DEFINITION OF PROCESS

Edit: And maybe even definition of reality!

You've explicitly agreed to it in an earlier post the other day but it's also directly implied in your sole use of counterfactuals and possible worlds analysis of choice.

Do you deny that I can't select either disjunct in the actual world? Remember the bagel/toast discussion?

I seriously question your ability to reconstruct an argument if you can't pick out the premises, the argument, and the conclusion in my analysis of choice and having a range of options.

What's your academic training in, again?

A conceptual analysis starts from an agreed-upon starting place (your definition) and then proceeds from there. If where I arrive is different from what you mean, then you must criticize my argument. I started with your own premises.

Your definition is fine, but it's irrelevant. If we both agree that processes exist within reality, then given the premise that reality is information, that implies that processes are information (technically that they exist within information, but it's a small jump).

Cite? Maybe I was confused.

I haven't done an analysis of choice. If I did, at this point it certainly wouldn't include counterfactuals because it's clear that any discussion of possibility within the context of choice is just throwing things off.

I deny that possibilities can ever exist in the actual world. But I'm not getting into that again, we shouldn't be talking about possibility. It's a red herring.

You never agreed to my definition.

You agreed to the words in my definition, and then went and defined those words in a manner I never agreed to.

We have no agreed-upon starting place here.

If we just ignore the meanings of the words, then everything makes sense!

If the definitions are fine, then a process is not an arrangement of information.

Consider the following sentence:

Now, if I write that sentence, are you going to allow me to pick the meanings of the individual words to make it suit my ends, or are you going to consent to the idea that, PERHAPS, it might be useful to say that the meanings of the words cannot be changed at the whim of the speaker?

The meanings of the words can be defined however you like, the logic still holds. That logic is based on the syntax, not the meanings.

"xadnok is inside blogles.
porfrair is inside xadnok.
Therefore, porfrair is inside blogles."

The only thing you need for that is the transitivity of "inside."

It's not a small jump. It's sweeping the meaningful details under the rug. You can't just rearrange things however you want and call it an argument via syntax.

Let's use a more concrete example, to minimize your ability to hand-wave your way through the words:

process -> sequence
reality -> countable Cartesian product of rational numbers
information -> a representative of an irrational number in the sense of Cauchy sequences

If we agree that a sequence exists within the countable Cartesian product of rational numbers, then given the premise that a sequence is a representative of an irrational number in the sense of Cauchy sequences, that implies that countable Cartesian products of rational numbers are representatives of irrational numbers in the sense of Cauchy sequences.

You're full of equivocation! What it means to "exist" or to "exist within" or to "be" are all different concepts. You can't even play the syntax card because you're not even dealing with syntax. You're just throwing out words and pretending like it means something.

Are you kidding me? We had an extended discussion of how to properly include a discussion of possibility and in terms of being necessary for choice. You used a counterfactual interpretation of possibility and I argued that this was irrelevant. We started as discussing the differences between the libertarian and the compatibilist and I argued that your account of possibility doesn't distinguish between the two positions but what you called 'temporal' possibility does. I then argued how we have to use that sense to distinguish between the two positions.

That means that the battle ground is whether temporal possibility is required for responsibility (the libertarian says 'yes' the compatibilist says 'no'). In order to have this argument, we moved into the analysis of choice. We agreed that choice is required for responsibility. I then argued that choice cannot exist in a deterministic system using your definition.


But, I mean seriously, are you really this bad at philosophical thinking that you can't understand how a conceptual analysis works?

You gave a definition to which I agreed is a suitable definition of choice.

Choice = df, Selecting from a range of options.

Now, a definition only works if it takes something less well known and puts it in terms of something more well known. So, it's unhelpful if we don't know what 'selecting from a range of options' means. So, we have to analyze the terms of the definition.

I analyzed what it means to have a 'range of options'.

So, what's wrong with my analysis?

Also, it's worth noting that you've now shifted your position from "use the dictionary" to "the meanings of the words can be defined however you like." If you don't see that as a fundamental shift in how you're attempting to defend your position, then there's clearly something wrong with your brain.

I already acknowledged the jump in that. You can't just remove parentheses from the equation.

It doesn't matter so long as the argument uses the same term throughout.

But again, the onus here is on you.

When you stopped talking about the concepts we're discussing and started talking about the logical structure, the meanings of the terms ceased to be relevant.

If you were to claim that "a -> b" ~-> "~b -> ~a" then the meanings of "b" and "a" would not be relevant with respect to that.

But it's not a small jump. It's a failed jump!

Exists within != is. QED

Let me translate this:

"When I realized that my position regarding the definitions of words such as 'process' and 'n-tuples' led to nonsense statements, I changed my tact from talking about logical structures."

But now I'm telling you that your argument of logical structures is flawed because you're playing a game with the words "exists within" and "is." Where else can you run?

Don't tell me... the meaning of those words don't matter, either.

I said that any accepted definition including possibility is compatible with counterfactual possibility. I didn't say that my definition requires it.

Exactly. Which is why a definition including the term "range of options" DOES NOT WORK when we know less about the phrase "range of options" than we do about the word "choice" itself.

We don't have an agreed-upon definition of choice.

It has absolutely nothing to do with what I mean when I say "range of options," is what.

In that case, it's a failed jump because additional agreed-upon premises contradict the premises needed to make the jump.

You said you couldn't comprehend how reality being information can imply that n-tuples can be processes. I gave you an answer, I didn't think I'd have to be too detailed in order for you to understand it.

