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by MeImCounting 730 days ago
Yes it is indeed possible that in that small and shrinking gap of behavior that isnt explained by some complex set of circumstances and stimuli there lies some magic immaterial soul that grants the ineffable quality of free will. Bbbut since we have yet to find any evidence for such a thing I wouldnt keep my hopes up. Also theres much more interesting questions to be asking.
1 comments
mistermann 730 days ago
Might "explanations" have a (perhaps private, or semi-private) epistemic value attribute? That could certainly change the game up.
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MeImCounting 730 days ago
Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable. Certain behavioral tests or self-report surveys on the other hand have lower value because of the private nature of what were intending to test. They still have some value though.

Private experiences may be very important for individuals and like I said elsewhere, free-will is certainly a useful idea in religious contexts. I do not believe this has any bearing on practical matters such as our ability to predict or understand the actions taken by any given system such as humans or computers.

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mistermann 730 days ago
> Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable.

Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs:

1.Thinking isn't even a path to "free will".

2a. Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus

2b. just like feeling is.

Note: a definition for "determined by" (in percentage of total causality) would be required in the specification, as would a non-ambiguous definition for "just like".

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MeImCounting 730 days ago
> Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs

No. I think this statement is a conclusion only indirectly supported by scientific fact. This is a logical leap from more and more behaviors and internal states being correlated with various external stimulus over time. I believe it only a matter of time until it becomes entirely possible (though silly and will likely not be done because it only serves to prove a foregone conclusion and would be a unfathomably huge undertaking) to provide a complete accounting of all the factors that influence a system bringing it to the state where it reacts in a given way to some stimulus.

The only other conclusion I can see is that human beings are not deterministic and there is some magical spark IE everlasting soul making randomized decisions for us.

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mistermann 729 days ago
> I think this statement is a conclusion only indirectly supported by scientific fact.

Can you expand on this "supported by" scientific fact? Is it something more than is not inconsistent with, and more towards must be, necessarily?

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