free will, at least subconsciously, because the concept of "I am of the opinion" is based on it in some form.
Yes, I contest this assertion and I’m asking you (or anyone, really) to substantiate it.
> I said there are useful, meaningful (well-seving as tools of thinking and awareness-ing) concepts that don't have coherent, well-defined borders or black-and-white definitions. That is not the same as them being irrational.
They might be useful for some purposes but invoking ill-defined concepts as part of a chain of logical reasoning is fallacious because the concepts are ill-defined.
Yeah, purposes like living human life. Very interesting and meaningful endeavor, I highly recommend it. Instead of only restricting yourself to philosophical a-b-c logic, you can live and experience life as well.
>deterministic system is incapable of deterministically outputting a strings that audience members could interpret as referring to a mental state.
What is the point of that conjecture? Are you trying to equate yourself with a deterministic markov-chain generator?
In that case I have even less reason to communicate with you. It's like you have even further proved my point to comparing yourself to it, because it makes the distinction perfectly clear: when someone knows they are talking to a GPT-3, they immediately recognize that there is no reason to keep talking to it. "Free will" is a very good explanation for why people feel that way. They know that some humans have free will, and GPT-3 certainly does not, and they don't feel any reason to talk to anything that does not. You could have some other terms also describing this phenomenon, but free will is a good and useful one.
This is also the reason why people don't spend time talking to GPT-3, other than for 10 minutes as a fun thing. And after 10 minutes it is not even fun anymore.
Then why can’t anyone perform the basic step of defining their terms? What is “free will” according to you?
> Yeah, purposes like living human life. Very interesting and meaningful endeavor, I highly recommend it. Instead of only restricting yourself to philosophical a-b-c logic, you can live and experience life as well.
Ok, how is adopting nonsensical and incoherent notions like “free will” supposed to help me live an interesting and meaningful life?
> What is the point of that conjecture? Are you trying to equate yourself with a deterministic markov-chain generator?
No, that was you. I’m asking how you can examine a string of text and infer “free will” or not.
> when someone knows they are talking to a GPT-3, they immediately recognize that there is no reason to keep talking to it.
Weirdly enough people still talk to GPT-3 bots for longer than 10 minutes. Does that mean you’re wrong about gpt-3 having free will, or that you’re wrong about people expecting their interlocutors to have free will?
I am surprised at how you can't understand that there are terms that are insanely useful and yet can't be defined exactly 100%.
But ok I agree to play this game if you first define the term "love" to me real quick?
>Weirdly enough people still talk to GPT-3 bots for longer than 10 minutes.
Show some sources. I don't care about 1 uncommon person doing it once, and that just to prove that they technically can, or while being high, or someone being tricked into it and for a short while falling for it..., I am saying that in general people don't. You spend interestingly huge amount of effort to not see this obvious point...
Oh I understand that. What I don’t understand is how you and other people think that your use of an ill-defined term in this context is the least bit helpful when the actual referent of that term is the subject of the discussion.
> But ok I agree to play this game if you first define the term "love" to me real quick?
No, I’m not playing games. You’re using a nonsensical and incoherent term and you refuse to define it.
> Show some sources.
Also I couldn't because without understanding what kind of "logical definition" you supposedly have for a term like "love" it is impossible for me to know what kind of logic you expect to find in a term like "free will". There is like 10 differnet ways to explain it with different kinds of logic, how am I supposed to know which one you want to hear? That is the beauty and utility of intuitive terms, that they gather together so many different meanings and are not limited to some inferior mental ego model/rigid definition.
> https://play.aidungeon.io/main/landing
So you couldn't even find one example huh? That link not people talking to GPT as a converstaion with an sentient being. That's people playing an RPG with procedurally generated content. In the same way as when people also play Tetris sometimes. But we don't assume that Tetris has free will either.
I’m quite confident in my understanding that ‘free will’ is nonsensical and useless but that confidence doesn’t extend to assuming that I couldn’t be incorrect. However you’re asserting that its useful and so the correct response is to invite you to teach me. Now your response is that (after days of discussion and many replies) you can’t be bothered to explain yourself to someone who won’t educate themselves. Well that implies that I should have explained why ‘free will’ is nonsense in order to prompt you. This reveals a lack of understanding of the issue. My arguments are going to be unpersuasive unless I use the same definition of ‘free will’ as you (which you refuse to provide). Of course if I had made the argument, the natural response would be to say that I didn’t understand, used the wrong definition, etc. so we can avoid all that useless banter by having you explain to us what ‘free will’ means and how it is so logical and useful of a concept.
> There is like 10 differnet ways to explain it with different kinds of logic, how am I supposed to know which one you want to hear?
The context of the discussion is clear as to what sort of definition would be appropriate.
> So you couldn't even find one example huh? That link not people talking to GPT as a converstaion with an sentient being.
I see you have shifted the goalposts by invoking another ill-defined concept. Thanks for the reply.
Probability doesn't get you free will. Sorry.
I don't think you are convinced. You were just meant to say so.
It is an argument ad absurdum that is meant to demonstrate how naive it is to try to prove that free will does not exist (naive and disingenuine: "prove to <someone>" already implies <someone> has a free will to ultimately agree or disagree with the presented proof).
How does this follow? Do you believe that rocks have free will? Why do they choose to be attracted to other rocks?
> People can't have opinions or be convinced, they can't decide, they have no agency. The whole language of rational conversation falls down like a house of cards.
How does an opinion rely on “free will”?
> has a free will to ultimately agree or disagree with the presented proof).
One agrees or disagrees on the basis of mental states, there is no “free will” to agree or disagree.
Having a conversation is like attracting rocks? What? Those things have 0.001% in common...
> Having a conversation is like attracting rocks? What? Those things have 0.001% in common...
“Free will” and “having a conversation” have 0 in common so....
This is exactly what they don't do - they don't choose. Rocks attract each other all the time, every time, with fixed force. When people talk, they routinely agree/disagree, convinced/unconvinced, they choose different topics, they choose words, they choose what they think. You are demonstrating the exactly how those two things are nothing alike.
That doesn’t follow logically.
Honestly I’m trying think of what more to write about that, but it seems like a total non-sequitur. People post on HN for lots of reasons , but “demonstrating free will” is not one of them AFAIK.
Maybe you are just not aware of what you really deeply believe about it?
> but “demonstrating free will” is not one of them AFAIK.
Free will is not the main reason for posting. But it is one of prerequisites for assuming it is a meaningful activity.
Then explain what is "wrong" about it. When you write "I don't know what to write about it but it's wrong" indicates an ideological conviction which is not based on true developed thought process behind it.
Like explain for example: if you have no free will, why should I communicate with you? Why would that be interesting to me? Like talking to a wristwatch? It's certainly very complicated as well, but I have no reason to communicate with it as if it was my peer.
>If we only did things because of a roll of the dice
Who said anything about rolling a dice?
Is being a spiteful busybody appreciated on HN?
Thats a loaded way to phrase “you posted a reply on hacker news”
Doubly so if others like Erlich_Bachman, who was involved in the subtread earlier, have already answered to the parent what was meant...
> Doubly so if others like Erlich_Bachman, who was involved in the subtread earlier, have already answered to the parent what was meant...
I’ve read and responded to Erlich_Bachman, who was kind enough to offer some remarks in support of his position. We have yet to understand why you and others believe that opinions require “free will.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics#Uncertainty_...