Think of it as the capability of the system having the capability to reprogram itself at will. And this will depends on internal more than external conditions.
Yes, you can't rule out the reprogramming drivers to be material. But there is chance to trigger and chance to not trigger that internal change.
In the end, I think the body/person/mind/whatever can sense good from bad (at different levels of understanding and correctness). Like if "karma" was something programmed in our DNA, then free will will end up being our capability to reprogram ourselves for good or bad.
>Call me when someone free will's up some anti-gravity.
This shouldn't make you change you mind. We may end up being able to directly alter gravity...so what? There are animals that can produce electricity at will, so what? The same for photons. So what? As long as you can explain how, you are back at your conclusions.
>All the world's a stage, and you're just an actor.
Good example, as actor can choose not to follow the script, and it has happened many times over with great results (for some films at least).
That is what people mean with free will. They know they are acting, and they resist inertia, or following the script.
It's a way of saying that at our level, we can program ourselves internally disregarding all external influences, and therefore, that each of us is responsible for our choices. Not because of the action, but because we can choose.
Free will has nothing to do with external conditions. If somebody tells me "give me 1 dollar tomorrow or I will kill you", and I believed the "advise", I'd probably give him the one dollar. Free will means that I can still choose not following the direction. At most, they can force you body to do things, not your spirit or mind.
Now mental tampering like today's top notch marketing is another thing. You are not even aware of what is happening.
So yes, you need to be informed for free will to deliver the right results. If your free will operates based on biased premises and wrong interpretations, then free will becomes irrelevant, as you end up serving masters, unaware of.
My answer would be that it means it's not deterministic. That if you could create "time" in a lab, and put a person inside the time chamber, and repeat an experiment, you'd see that the person may be inclined to respond in some way, but that it would not always be the same. PLUS, and this is important, that his choice will always depend on internal choice, not external conditions (like humidity changes, atmosphere charge, air pressure, etc.).
In the end it means that given a human being that's about to make a choice, and NO matter what the circumstances are (like education, mental state, physical conditions, etc.), he is always capable of choosing any of the available paths, and that no formula will explain each choice (yes for a series, as a probability).
The belief is that choice correlates to intent, as in something internal that doesn't just react to external conditions. Free will is that any choice is possible given any set of external conditions. Of course, "free will" seems to be an assertion that human choices are not random nor deterministic. This rules our "will" to some power beyond our known universe, and links it with our true "self", supposedly our esense that's located in the spiritual land for lack of a better word.
>Hume basically killed the silly notion that somehow randomness or chance could give us "extra" free will.
I think randomness in terms of unexpected exposure to different scenarios or situations leading to a better understanding of things, enhances understanding. And better understanding leads to fact-based free will. If you use randomness in that sense, it's not really improving "free will", but inproving the substrate on which free will operates, and the two may be confuded by some.
This is my opinion on how I undertood my catholic education on free will.
>If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will.
It's not like that at all. His knowing of your choice in no way affected your ability to freely choose what you were going to do. If you regard that from someone that lives in a universe made of time and space, you may think it's like cheating: if he can anticipate my choice, and always be right, then I am not really choosing but complying. But this perspective, then one you are talking about, is not what's really happening.
Now...
The reality is that God's existence is outside time (and space). NO TIME AT ALL for him. He is not bounded by time. So he "knows what you'll do" is exactly the same as saying that "he saw you when you did it" or that "he remembers what you have done". If for free will to exist he had to not know what you were going to do, then he must be bound by time. But he created time in the first place, and is of course not limited by space/time. So your assumption implies that God should be bounded by time for us to have free will, which is not really God...but another mortal thing (according to how I understood what they - my teachers - were trying to teach us).
So in the end, the point is that it's really difficult to try to really understand what God is really (if you believe in God at all) and it's very easy for most students to get it all wrong.
I don't think you really need to kill free will to support your vision. Yes, you do need improve the concept of free will, and introduce true consciousness and understanding of why outcomes are as they are. You need to challenge all your assumptions, and you need to reduce your automatic reactions. And you need to stop the internal chatty voice that is not really oneself.
On the other hand, free will, as understood by most of us in the west, is that the thief was fully aware this was mine, and could have not done that. So knowingly he made his bets and I caught him, so he must be punished. In this mentality, punishment is the right solution. And if you take away free will, you cannot punish because he can't be guilty. He had NO choice. And so, to hold up society you'd need to agree that people that are not chossing must be punished.
