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PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:54 pm 
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Slamlander wrote:
Actually, Einstein was wrong and the proof is our intelligence. The universe is not deterministic. We are now in the instance of proving that one cannot build an AI with fully deterministic systems. The only non-deterministic systems we have are our own brains. We don't know how to build those yet. However, their existance proves that Einstein's belief's are wrong.


As I recall from our discussion on free will and determinism a while back, you seem to be using a different notion of "deterministic" than that which quantum physics disregards.

Please stop spewing incompatiblism like it's some sort of uncontroversial proven fact.

Edit: apologies for the harsh tone of this message, I've been having a tough couple weeks lately and am thus rather snippy.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 1:06 am 
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The brain itself, like the rest of the body, grows from a single cell. That single cell contains within it all the instructions needed for an entire organism to live from conception, right up until an inevitable death. By rights, being able to read the entire human genetic map (I think it's called genome) should allow us to at least determine a few of the more obvious reasons why we grow into what we do.

How consciousness forms, amongst other higher brain functions, is bound to be nothing more than some line of genetic code which requires us to develop it.

The brains operation may not be deterministic, at least at first; as studies of mind-altering drugs incl. pheromones and hormones show that the brain: whilst a complex organ, is nothing more than an organ, and not entirely necessary.

As I've stated before; we have only yet to find *why* things work the way that they do.

I firmly believe that everything has a logical, plausible and intelligent answer, far removed from the idea of "it just does, stop asking" which is kinda what quantum mechanics gives off.

Perhaps it is better to say that while brains may not function in a deterministic manner, their operation is something that can be determined. Which is to say, people think differently, but why they think can be answered.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:01 am 
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actually, the real contrapositive to {Clarke's Law} is
"There exist forms of magic that are indistinguishable from advanced technology" and says nothing about other forms of magic.


Arthur C Clark was a writer, a very good one. The original statement meant something very specific. I am also a writer, among other things, the corollary was specifically crafted to answer Clark's law, in all aspects.

well, I'm a logician so I guess that means I WIN.

Also, when I say "says nothing about", I mean exactly that.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:09 am 
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The universe is not deterministic

There's also the small matter that not even classical mechanics is deterministic in any practical sense. Try to actually calculate which way the balls of the standard 10-ball triangular pool-break are going to go, and you'll quickly lose; the errors compound exponentially, so getting past the first 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second is pretty much hopeless.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:17 am 
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wrog wrote:
not even classical mechanics is deterministic .


Therefore, you claiming to be right by virtue of your profession does not mean you are correct, either :)


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 5:56 am 
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PsionicsNOTMagic wrote:
Zherical wrote:
I mean, what if we are the only intelligent life form? What if we search the galaxy for aliens, and find that there are either absolutely none, only animals, or primitive civilisations *at best*?

Considering the age of our planet, it's location, and what we're doing to it, I think my theory is highly unlikely. It's also terribly possible.


Actually, it's likely, rather than unlikely. The anthropic principle states that a planet can only develop around a second-generation star. This being the case, and the universe being its current age, we can assume that we are one of, if not THE, first intelligent beings. In order for this NOT to be the case, there would actually HAVE to be creation. Either way, though (since most creation beliefs do not state a race of people before us, aside from things like angels), we would likely be the first.

As far as fantasy vs. sci fi goes... It's tough to explain exactly WHAT the difference is, but I'll give it a shot:

Rigel's floating chair: Sci fi
The Blue Lady's healing (and harming!) abilities: Fantasy

Look at Crusade: You have a guy who summons fireballs and what have you, but he does it with technology. This is opposed to The Taking by Dean Koontz, where what they thought was technology was actually not. They are distinguishable to the reader/viewer quite easily.

Also, *slaps forehead* I can't believe I forgot that sub-genre!


I'll let Rod Serling do the work:

"Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible."

quoted <a href="http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2112467,00.html">here</a>

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:58 am 
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This is kind of difficult to explain for someone who hasn't studied both people and numbers (even those that appear random) for most of their life, but here's something that I learned, and which two great people on either side have said about each:

Everything and everyone is predictable.

Sun Tzu claimed that he could predict what his opponent would do, based on what they've already done. He never put them in the exact same situation they were in before, because that would be impossible. Rather, he predicted what they would do. Keep in mind that he only ever lost one battle, and that was one which he predicted he'd lose. After him came Zhuge Liang, who managed to predict what Cao Cao would do when he came to the fork and saw smoke (at the battle of Chi Bi).

Thus, we can see form both their legacies that predicting people IS, in fact, possible. It is something that is difficult to do, and requires that a person study not only people, but the person they're trying to predict. However, it IS possible.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:44 am 
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Predictable does not mean deterministic, though. So the point is somewhat removed from the argument.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:07 am 
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Not entirely.

