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Post by Leoric on Aug 15, 2005 8:31:30 GMT
Oh yeah! and don't forget that the alcohol also has a capability to cause small time travels to the future: the more you drink, the faster your personal time goes, and when drunk too much the whole evening passes in seconds and next morning you find yourself in a place you don't have no idea how you got there, next to some other person who also has no idea how you got in there ;D
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Post by MasterTool on Aug 15, 2005 14:07:00 GMT
Alcohol can unleash total free flow of words
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Post by MrTPenguin on Aug 15, 2005 14:20:31 GMT
So... where's 'the accuracy of the predictions' ? There's an important point to make here re my model. There are two types of human action - trivial/arbitrary and non-trivial. Trivial actions are almost impossible to predict (but still pre-determined), whereas non-trivial ones are predictable via the hierarchy. The most base example of this predictability involves our most basic and immediate need: air. If the air supply in your room was suddenly cut off, and there was a window in the room, you would immediately rush to open it. You wouldn't dance a jig or think of a poem. And if your house blew down in a storm, you'd forget about applying for pop idol or going to see football matches until new accomodation was arranged. I've been reading about something called the "edge of chaos" recently, which is a mechanism that underpins lots of natural phenomena. In general, you get a few "big" events and lots of "smaller" events, so if you plot a log-log graph of magnitude v frequency, you get a straight line. Earthquakes are a likely contender for this, and one of the features of them is that we cannot know when they'll happen (this is contrary to the old theory about pressure building up and being released). This is a woefully short explanation, but there isn't time to explain it all Interesting theorems. Given that the mind does exist, I think it must be possible to model it. I'm aware of other non-computable problems (such as whether or not a shape can fully tesselate the euclidean plane) but I'm afraid I fail to see how these things adversely affect my model. I think there's a distinction to be made between the exception that proves the rule and the exception that shows a limit to the rule. For example, take the rule "most people have got two legs." If a one-legged man turns up, he doesn't prove that lots of people have got not-two legs, he just proves the most in the original rule. My model isn't supposed to be used to predict human behaviour on a day to day basis. It was designed to explain why people do what they do. To be honest with you, it isn't really "my" theory - all I've done is combined various bits and bobs in a way that suits me. My model fits in nicely with Schopenhauer's world view, so you can think of me as one of his disciples
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Post by Mielu on Aug 16, 2005 3:14:24 GMT
There's an important point to make here re my model. There are two types of human action - trivial/arbitrary and non-trivial. Trivial actions are almost impossible to predict (but still pre-determined), whereas non-trivial ones are predictable via the hierarchy. Trivial actions are what we've been arguing about all along; all the counter-examples given to you were in that category. And that's the category for which I wanted to see some 'accurate predictions', to form the basis for such a firm belief in the all-encompassing capabilities of the model. Looks like there's none to be found... Interesting theory, and another one that could spark a lively discussion on its own, as chaos is a fascinating subject. But on our current topic, if there's reason to believe we cannot have an accurate model of earthquakes, what could make us believe we can have an accurate model of the mind ? You've just given an example above of something that exists and may be impossible to model, and you seem to find that reasonably acceptable. Why couldn't that apply to the mind as well? Ahhh... I was hoping we wouldn't get to this, as these theorems tend to cause great confusion when people encounter them for the first time - it surely enough happened to me anyway ;D. I think they are quite different from the example you gave above. OK, let's start with this: do you agree that your theory attempts to map the mind to a formal system? That is, to a finite set of symbols, a way to build valid constructs with those symbols, a set of such constructs that are axioms (the hierarchy of needs might fit this category I guess), and a set of rules for inferring new constructs from existing ones (new 'thoughts', including 'actions'). Does the above sound like your model? First of all, I fail to understand this thing about 'the exception that proves the rule'. What does it 'prove' other than the fact that the rule doesn't cover all of the subject? It certainly proves the rule wrong, not right. For more details about why this expression is used in this form, and why it is just a figure of speech and not a valid argument in a debate, please see: www.adamsmith.org/logicalfallacies/000619.phpIn the specific case you outlined, the example was not an exception to your rule, precisely because of the 'most' in the sentence. That rule leaves the door open for cases of people with 0, 1, 3, 4,... legs; it just says that there aren't that many of them. But in the case of your theory about the mind, you're not saying ' most of the mind can be mapped to an accurate model', which would be a theory I would agree with; you're saying ' all' instead of ' most', and that's where we disagree. For such a broad statement, any exception does not prove the rule; it invalidates it and proves the limits of the model.