In the west you think in terms of "justice" and "free will". For many in the east (gross simplification) you may be something having to do with "suffering" and no "free will".
But in the end, true consciousness of order of things and the irrelevance of most of the thing that we do, and most of the things that others do, is what brings balance. Ignorance and lack of understanding become the enemy.
A few hours ago I was watching a documentary about Cuba involvement in the Angola. Both sides (socialist vs capitalist) though they were doing the right thing to do. Also the rebels though they were doing the right thing. When you add up all that happened, it makes a lot of sense (predictable) and it still makes no sense at all. To become free and stop abuse, rebels start organizing. There are several leaders. So in order to fight Portuguese Colonialism, parties ask for help from either capitalist factions, or communist factions. If one party gets help, then the other also gets help, because their adversaries are already implanting their ideology to a other relebs and the country will become another enemy. It's a bit more complex, but all in all, it's total lack of understanding from the Portuguese, and the three rebel factions, adding in the Southafricans that would have not like the Cubans training more rebels mean to work in favour of liberating "South Africa" as well. The right thing there is letting the people from Angola make a choice, and trying to provide a fair description of what kind of outcome you can expect either regime.
So most everyone was reacting there, and using..yes..will, that was not very free, as it was really shortsighted and biased towards their personal interests. So I think what the worlds lacks is consciousness and a little bit of decency. World politics and economy is a reflexion of sports. We chose party and stick to it, abhorring the other teams, "for our own good". That's why I don't usually talk about politics, economics nor sports with people that have already made up their minds (which means 95% or more of everyone I know).
No, if you take away free will you become a rat, pigeon or any other killable animal considered a thing. What we need to learn is that free will exists at more levels, including plants, animals, etc. If we become machines, than anything that happens is just OK, because we are not really choosing anything.
That's why we pre-program responses, so that we don't need to take that much time to come to an answer. That's why walking is a struggle when 1-2 years old, and afterwards, it becomes as easy as ot having to reason one bit. But then again, that leads to a lot of problem, because we end p being programed to "react" in a way that seems to the obvious response, even though we are not really aware consciously of what we are doing. That's why, I guess, I have read some books about Buddism that tell you to start walking consiously as much as you can. Feel all the movements, sense them...all of them, direct them again in a conscious non-automatic way. To start thinking again with the heart and the part of the brain that is more reasonable.
And thats also why many people dislike other football teams except the one they have chosen. Or why a religion ultra-pro pacifist as Christianism ended up supporting crusaders, or wars. And why the spiritual leader became the King of Kings for at least some centuries. We forget that we are reacting automatically. We make the decision in less than 500ms for sure, and then produce a lot of activity in the cortex (or higher brain) to support what our programming tells us.
The higher brain fucntions merely become great at finding the right arguments to support you higher beliefs. Beliefs programmed during the early stages of existence. After that, changing is very hard, as you need to discard your previous view of the world, you mental model of the world and that of yourself...
We could do better if we stopped thinking we are thinking when we are merely looking for excuses to support our view and export our view (or wanted reality) to others.
Unrelated, studies like this can never prove that free will does not exist. They are merely achieve a reading of intention up a level, from the external manifestation, to the actual "internal voice". Until they can prove the reactions are merely random, or totally predictable (given sufficient power), free will existence will remain a mystery. I tend to believe there is not free "will", but autonomous intent...something like "each person can process a sets of inputs and arrive at different interpretations and actions to be followed". You'd need to understand all inputs and all the alternatives paths that may be triggered in the brain, and add up probabilities all over the paths (eg. if the person's memory is not very good, past information will be distorted, affecting the outcome for good or for bad, etc.).
I think that it's more probable that someone that knows you really really well, and that is very good at reading people will be the best approximation to what someone will think or do. A machine will take much longer, and will only do good with large numbers of people, or for very basic behaviors that can be easily be predicted through statistics (but that can never know the real why's).
Imitation AI without understanding what is truly happening is like trying to build Windows by taking a photograph of how the screenshots look, instead of understanding why thing move, how, for what reasons and purpose, and based on what principles. If you don't know what the program is doing, you end up coping widgets and maybe, if you are lucky, with a nice GUI drawing program. This is an analogy on.
