baba@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (10/07/84)
(ahem) > Others have proposed the notion that the "mind" is not > a physical or extraphysical entity, but is analogous to a program (software) > running on the hardware (brain). As one of those "others", I'd like to point out that the notion of mind-as-program is more a metaphor than an precise analogy. I used it months ago as the easiest way to express to an audience of (mostly) computer-oriented people the notion of organization versus substance. Rich seems to have taken the notion rather too literally. To whit: > This would mean that a program "chooses" to do certain things based on the > "current" state of its "chemicals" (e.g., the CPU instruction address counter, > the data in "memory" and input through sensory channels). Can the program > "choose" arbitrarily to do something (like set fire to the disk drive, or > cause the computer to explode----just like in the movies!!) or can it only > make the "decision" it is programmed to make based on the contents of its > "chemicals". As you say, the agent of decision making in the brain is in > fact the chemicals, and the successive current states of the chemicals > themselves (the ones that "make the decisions" causing other chemical/physical > actions in the body) are DETERMINED by the same physical laws that govern > action in rocks and trees! (and, later) > Again, this is like saying that a program has free will. On the contrary, > barring system errors, a program's functions are deterministic. This sort of thing can make sense if you view the brain as a chemical Babbage cabbage of some kind, but the brain is definitely not a "uniprocessor", and it is by no means certain that the "mind" follows strict if-then-else rules. Certainly, it is conceivable that the mind behaves in a deterministic manner given identical states and stimuli, but it could just as easily (and I think probably) depend on somewhat random stochastic processes when mediating between conflicting stimuli. If we must use EE terminology, consider the CSMA/CD access technique used by the Ethernet, which, if you use radioactive decay to drive your collision backoff interval, will result in an eminently usable system, but one in which the order of packet transmissions from a set of hosts CANNOT BE PREDICTED. (Thus satisfying one condition of free will ;-) > Now you might say, "that's a bogus restriction: saying that all the variables > must be the same in order for it to be guaranteed to act in the same way". Did someone say that? > Well, that's what determinism is: given the same set of external and internal > variables, things will act in the same way. You might say "but then, there's > an agent of choice: the chemicals themselves 'choose' based on the external > input data!" Then again, I might not. > Sorry, again. The chemicals just do what they're supposed to > do given a certain set of circumstances (external variables). Thus, it's the > world around you, consisting of external variables input into the brain > through sensory channels, that is the agent of your free will. And that's > not free will at all, is it? Well, what is free will? The best definition I've seen put forth on the net is the inability to consistently and deductively predict the behavior of an entity, no matter how much is known about the entity and its environment. By this definition, electrons have free will, which may be OK, but I would add the further restriction that the entity be self-aware. Since we are not at this time capable of objectively examining the state of the mind at all (and much less capable of doing so non-destructively), we cannot make any observations as to how it goes about changing state. Both deterministic and nondeterministic hypotheses of human behavior are unprovable for the moment. Baba