It's fairly easy to go from one to the other in the case of n-tuples. Plus the original idea, way back at the top, is that choice can exist within a deterministic universe (choice is the process we're talking about and the n-tuple is the universe we're talking about). You were the one originally playing games by taking the claim I'm defending ("this process can exist within that n-tuple") and stating it using "is" ("an n-tuple isn't a process").

The only thing I'm doing when I use "within" is changing it back to the original terms in the first place.

You need at least some kind of memory to have a decision algorithm.
But anyway... I do think that responsability isn't binary... there are shades of responsability, there might be cases where it isn't clear. So what? I'm happy with asigning responsability using some kind of heuristic.

In actual cases where we have to decide whether a (potential) agent was responsible for an act we have to use some kind of heuristic anyway (even more so in a libertarian universe).

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

An automaton is an example of a machine that does not require any kind of memory, but it seems that under your definition it would be making a decision. All it does it respond to data input. Do you agree or disagree?

But what is that heuristic? (And it doesn't matter whether what the implications are for a libertarian universe. That's not what we're talking about.)

Also, can you explicitly answer the questions:

Oh, by all means. Make a completely new set of assumptions that you're going need now.

I was hoping you would at least make a sensible argument.

If you're telling me it's a syntactic argument, you lose. If you tell me it's dependent upon the definitions, you lose. Therefore, the way to avoid admitting error must be that you just need more assumptions. Perhaps assuming the conclusion will be successful.

No. The n-tuple is an object within the universe, not the universe. You've spun around so many times that you don't even know what you're saying anymore.

Edit: More precisely, the n-tuple is an encoding of the state of the universe at a particular moment in time, from which the state of the universe at other times can be calculated using a Turing machine of some description.

Just head-asplode LOL @ Madnak's conceptual analysis...analysis.

Your definition of choice is fine...we just have to analyze the parts to be sure that we understand what it is to select from a range of options.

So now you're trying to suggest that your definition is no good?

What's your replacement?

Yikes.

Not sure of the source. It is simple logic that leads to the thought though.

Responsibility is another way of saying "the cause of a consequence," or "it is your fault." The original cause is the one that causes the eventual badness or goodness.

If you crash a car due to freely chosing to do something wrong because of who you are (a jerk), and you freely chose, you are clearly and totally responsible.

If you crash your car because of chosing to do something wrong, because of who you are (a jerk), and who you are is not of your chosing, whatever made you who you are caused the accident by proxy. It is not your fault (in the philosophical sense) because something earlier caused you to do whatever you did.

I am so glad that this thread is still going, this is definitely the longest thread I have seen in SMP since the RGT split. I want to get back in a little, and have some questions I would like to see answered pertaining free will.

Durka,

Does it make sense to say that an omniscient being can know the outcome of a free will decision made by another agent before that agent exists (assuming A-theory of time)? In other words, is it possible to know the future completely (including free will decisions) while still maintaining free will?

Can free will exist along side of the B-theory of time?

I believe we have about 20+ pages (so far) of arguing over a difference of opinion of what a decision is.

Durka and Aaron are taking decision as being free decision, and reject any other position. The problem with this is that they are leaving the word "free" out of their statements. I would suggest that if you are defining decision in this context that you say "free decision." I think you will find that most of the posts are not really necessary, if you do. The problem with this position is that it throws all of modern science into the trash bin. In science, things do not happen without cause.

Mr Blah is taking decision as meaning following a decision tree (aka algorithm). The problem of this view is that it seems to equate people with dominoes ("crap, I am a domino. If a domino hits me, I will fall down. If no domino hits me, I will continue to stand. A domino hit me. I guess I should fall over."*) and throws out a wing of philosophy (pure responsibility). Science is the son of philosophy, but over and over the son seems to cause the death of parts of the father.

Madnak is using something or other as his definition, but I have not really been following. My problem with his posts (as compared to others) is that he digs in his heals to quickly, and is too concrete in his thinking. The point of all of this (to me) is to think things through with the help of others noticing the weakness of your current position, and adjusting your position in the face of things you have not thought of. The "(to me)" part is necessary for all parties, so I ignore.

Lagnak (and others) got tired and is now lurking. I appreciate that. Not that I did not appreciate his posts. He is learning, I am sure. Maybe he won't walk away with anything important on this subject, but has figured out that sometimes it is better to listen than to talk. He wins the thread in that respect.

My view is much more simplistic than everyone else's, but only in my head.***

*Simplistic decision tree. Also, conscious domino. Also, talking domino.

***neuropsych stuff really is not that hard if you spend 5+ years on it.

I don't think this is quite accurate. The door is open for a deterministic-choice (deterministic-decision), but nobody on that side has yet made it clear what "choice" means to them, and can make it meaningful in the sense of mirroring the basic concepts of choice. I'm still waiting on whether trees "choose" when to drop their apples, or if crags in a rock "choose" the path of water runoff. And (looking into the future of that conversation) if those are "choices" then I'm looking for why that's different from saying that the earth "chose" the path of the Mississippi River.

Also, your last sentence doesn't seem to be reflect the debate appropriately. The question at hand is not scientific (that is, it's not going to be answered empirically, since it cannot be tested in a meaningful way). There are, in fact, questions that science cannot answer, and one need not reject science in order to take such a position.

I'd say that it's incoherent. So, that Christian (et al) predestination but free will is incoherent. It's basically compatibilism.