And trying to copy the brain structure is like trying to "discover" Windows (or Linux) by replicating the hardware. You design an atom by atom medium (really simplifing things 10X and forgeting about 50K other things like many assembler ops, the bus, etc. that real hardware is doing) to what you think is the important part of the original Windows. An then you expect it to develop intself into... Windows! Or maybe it's start at DOS, and develop into Windows...after all, Windows is like DOS but better, just Humand are like rats but better. And....Windows appears to reproduce itself with ease. Even Windows can copy Windows, it's only 400MB, about the size of DNA...just like humans!
And when nothing happens...you begin to recognize you need all the hardware for it to make sense. At you are then 1000 years into the future util you are done. But the next IBM, 50 years for now, will think that maybe, just maybe, if we populate the right conditions to the not-so-complete-platform (ie: really incomplete system, because if either understand the core stuff and what is REALLY happening , or you don't at all), say reading 1kb blocks of Memory of Windows every 10 minutes...then you have Windows. Will that ever fly?
No try switching Windows XP with Humans. Think about it like 10,000,000 complex hardware (operating on nature at a quantum level) and 1,000,000,000,000 more complex Software. And though in 100,000^5 of redudancies and things about nature, phisics, etc. that we don't know (because everything in Windows we do know, because we built it), and then add 1000x things we can't be aware of...a we are begining to grasp why unless you understand what's happening, you will end up with nothing much than food (as in proteins, carbohydrates and stuff that does nothing interesting).
Now, fast forward 200 years, and imagine you have the hardware, and the power to emulate the physical later, and that you can fully grow a person in-digit (as in-vitro but virtual). What you have there? A digital human! But you need to also replicate the world atom by atom for the human to be able to do anything interesting (abstracting and pretending the human doesn't need organs, and many interactions like receiving sunlight, food, etc.... means you are back at having to understand most every part and interaction to design for this...if that the case, go back to my previous paragraphs and re-read). So you end with a Digital Human that's a 100% copy of the physical layer. Suppose you could do that, and based on DNA you could grow a human digitally...SO DAMN WHAT? You gained nothing. You ported the human to an identical platform bit by bit. Yes, a Digital Human. You ended up doing an emulation layer that just wastes time and energy. You are better of doing a good service to that lady you saw yesterday that was in need.
All in all...I did not study physics, I did not read any of what you have posted, and I am not a computer scientist. But for crist sake...unless you understand what is happening (and you need to understand the code for that, and fairly well), or unless you understand exactly what is happening with the living thing (ie: dump of windows memory bit by bit, each hert)...and only then, you will be able recreate intelligence. Also, being able to emulate a human (but imitating nature) adds nothing to the equation. And no, it will definitely not be more able to make itself more intelligent that we are by self evolution...than what we are know. And my neighbor or coworkers, and even myself, could not evolve our DNA in any conscious direction, just as your digital version.
All in all, it's just more complicated than it looks, and that's my take.
I think not even 10,000 more processing power will give you "intelligence". We'd need to be able to program 1,000,000,000,000,000 better if we are ever going to make anything intelligent. And the shortcut may be our DNA, in chich case we've proven we can embrace and extend, to our extinction. So computer could "maybe" emulate great "software" and give the final results. In which case the merit is not our for sure, much less for the computer. The computer at most will be a container.
1) The were scared when we detonated the first TNT bomb. They where even more scared when the atomic bomb showed up. They are now even scared about this 10000 megatons bombs we plan to send to the moon if everything goes well,as research shows. Your argument is silly, it doesn't matter if people are scared or not scared. The real problem is what will happen, and the implications of what we do: That we can only now guess (and having different scientific opinions does help).
2) It was new and different and therefore SPOOOKY. There are a lot of new, different SPOOOKY things we don't care about. But messing inventing a COPY-PASTE from analog - deteriorating mammals - is not one of them. Offspring are made from sperm and ovum, not cloning. If the sperm reaches naturally, or if you replace the exterior, it may be spoooky, but you aren't changing nature (just overhelping).
3) Cloning mammals is very different, and no matter how PRO SPOOOKY you may be, it doesn't make SPOOOKY stuff good or bad per se. In fact, SPOOOKY has nothing to do with the concerns of the potential problems of mammal cloning in itself. But yes, something unnatural must have an important reason, and having meat prices go down maybe 10% is not one of them.
> and labeling meat as 'CLONED' will just make it easier for consumers to boycott perfectly safe products.