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Post by MrTPenguin on Aug 16, 2005 12:53:52 GMT
Trivial actions are what we've been arguing about all along; all the counter-examples given to you were in that category. And that's the category for which I wanted to see some 'accurate predictions', to form the basis for such a firm belief in the all-encompassing capabilities of the model. Looks like there's none to be found... I'm afraid I can't produce the goods here. But I can fit these things into the model. Imagine the hierarchy is a step pyramid - what normally happens is that people climb upwards. But when they're on a flat surface (particularly a high one) they zig-zag about from side to side, giving rise to trivial actions. I think there is a deterministic mechanism behind these "zig zags" (maybe a kind of shift-register pseudo-random number generator) but I don't know what it is. I know this isn't a very good explanation, but it's the best you're gonna get For the simple reason that I don't think the brain is an edge-of-chaos system. Everything is possible to model, it's just that some models have inherent unpredictability. The reason for my "faith" in my model of the brain is my refusal to believe that anything can be truly random - more on this later. Yes, that's about right, although there's probably feedback involved too. I've got a suspicion that the Chinese Room is gonna make an appearance soon... "The exception that proves the rule" is one of favourite one-liners, so I'm gonna stick with it ;D I think the essence of what you're saying is that because I concede that lots of things are unpredictable in practice, I can't say with certainty that they're predictable in principle. I go further - they aren't predictable, as that would require infinite computater power and time - instead, they're pre-determined. Again, I can't prove this, but have a look at this scenario: If I take someone into a room and ask them to give me a number between 1 and 100, they'll give me one. This is a trivial action, and arguably a manifestation of their free will. If it isn't the case that everything is predetermined, then this number would be a truly random number. The only way this number could be non-random (as I believe it would be) is if the choosing method was deterministic, however complex and long-winding. It is likely that the decision could be affected by things like the weather and the current #1 pop song, so it's a case of the universe as a whole being deterministic, not an single individual. So the person took in their inputs and gave a pre-determined output. This is unprovable and untestable, so a "leap of faith" is needed. I will only abandon this theory when someone demonstrates to me that it's possible for something to be truly random.
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Post by Mielu on Aug 17, 2005 0:47:20 GMT
I'm afraid I can't produce the goods here. But I can fit these things into the model. Imagine the hierarchy is a step pyramid - what normally happens is that people climb upwards. But when they're on a flat surface (particularly a high one) they zig-zag about from side to side, giving rise to trivial actions. I think there is a deterministic mechanism behind these "zig zags" (maybe a kind of shift-register pseudo-random number generator) but I don't know what it is. I know this isn't a very good explanation, but it's the best you're gonna get No, MrTP, this is not the way it works. Now you're adding things to the model only for the sake of it. They don't bring any value, they're just wild suppositions, making use of dubious analogies between a conceptual pyramid and its corresponding real-life construct. Let me give you an alternative solution for achieving this deterministic behaviour that's so dear to you: there's a huge mind control computer hidden inside one of Jupiter's satellites; it remotely controls all of the human mind's actions that cannot be addressed by your model; there you go - determinism at last! Is your zig-zagging theory any better than this? No, you'll be spared the Chinese Room ; I don't think that argument is relevant to the discussion. Feedback and learning can theoretically be expressed as a combination of axioms and inference rules in the formal system, so they can be included in the model (yeah, right, tell that to an AI researcher who has been trying in vain to achieve a tiny fraction of that for, say, the past 30 years ... but let's skip this small problem). If you agree we can reduce everything to a formal system, then it means a computer can run the whole show. It would have to be a pretty powerful one, but still, we wouldn't have to invent anything new in computer science to run a 100% accurate model of the mind of any human being. Agreed? Now, it's interesting to know how you see the machine state problem: do you see this computer as needing an infinite amount of memory, or would it be a finite state machine? Suit yourself, but don't make the mistake of thinking it actually proves any rules; it only proves them wrong. We've come a long way from 'accuracy of the predictions' to 'I can't prove this'; that's what I call progress . Please note that you've painted yourself into a corner: if the model needs infinite computer power to predict some aspects of the mind, then it follows immediately that the mind itself needs infinite computational power to generate those decisions. After all, the model is supposed to be an accurate representation of the mind, right? By predicting the actions of a human, a 100% accurate model would actually be replicating the decision process inside one's mind, so there has to be an isomorphism there. So, we've concluded that our mind has infinite capabilities, including infinite memory, and all that's spent on deciding whether to watch a movie or play a game of worms. Nice work ! You have to be very careful about what exactly you consider as 'random'. What if you got a perfectly uniform distribution, but not across the full set of numbers from 1 to 100, but across the elements of the following set: {7, 26, 41, 42, 75, 89}? You still won't be able to establish any correlation with other variables of your model, which would be the minimal condition for trying to assert some underlying causal relationships. Please note that you failed to provide any true insight into how these trivial decisions work in practice, so you really can't assume anything about the behaviour of free-will. It might simply be that, for reasons that your model cannot cover, the above are the only numbers that human free will produces in the context of your experiment. Not having a uniform distribution across the whole set will not prove anything as far as determinism goes, unless you can really point out a causal relationship; that's traditionally done by actually predicting something based on your model. Even quantum mechanics with all its uncertainty clauses can predict things in practice; if it couldn't do that, nobody would look at it. We're getting closer and closer to religion here, don't you think? I will never abandon my theory about the remote mind-control computer , until somebody proves to me that it doesn't exist. And note that I can safely move it farther and farther away from Earth, out of the reach of a possible future interplanetary expedition ;D.