Wikipedia wrote:
Determinism may also be defined as the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.


If you can predict everyone's reaction to everything at one specific time, and then predict how they will act following that, then you can start on a path to predicting a single future.

This would require that you be aware of all the people in the world, know them enough to predict them, and know the entire universe enough to predict how things will move and so forth (making things like die rolls predictable), then you could predict the future. It would only be one possible future, in that case.

Mark Helprin wrote:
Nothing is random.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:31 pm 
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Zherical sort of wrote:
as part of a somewhat longer sentence, wrog wrote:
not even classical mechanics is deterministic .


Therefore, you claiming to be right by virtue of your profession does not mean you are correct, either, because I can always edit you down to make you look arbitrarily stupid :)


well, um, yes. :)


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:49 pm 
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Kian wrote:
Predictable does not mean deterministic, though. So the point is somewhat removed from the argument.

David Hume drove the last nails in this particular coffin a good 200 some-odd years ago. The only point in talking about determinism is if you care about things being predictable; everything else is off in Metaphysical La-La Land.


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:35 am 
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wrog wrote:
Zherical sort of wrote:
as part of a somewhat longer sentence, wrog wrote:
not even classical mechanics is deterministic .


Therefore, you claiming to be right by virtue of your profession does not mean you are correct, either, because I can always edit you down to make you look arbitrarily stupid :)


well, um, yes. :)


Nice. Very Mature.


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wrog wrote:
Kian wrote:
Predictable does not mean deterministic, though. So the point is somewhat removed from the argument.

David Hume drove the last nails in this particular coffin a good 200 some-odd years ago. The only point in talking about determinism is if you care about things being predictable; everything else is off in Metaphysical La-La Land.


My point actually referred to PnM's post, in regards to military geniouses' ability to predict what their enemies would do.

My point being, you don't need determinism to get predictability. If you have determinism, however, and enough information, then everything is predictable, no argument there.

Also, if you enjoy Metaphisical La-La Land, you don't need to care about things being predictable to argue about determinism.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:26 am 
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Forrest wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
Actually, Einstein was wrong and the proof is our intelligence. The universe is not deterministic. We are now in the instance of proving that one cannot build an AI with fully deterministic systems. The only non-deterministic systems we have are our own brains. We don't know how to build those yet. However, their existance proves that Einstein's belief's are wrong.


As I recall from our discussion on free will and determinism a while back, you seem to be using a different notion of "deterministic" than that which quantum physics disregards.

Please stop spewing incompatiblism like it's some sort of uncontroversial proven fact.


I'm wondering where the screen got too wide :wink:

Deterministic, in the software context, is code that is absolutely predictable, like ones and zeros. Quantum Mechanics doesn't enter into it and is irrelevent. ALL digital systems have no choice but to be fully deterministic. Therefore, we cannot use them to build AIs. BTW, this was also the context of our previous discussion along these lines.

Analog Neural nets do something that digital neural nets cannot do and that is to have an infinite variation between two values. Digital systems, because they are digital systems, have a finite and fixed number of values within the same context.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:04 am 
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But if all things ARE predicatable, then they are all pre-determined. Even in a game like Keno, where the balls are chosen seemingly at random, there are factors that cause certain balls to come out more than others. This was actually proven by a relative of mine.

No, it wouldn't work for the lottery and no, I won't tell you, because it would be unethical.

Anyway, my point is that nothing is random, which means that everything is predictable, which means that, since everything is predictable (given the right abilities or knowledge), everything is pre-determined.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:30 am 
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Darned Firefox, updated itself and opened a pop up asking if I wanted to restart it and took my pressing the spacebar while I wrote as a yes. I had such a nice reply written too.

Anyway, three things:

You can predict the outcome of an election without knowing the number of votes each candidate gets. That's what I meant by something being predictable not meaning that it necessarily is deterministic. It really depends on how you define predicting.

Second, IF nothing were random, you'd be right. We don't know that nothing is random. So far, quantum mechanics is probabilistic, which means there are rules, but resuts are seemingly random for individual events. Perhaps in the future we might find another set of rules that explains, deterministically, why this is so. Or the universe may, at it most basic, be random.

Third, lets assume nothing were random. As you said, predictability requires information. However, the uncertainty principle limits the amount of information you can get. And worse, aquiring information requires observing something, and the act of observation alters the subject. You might get information about something, but then you'd need to know how your observation altered it to have more complete information. To know your own effect, however, you'd need to know the original value. Which is impossible to know, since you observed it to find it out in the first place.

EDIT: Forgot to add the conclusion, silly me.

By which we arrive to the conclusion that not everything is predictable. And going by your reasoning that if everything is predictable then it is deterministic, then we can not be certain that everything is deterministic, even if nothing were random, anyway.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:51 am 
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Kian wrote:
Darned Firefox, updated itself and opened a pop up asking if I wanted to restart it and took my pressing the spacebar while I wrote as a yes. I had such a nice reply written too.