Boicotting perfectly safe products has been happening all the time since capitalsm took hold. It's a the core of the system. In Russia, you had to accept whatever the goverment and their companies mandated. In the US....guess what, it's supposed to run the opposite way: consumer are the ones that choose, and get to decide what perfectly safe products they need. Maybe you lived in Russia, or a based in Cuba, but that I don't know.
>I don't think that enabling advocacy groups to spread a bunch of FUD is the best plan.
FUD is not the problem. You need to educate the consumer if they want them to buy you cloned animals. Your argument is like saying you'll want all baseball teams should use the same name and clothes, so that perfectly good teams will not be discriminated against. Excuse me, a cloned animal may be a perfectly well, but I am entitled to listen to the FUD and to clearly detect if the animal was cloned or not in the supermarket, because it's important for me, and many others.
A cow is supposed to have sex, THEN kids. An apple is supposed to get cloned, grafted or even grow by chance. Apples are also self-incompatible; they must cross-pollinate to develop fruit. That's not by chance I believe and it applies to cows.
Your opinion is equivalent to saying teddy bears are cloned, so why not clone bears. An apple is not a Cow. Cloning a Cows is hard, cloning an Apple is something very easy. I've never seen a cow cloned in nature, but on Apples it must have happened lots of times. The apples can survive without our help and prosper peacefully after we get extinct, there is no real feed for our cloning. We might enjoy eating the same apples over and over, or that tasty T-Bone, and get away with it, but it's not as if you can equate altering something that does never happen by chance (a clone from a born cow) with something that can, and does, happen naturally.
It's just not the same, never. But go an clone cows, humans. That's how we learn what not to do anyway. It may be the case that nothing ever happens at that we can get away with it.
Look what happened to people eating mad cows. After all, the cows where only eating remains of other animals, what was wrong with that? Yes, I don't much, but I would have never fed a cow with floor made from their comrades bones.
I expect science not to be disturbed by mad creationists, and the fight to stop. Just don't let it intimidate or make you mad, bad science is bad science, as always.
The fact that they can be right is what you are missing. if their theory is wrong, then nathing can make it work. If it is right, then why oppose it? I really don't give a shit about any theory and look at all facts with a suspicious attitude. For example, you seem to have an agenda too, and are willing to hide facts to "protect"... who...from a bad theory?
- First, there is not "one" definition of intelligence, but at least several very different intelligences (kinetic, language, musical, visual, etc.), located in different parts of the brain. - Second, how you wire your neurons it's up to you a great degree something you can choose. This is how you solve problems and connect ideas. - Third, there is practice and experience. - Forth, there's also motivation that chemically affects how well memory stores information.
So it's not about being politically correct here, nor is it about trying to establish that all of are are equally "intelligent". The point here is that a learning attitude towards life, not caring about "abstract" intelligence absolutes that brings a "I'll to it better on-average each month", where setbacks are great feedback for improving and trying new approaches, and keeping a high morale (motivation, interest, "Do or not do, there is no try" - where the point here is not on NOT failing, but on believing will reach destination sooner or later) will make you not only perform better, but will make you more "intelligence" by anyone's definition (though it does have more to do with attitude, with learning to learn, and with developing your hidden mental abilities, which everyone has)...
I have a stupid example: in my family nobody dances...they are not made for dancing, the have two left foots... So I thought likewise for years, and hated being forced into a dance scenario. One day I was a couple having so much fun (and dancing with great feeling) I recognized I wanted to feel the same way...(ie: not dancing well, but having so much fun and style). I went to classes, reminding me everyday that I didn't want to be "good", I wanted to have "fun" each day, I would not compare me to others, I'd not evaluate advances in the short term, I'd see others learning faster as a great indication of how to get better and a "sources to learn from"...I brief, I stopped caring about being smart, relaxed and went for the fun...and that enabled the change. It's not that I can dance now, it's that I don't care about doing it right, and end up doing it pretty much right to the point of having people I don't know come by and saying "wow, that was amazing" and comments like that. This was when I was 29, and because I challenged the idea that I was hard-coded as a bad dancer...and the idea that dancing is for non-intelectual types (sounds stupid, yeah).
The same happened with presentation skills. I decided I wouldn't feel bad nor good about any particular presentation. I'd just pay attention and get better over time. I had scene panic in day 1. Two years later I was presenting in public events with great please. By boss told me I didn't have to do it better, I only needed to have more fun. It was so true, I though that advise was completely stupid and maybe even dishonest. The advise was definitely right on track, and I managed to to get really good on client feedback surveys. I had fun, I prepared so that clients had a bit of fun, challenge, etc. Before all this, I focused on being totally right...felt the need to show I knew a lot, assumed a defensive positions when challenged (or got nervous).