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Post by MrTPenguin on Aug 17, 2005 10:33:31 GMT
Now you're adding things to the model only for the sake of it. They don't bring any value, they're just wild suppositions, making use of dubious analogies between a conceptual pyramid and its corresponding real-life construct. The pyramid thing doesn't add anything to the model, it's just a way of visualising the hierarchy that provides a possible basis for the processes behind trivial actions. Have you not quizzed me on non-trivial actions because you agree with me on them, or because you had more pressing things to ask about? I can't disprove this, but I would argue it's unlikely. What I would ask, though, is where this "mind-control computer" came from. I think this scenario is similar to religion in that it defers questions rather than (try to) answer them. Disagreed I've already said that all human actions cannot be predicted in principle because we can't store fully-accurate real-number variables in computers. The only "computer" that can "run" the model is the universe. Again, this doesn't disprove (yes, or prove) that everything is deterministic. The accuracy I was talking about there refers to non-trivial stuff, which has been sitting idly on the sidelines for most of this discussion... You're gonna have to explain this to me in more detail This looks to me like the crux of your opposition to my model and its conclusions about free will and the soul. Do you really think that being unable to explain arbitrary actions means that I can't assume a single thing about free will? Let's look at what human beings actually are. According to Richard Dawkins we're "survival machines". A human body is a big dollop of chemicals whose "purpose" is to propagate its own genetic material. In spite of its complexity, the brain is just another part of the body, which also evolved. There is continuous selective pressure on the brain to "choose" actions for its body that result in genes being propagated. In every "brained" creature alive, we see "Successful Behavioural Strategies" i.e. actions which ultimately result in procreation. Is it a coincidence that people (like yourself ;D ) have kids? No, quite the opposite; it's the central agenda of the brain. It doesn't take a genius to see that all human actions are geared towards the successful continuation of the species, directly or indirectly. This is the "Universal Will" at work. A species that evolved free will would have everything to lose and nothing to gain from it, so how could it survive as a trait? Do you accept that free will requires random numbers? As an experienced programmer, you know that all sequences of random numbers require a seed. Can there be random numbers without a seed, and/or without an algorithm for calculating the sequences thereof? I don't think so. These are two powerful reasons why free will can't have entered the human brain. Incidentally, if we have free will but animals don't, when did we start having it? Was there a missing link? Did it come in gradually - if yes, can people have "50% free will"? Your mind-control scenario is quasi-religious, but my deterministic-brain model is not. There are uncertainties and unknowns in science, so my model is no less religious than quantum mechanics. And I concede that we can never faithfully model the brain, but we can't do it to the early universe either, but that doesn't mean we can't deduce things about it and understand it. You don't make it easy for me, do you [I'm glad you don't - I need to see the holes and limits in the model]
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Post by khamski on Aug 17, 2005 18:16:55 GMT
geez guys... you are writing a book here
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Jigsaw
Member
Inevitability
Posts: 643
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Post by Jigsaw on Aug 18, 2005 2:08:30 GMT
word, I dont even bother to read all this ;P
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Post by Mielu on Aug 18, 2005 3:57:14 GMT