Anyway, three things:

You can predict the outcome of an election without knowing the number of votes each candidate gets. That's what I meant by something being predictable not meaning that it necessarily is deterministic. It really depends on how you define predicting.

Second, IF nothing were random, you'd be right. We don't know that nothing is random. So far, quantum mechanics is probabilistic, which means there are rules, but resuts are seemingly random for individual events. Perhaps in the future we might find another set of rules that explains, deterministically, why this is so. Or the universe may, at it most basic, be random.

Third, lets assume nothing were random. As you said, predictability requires information. However, the uncertainty principle limits the amount of information you can get. And worse, aquiring information requires observing something, and the act of observation alters the subject. You might get information about something, but then you'd need to know how your observation altered it to have more complete information. To know your own effect, however, you'd need to know the original value. Which is impossible to know, since you observed it to find it out in the first place.

EDIT: Forgot to add the conclusion, silly me.

By which we arrive to the conclusion that not everything is predictable. And going by your reasoning that if everything is predictable then it is deterministic, then we can not be certain that everything is deterministic, even if nothing were random, anyway.


Ah, but we're not talking about simple human ways of observation, we're talking about omni-sentience. Assuming there is a figure similar to how we view a monotheistic deity (being all-seeing and all-knowing), then that being could observe things and KNOW how the observation affected them. Determinism is not that we, as sentient beings, can determine all things to come from all things that happened. Rather, if we take into account that God can, in fact, observe things without affecting them, or affecting them in ways that he knows will happen, then He can indeed determine the One Possible Future from the One and Only Past.

Keep in mind that We Are Not God. If We Were God, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. We may not be able to determine it, but it is deterministic.

Also, nothing is random. Ever. Everything has a pattern that is predictable if you know enough and observe enough.

Oh, and I recently posted my Keno comment on another board and someone mentioned gambler's fallacy. Please keep in mind that that has nothing to do with anything.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:15 am 
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We are getting WWWWaaaayyy out into logical lala land here. In fact, I can't even see the signpost anymore :wink:

The God presumption presupposes omniscience. We are not even sure that it is a God's property. The goddess might have chosen to give us freewill, in which case predictability just went out the window and precognition just went with it.

Sarte did a solid discussion of this in Deterministm and Freewill Basically, if you have determinism than freewill cannot exist. If you have freewill then you cannot have determinism. However, none of that discussion has anything to do with what I was talking about.

However, as an analog, think of it this way. A fully deterministic system has no freewill (see above). Humans do. An AI built on a digital system is by definition, fully deterministic. Humans are non-deterministic by construction and have freewill. Therefore, one cannot build a system that will mimic a Human using a fully deterministc system, ever!

Note that, this isn't saying that we cannot ever build an AI. Just that we cannot build one using existing computing technology, as all existing computing technology is digital and thus, fully deterministic.

That said, there is some technology that shows potential. It is just not developed to the point of usefulness, yet.

Edit: For definitions of computational determinism, see Alan Turing and his work. Also look up Dykstra.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:41 am 
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As I pointed out against the "Nothing is random" assertion, quantom mechanics add an element of randomness we haven't been able to eliminate yet. Einstein didn't like it, but he had to live with it. Noone's been able to find the subyacent mechanism that makes it look like some particles have a probabilistic behaviour yet. So I'm sorry, but I won't take your conviction as proof. Particularly since you're not bothering to offer any explanation for it. The universe either has randomness or it doesn't, we don't know.

Also, you're assuming that omniscience works in a particular way. I don't believe omniscience exists. It may very well be that some information is unknowable. Too early to tell.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:12 pm 
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Kian wrote:
As I pointed out against the "Nothing is random" assertion, quantom mechanics add an element of randomness we haven't been able to eliminate yet. Einstein didn't like it, but he had to live with it. Noone's been able to find the subyacent mechanism that makes it look like some particles have a probabilistic behaviour yet. So I'm sorry, but I won't take your conviction as proof. Particularly since you're not bothering to offer any explanation for it. The universe either has randomness or it doesn't, we don't know.

Also, you're assuming that omniscience works in a particular way. I don't believe omniscience exists. It may very well be that some information is unknowable. Too early to tell.


From this, I'm having a difficult time figuring out if we disagree or not. It almost seem that we are talking past each other. I am offering much more than conviction. However, to go any deeper requires a paper that I don't have the time to write. What part of "A digital system is fully deterministic by definition" do you disagree with? Is it the "fully deterministic" part or the "by definition" part?

Edit:
I assume nothing regarding omniscience. As near as I can tell, it doesn't exist and I didn't bring it into the discussion. It's PSI that is envoking God and not I.

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