I learned all this at age >28, after moving to another country (I lieved with my parents before). You can't be any smarter that you are, but you ARE MUCH smarter that you think. You can exploit your potential by NOT caring to be smart, NOT caring of being less/more smart than someone else, BUT by having fun, persevering...getting amused, seing mistakes as guides and part of the process, and by paying attention at what works, what does not, why...and did I mention fun and "no competition focus" worked wonders? You end up being very competitive if you stop trying to compete, and start having the right approach.
This is from my experience, so I am glad there are 30 years of studies that in a way resemble what I learned for for me. As Esther Dyson once say "Always Make New Mistakes"...and I'd add: don't be set back, it's the way to learn:-)
So the agenda is pre made, and you discuss the details. Like "Should we go to the zoo or not go to the zoo" and then all youcan do is discuss the merrits of going to the zoo because someone said it, but you can't say "We shouldn't, because they are featuring Movie X at the Cinema and it makes more sense for us movie fans".
So in truth, you lack all context, and allow erally nasty things to develop WHILE you still think you are making sense and are more rational than others.
I'd suggest not accepting any particular agenda, and that you start trying to determine what agenda is better for your country. It can be done, you just need to go beyond the smoke curtains.
>until better evidence to the contrary comes along
Your point of view is a little limited . If better evidence comes along, God will be scientific, and to get to know God, you'd have to be as powerful (for lack of a better word) as God. Would you expect a Quake II bot to get to know what humans and the real world is, to be able to explain the real world? And this is not a good example, but it gives the idea. The bots could say: god exists. If they do, these would be more close to reality that those that want evidence...they'd never find it. The chance of bot getting to understand really what is causing stuff is 10^100000 more likely to happen than us being able to explain God, yet we'd exist, and God would. We are so limited we mostly create stuff that resembles us (our math, 2D or 3D worlds, etc.).
>My proof that your god doesn't exist is your lack of proof that he does.
My proof that your science doesn't exist is that you never know when you are awake or dreaming. You can't prove you are not dreaming, else, you'd always know when you are dreaming and you don't.
If you are really pessimistic, you will fear it being an illusion, you may believe "this's is not it", etc. You are not really optimistic I venture to say, but agnostic. If not then, I do tend to see it that way. No matter the outcome, it's great for me. I don't have time to add bad thoughts to a reality that...mh...is. Instead of disliking the outcome, you start to figure things out as great lessons, and you learn to not matter much about the outcome, because the process (attitude?) always takes you where you want to go. Optimism per se helps in a different context. If you don't think an outcome is possible, it will probably not happen. But if you are to worried about an outcome, it may well not happen. Optimism as hope is not great, optimism as attitude does. This is MHO.
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No, it's not an argument of emotion but an argument of choice. You either believe in choice or you don't.
Not the pope decision, but those that followed the "orders". They were not aware of the stupidity of their decisions for sure.
Think of it as the capability of the system having the capability to reprogram itself at will. And this will depends on internal more than external conditions.
Yes, you can't rule out the reprogramming drivers to be material. But there is chance to trigger and chance to not trigger that internal change.
In the end, I think the body/person/mind/whatever can sense good from bad (at different levels of understanding and correctness). Like if "karma" was something programmed in our DNA, then free will will end up being our capability to reprogram ourselves for good or bad.
>Call me when someone free will's up some anti-gravity.
This shouldn't make you change you mind. We may end up being able to directly alter gravity...so what? There are animals that can produce electricity at will, so what? The same for photons. So what? As long as you can explain how, you are back at your conclusions.
>All the world's a stage, and you're just an actor.
Good example, as actor can choose not to follow the script, and it has happened many times over with great results (for some films at least).
That is what people mean with free will. They know they are acting, and they resist inertia, or following the script.
It's a way of saying that at our level, we can program ourselves internally disregarding all external influences, and therefore, that each of us is responsible for our choices. Not because of the action, but because we can choose.
Free will has nothing to do with external conditions. If somebody tells me "give me 1 dollar tomorrow or I will kill you", and I believed the "advise", I'd probably give him the one dollar. Free will means that I can still choose not following the direction. At most, they can force you body to do things, not your spirit or mind.