Yeah... It will be known to posterity as 'The CWT Dialogues" . The pyramid thing doesn't add anything to the model, it's just a way of visualising the hierarchy that provides a possible basis for the processes behind trivial actions. The pyramid, yes, but the zig-zagging on pyramid floors, no, and that's what I was talking about. You've brought up the pyramid thing before and I haven't objected to it, as I suppose it is a useful analogy. But this latest addition is just too much. I outlined my view on that in previous posts: I agree that a good part of our decisions are based on inputs of all kinds, and so could be modeled as you describe. I strongly disagree with the assertion that everything the mind does can fit into this category, so this is what I'm debating here. Oh, but it was built by little green men, obviously . It comes from the exact same place as your zig-zagging decision, and your phrase about religion applies to both just the same. I suppose what you mean is that the brain supposedly is an analogue system, as opposed to today's widespread digital computers, which are, as their name says, discrete machines. But we do have analogue computers as well, and there was a time when they were seen as just as important as digital ones. Unfortunately, in time digital technology turned out to yield much more stable results, and ones that could be mass-manufactured much more easily, and this is why you don't normally hear about analogue computers anymore these days. We also have this thing called fuzzy logic, which works with analogue variables, and we can use analogue circuitry to hold those values. The rest of the model can run on digital technology. Fuzzy logic can be expressed as a formal system. All of this is readily available today, except for the huge scale needed. Does this implementation satisfy you? If you weren't referring to implementation, then you may have meant that computers cannot work with real numbers, and by that, I suppose you were thinking specifically about non-rational numbers. But how do we work with those numbers? Have you actually seen any of those written down somewhere in its exact numeric form? No. We deal with them through formulae, essentially through their relationships with other mathematical entities. And computers can do that just as well, as it can all be expressed as a formal system. For example, we have software that can solve differential equations symbolically. If neither of the above is what you meant, please let me know what that was. Randomness is a commonly used term and can take on many meanings. For the experiment you described above, please give an example of a result that you would see as random, and one that would not be so. Then we can discuss further. OK, let me phrase that differently. Since there is no experimental data to show that your model can handle at least some arbitrary actions, there's no reason to believe that is possible. Once you have experimental results to support your model, you can have a degree of certainty about its applicability, and then you can use it to infer things about the subject. Until then, any assumption may lead you in the wrong direction. That might well be one of the purposes; I don't see how we can be so sure it's the only one, given that we know so little about the universe and our role in it. That 'selective pressure' and those actions are part of the mechanisms that can probably be modeled by your theory. That's just an assumption; we don't know what the central agenda of the brain is. Now, it's true that I tried to get my IQ checked and they kicked me out the door saying they have no negative values on the scale... This might be the reason why I fail to see how the above statement could possibly be proven. You're guilty of using the universal quantifier again. Here, you're assuming free will doesn't help a species. It might not be part of the normal procreation routine, but it might well help the species evolve, for example, by choosing directions that wouldn't otherwise be dictated by normal deterministic mechanisms. No. I have no reason to believe that. I don't have a working model of free will, so I cannot say what it requires. You're talking about pseudo-random numbers here. As their name implies, they aren't truly random. Why not? Some people might be more 'free-willed' than others. Who knows? I don't see an inherent problem in accepting this as a possibility. Why not? You chose to believe your axioms are universally correct, when there are lots of examples in real life that don't confirm your model. You have used the expression 'leap of faith' yourself, and explicitly recognized the fact that some parts of your theory cannot be proven. Where's the essential difference between this kind of belief and religion? True, but quantum mechanics actually works for the domain that it was designed to address. If we can never faithfully model the brain, then we can never understand it completely using a model. We can probably model parts of it, and I've already said I tend to agree with such a statement. But you insist on going for the universal quantifier... The most important hole in your theory is your refusal to accept its limits . My goodness, look at the size of this post .