Now mental tampering like today's top notch marketing is another thing. You are not even aware of what is happening.
So yes, you need to be informed for free will to deliver the right results. If your free will operates based on biased premises and wrong interpretations, then free will becomes irrelevant, as you end up serving masters, unaware of.
My answer would be that it means it's not deterministic. That if you could create "time" in a lab, and put a person inside the time chamber, and repeat an experiment, you'd see that the person may be inclined to respond in some way, but that it would not always be the same. PLUS, and this is important, that his choice will always depend on internal choice, not external conditions (like humidity changes, atmosphere charge, air pressure, etc.).
In the end it means that given a human being that's about to make a choice, and NO matter what the circumstances are (like education, mental state, physical conditions, etc.), he is always capable of choosing any of the available paths, and that no formula will explain each choice (yes for a series, as a probability).
The belief is that choice correlates to intent, as in something internal that doesn't just react to external conditions. Free will is that any choice is possible given any set of external conditions. Of course, "free will" seems to be an assertion that human choices are not random nor deterministic. This rules our "will" to some power beyond our known universe, and links it with our true "self", supposedly our esense that's located in the spiritual land for lack of a better word.
Hehe.
>Hume basically killed the silly notion that somehow randomness or chance could give us "extra" free will.
I think randomness in terms of unexpected exposure to different scenarios or situations leading to a better understanding of things, enhances understanding. And better understanding leads to fact-based free will. If you use randomness in that sense, it's not really improving "free will", but inproving the substrate on which free will operates, and the two may be confuded by some.
This is my opinion on how I undertood my catholic education on free will.
>If he knows that, than I can't truly have free will.
It's not like that at all. His knowing of your choice in no way affected your ability to freely choose what you were going to do. If you regard that from someone that lives in a universe made of time and space, you may think it's like cheating: if he can anticipate my choice, and always be right, then I am not really choosing but complying. But this perspective, then one you are talking about, is not what's really happening.
Now...
The reality is that God's existence is outside time (and space). NO TIME AT ALL for him. He is not bounded by time. So he "knows what you'll do" is exactly the same as saying that "he saw you when you did it" or that "he remembers what you have done". If for free will to exist he had to not know what you were going to do, then he must be bound by time. But he created time in the first place, and is of course not limited by space/time. So your assumption implies that God should be bounded by time for us to have free will, which is not really God...but another mortal thing (according to how I understood what they - my teachers - were trying to teach us).
So in the end, the point is that it's really difficult to try to really understand what God is really (if you believe in God at all) and it's very easy for most students to get it all wrong.
I don't think you really need to kill free will to support your vision. Yes, you do need improve the concept of free will, and introduce true consciousness and understanding of why outcomes are as they are. You need to challenge all your assumptions, and you need to reduce your automatic reactions. And you need to stop the internal chatty voice that is not really oneself.
On the other hand, free will, as understood by most of us in the west, is that the thief was fully aware this was mine, and could have not done that. So knowingly he made his bets and I caught him, so he must be punished. In this mentality, punishment is the right solution. And if you take away free will, you cannot punish because he can't be guilty. He had NO choice. And so, to hold up society you'd need to agree that people that are not chossing must be punished.
In the west you think in terms of "justice" and "free will". For many in the east (gross simplification) you may be something having to do with "suffering" and no "free will".
But in the end, true consciousness of order of things and the irrelevance of most of the thing that we do, and most of the things that others do, is what brings balance. Ignorance and lack of understanding become the enemy.
A few hours ago I was watching a documentary about Cuba involvement in the Angola. Both sides (socialist vs capitalist) though they were doing the right thing to do. Also the rebels though they were doing the right thing. When you add up all that happened, it makes a lot of sense (predictable) and it still makes no sense at all. To become free and stop abuse, rebels start organizing. There are several leaders. So in order to fight Portuguese Colonialism, parties ask for help from either capitalist factions, or communist factions. If one party gets help, then the other also gets help, because their adversaries are already implanting their ideology to a other relebs and the country will become another enemy. It's a bit more complex, but all in all, it's total lack of understanding from the Portuguese, and the three rebel factions, adding in the Southafricans that would have not like the Cubans training more rebels mean to work in favour of liberating "South Africa" as well. The right thing there is letting the people from Angola make a choice, and trying to provide a fair description of what kind of outcome you can expect either regime.