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Post by MrTPenguin on Aug 18, 2005 9:57:32 GMT
... If neither of the above is what you meant, please let me know what that was. I think the brain is probably more analogue than it is digital, and my uncertainty arises from the fact that I don't know whether or not spacetime is quantized. I'm not talking about ways of testing strings of numbers to see if they're "random" or not, I'm talking about numbers that are generated in a non-deterministic way. I don't think such numbers exist (in spite of quantum probabilities) That's right, hence I never predict arbitrary actions. Regarding that stuff about survival and reproduction, you can ask Crespo and Dario if you don't believe me If you've got a population where half the creatures have survive-and-reproduce as their main agenda, and the other half other agendas, then the former group will make more copies of themselves over time and eventually dominate the population, and the latter will die off. It's true that a species could have multiple "main agendas", but the survive-and-reproduce one has to be the " main main" one, for the reason given. If we assume that a set of behaviours corresponds to a location on a "fitness landscape" for survival, then do you agree that free will - the capacity to "break the rules" - is the capacity to explore hitherto out-of-bounds regions on this landscape? Yes, a species could improve itself by the actions of free will, but I think there'd be an instability, so that any ground gained would soon be lost. This is why I don't think free will would be advantageous from a survival point of view. Surely free will isn't a fuzzy quantity? People either have the capacity to exert it or they don't. A man who has free will on mondays is just as much a "free-willed being" and a man who has it all week. I don't have 100% confidence in the things I say. Unless a religious zealot, I wouldn't die for this model. From the leaps-of-faith point of view, I suppose it is a bit like religion, but a key difference is the fact that I draw from science, and update the model whenever new discoveries come to light, rather than having a fixed, final idea throughout. I do accept the limits (that is, the lack of an exact physical model, and the inability to cope with trivia) but I do think that I've done the best I can with what I've got. Yep, we've got a fat bastard on our hands Apologies to the people who are watching, bewildered, from the sidelines, but you can't be thorough about these things in bitesize posts
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Post by Mielu on Aug 18, 2005 16:20:06 GMT
I think the brain is probably more analogue than it is digital, and my uncertainty arises from the fact that I don't know whether or not spacetime is quantized. More uncertainty... this can't be good for the model . Anyway, I think we can make a reasonably safe assumption that at least part of the brain works both ways, since we're regularly dealing with both kinds of concepts. Discrete space-time or not, I think the computer I described in the previous post should be able to 'run the brain' if your model is accurate. Give me an example of why it couldn't. Then, in the case of your experiment, how would you recognize the randomness of the results? If you're not interested in doing that, then there can be no experiment, not even a virtual one, so what's the point in bringing that up? Really?... What about a group that has the following agenda: 1. First try to kill at least one individual of the other group, together with as many of its current generation of offspring as possible. Just try; even if you don't succeed, go to step 2. 2. Try to reproduce. Just try; even if you don't succeed, go back to step 1. Do you see the evolutionary implications of this pattern of behaviour? It's a highly unstable system in its early stages, but so is one made up of two populations that both have the same survive-and-reproduce agenda. But after many generations, this may go either way. Instability, yes; quickly losing gained ground, no. This is not what instability means in such complex systems. It would be enough that one crazy decision resulting from free will gives a group of individuals a significant edge, which could then be enforced by other parts of their agenda, like survive-and-reproduce. For example, attempting to tame the fire, against all indications that one could get hurt and thus less likely to be able to survive-and-reproduce. Of course this kind of decisions may generate negative results as well, but the survival-and-reproduction strategy doesn't offer any guarantees either; again, we're talking about extremely complex systems here. Some people may be more capable to act based on free will than others; I don't know. Obviously, I wasn't talking about having it one day and not the next. Now, suddenly, we know enough about free will to be able to say for sure what kind of quantity it is? Part of that correct attitude is being open to possibilities, especially for parts of the model that didn't really generate any meaningful results, at least for now. One such possibility is that free will actually exists. I'm not saying it's certain, I'm just saying you simply can't rule it out based on your model, and I think all of our discussion up to this point supports this statement. This part I do agree with, and I also think you should go one step further and accept the consequences those limits have on your model's capacity to indicate whether free will really exists. Either their own free will, or their automatic decision making processes can surely help them ignore whatever they don't want to read ;D.
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Post by MrTPenguin on Aug 19, 2005 14:36:52 GMT
What I mean by "random numbers" here is numbers that are generated by a non-deterministic, unpredictable mechanism. Patterns in the numbers don't come into it. I accept that there's no way to prove such numbers can be made, and that this is more philosophical than scientific. I think your suggestion that free will - doing new and unusual things - could lead to evolutionary progress is equivalent to the effect of mutation. The maverick behaviour that would come from the free-willed decision could be done by a non-free-willed being that had undergone a mutation when it was created that would lead it to do the strange deeds. This sort of thing is right up my street I'm actually tempted to write an evolution program to try to simulate this scenario, but before I do that I'll think about it theoretically. My first impression is that it's more complicated than it looks. First of all, what's the probability of making a successful kill? If it's high, then the killers could wipe out the other group. With the other group gone, the step-1 instinct would be redundant, and the step-2 instinct would become the step-1 instinct. If it's low, then perhaps the other group would kill-off the killer group. If it's around half, then both population would go down at similar rates, possibly resulting in the disappearance of the whole species. In the first of the three scenarios, the killer group retains it's unfullfillable instinct to kill. This is a bit like having an island populated entirely by men, with no way of gratifying their sexual urges. I think that such a population would go mad, and the only way out would be either for the urge to evolve away or for them to kill each other in their madness. Either way, the kill-first-shag-later behaviour would disappear. Another thing that needs to be thought about is how this two-way split in the behaviour of the group could come about. I think that if a small group within the group aquired these traits by mutation, then the group as a whole would kill them off before they could become numerous enough to take over. So my initial thoughts are that kill-first-shag-later cannot survive as a behaviour, and that it can't emerge in the first place for long enough to be tested. And I think that the "just try" bits don't make much difference to the reasoning above.
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Post by Mielu on Aug 19, 2005 16:44:47 GMT
I think your suggestion that free will - doing new and unusual things - could lead to evolutionary progress is equivalent to the effect of mutation. The maverick behaviour that would come from the free-willed decision could be done by a non-free-willed being that had undergone a mutation when it was created that would lead it to do the strange deeds. Maybe acquiring free will was the mutation, how about that? And no, I don't think a 'plain' mutation would be equivalent to free will, because it would affect only one trait (or a limited set), whereas free will can potentially change many aspects of behaviour. Maybe, but we've shown that an agenda where survival-and-reproduction is not the only main point has led the group to dominance, which contradicts what you've said previously. Perhaps, or perhaps not. This is where the 'just try' clause comes in: it prevents one step from blocking the other until it gets a chance to complete. This results in much more adaptive behaviour. Yeah, if the probability of getting a kill is very low indeed, then the other group will have a higher rate of population increase, because it doesn't spend time on other things than survival-and-reproduction. But with the increase of the 'target' group, the probability of getting a kill increases as well. This may create interesting dynamics; in many cases, I don't think this will lead to any of the two groups being completely wiped out. I don't see why they should disappear, and not thrive alongside each other, with the whole system in a state of dynamic equilibrium. You're introducing 'madness' and the analogy with 'sexual urges' into a simulation that is already much more complex than it meets the eye (we agree on that). And even if they end up killing each other, it wouldn't mean the whole population goes mad or the race disappears. After it has achieved 'world domination', which is what I wanted to prove. Don't forget my example is in response to your assertion that a population that doesn't have survival-and-reproduction as its only main agenda will be gobbled up by one that does. I only wanted to give an example showing that the use of the universal quantifier is invalid in this case; I think I succeeded. This could be said by any evolutionary change in the behaviour of a species: initially, only a few individuals suffer a very slight change from the average; of course they can be killed off before they make a difference, and actually the theory says this happens quite a lot. But sometimes, they manage to survive and make a difference; otherwise, there would be no evolution, or involution for that matter (that happens too) - everything would be static. So I don't think this is a valid argument. For all the reasons given above, I disagree. And the 'just try' clause is essential to the resilience of the group; see my comment above.
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Post by MrTPenguin on Aug 19, 2005 20:01:10 GMT
I think your proposed strategy is a clever exploitation of my comments about "main agendas" which was made possible by my lack of generality. I'm now gonna try to make nerd's corner history by posting something that I think you'll agree completely with At a given time, there'll be a collection of groups of creatures, each with their own behaviours. The consequences of these behaviours, coupled with things that happen in the natural environment, will "decide" who lives and who dies. This is natural evolution. At a later time, the species that have survived can be said to have successful behavioural strategies, by virtue of the fact that they're still alive. The sum of the behaviours of a given creature is thus a strategy to propagate the gene pool. We're now back in the disagreement zone Hmm, I'm not sure it any of this is relevant... We may as well knock this discussion on the head. In spite of my confidence in my model of the effective-structure and workings of the brain, I concede that there are things therein that I don't know, and things therein that I can't prove. As a rule, I don't believe things unless I see convincing evidence for them, or unless someone who knows a lot more about them than me assures me well enough (eg, I accept conclusions from General Relativity even though I've never seen the proof, as I trust the physicists). I don't think free will is necessary, nor have I seen sufficient evidence for it. For those reasons I choose to belief that it's highly likely that we don't have it. I'll try not to start any more big discussions until you've finished your CWT run, mielu
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