So most everyone was reacting there, and using..yes..will, that was not very free, as it was really shortsighted and biased towards their personal interests. So I think what the worlds lacks is consciousness and a little bit of decency. World politics and economy is a reflexion of sports. We chose party and stick to it, abhorring the other teams, "for our own good". That's why I don't usually talk about politics, economics nor sports with people that have already made up their minds (which means 95% or more of everyone I know).
No, if you take away free will you become a rat, pigeon or any other killable animal considered a thing. What we need to learn is that free will exists at more levels, including plants, animals, etc. If we become machines, than anything that happens is just OK, because we are not really choosing anything.
That's why we pre-program responses, so that we don't need to take that much time to come to an answer. That's why walking is a struggle when 1-2 years old, and afterwards, it becomes as easy as ot having to reason one bit. But then again, that leads to a lot of problem, because we end p being programed to "react" in a way that seems to the obvious response, even though we are not really aware consciously of what we are doing. That's why, I guess, I have read some books about Buddism that tell you to start walking consiously as much as you can. Feel all the movements, sense them...all of them, direct them again in a conscious non-automatic way. To start thinking again with the heart and the part of the brain that is more reasonable.
And thats also why many people dislike other football teams except the one they have chosen. Or why a religion ultra-pro pacifist as Christianism ended up supporting crusaders, or wars. And why the spiritual leader became the King of Kings for at least some centuries. We forget that we are reacting automatically. We make the decision in less than 500ms for sure, and then produce a lot of activity in the cortex (or higher brain) to support what our programming tells us.
The higher brain fucntions merely become great at finding the right arguments to support you higher beliefs. Beliefs programmed during the early stages of existence. After that, changing is very hard, as you need to discard your previous view of the world, you mental model of the world and that of yourself...
We could do better if we stopped thinking we are thinking when we are merely looking for excuses to support our view and export our view (or wanted reality) to others.
Unrelated, studies like this can never prove that free will does not exist. They are merely achieve a reading of intention up a level, from the external manifestation, to the actual "internal voice". Until they can prove the reactions are merely random, or totally predictable (given sufficient power), free will existence will remain a mystery. I tend to believe there is not free "will", but autonomous intent...something like "each person can process a sets of inputs and arrive at different interpretations and actions to be followed". You'd need to understand all inputs and all the alternatives paths that may be triggered in the brain, and add up probabilities all over the paths (eg. if the person's memory is not very good, past information will be distorted, affecting the outcome for good or for bad, etc.).
I think that it's more probable that someone that knows you really really well, and that is very good at reading people will be the best approximation to what someone will think or do. A machine will take much longer, and will only do good with large numbers of people, or for very basic behaviors that can be easily be predicted through statistics (but that can never know the real why's).
>>Fantasy? Yes. Impossible? Don't be so sure:
... Windows! Or maybe it's start at DOS, and develop into Windows...after all, Windows is like DOS but better, just Humand are like rats but better. And....Windows appears to reproduce itself with ease. Even Windows can copy Windows, it's only 400MB, about the size of DNA...just like humans!
It does still look like fantasy.
Imitation AI without understanding what is truly happening is like trying to build Windows by taking a photograph of how the screenshots look, instead of understanding why thing move, how, for what reasons and purpose, and based on what principles. If you don't know what the program is doing, you end up coping widgets and maybe, if you are lucky, with a nice GUI drawing program. This is an analogy on.
And trying to copy the brain structure is like trying to "discover" Windows (or Linux) by replicating the hardware. You design an atom by atom medium (really simplifing things 10X and forgeting about 50K other things like many assembler ops, the bus, etc. that real hardware is doing) to what you think is the important part of the original Windows. An then you expect it to develop intself into
And when nothing happens...you begin to recognize you need all the hardware for it to make sense. At you are then 1000 years into the future util you are done. But the next IBM, 50 years for now, will think that maybe, just maybe, if we populate the right conditions to the not-so-complete-platform (ie: really incomplete system, because if either understand the core stuff and what is REALLY happening , or you don't at all), say reading 1kb blocks of Memory of Windows every 10 minutes...then you have Windows. Will that ever fly?
No try switching Windows XP with Humans. Think about it like 10,000,000 complex hardware (operating on nature at a quantum level) and 1,000,000,000,000 more complex Software. And though in 100,000^5 of redudancies and things about nature, phisics, etc. that we don't know (because everything in Windows we do know, because we built it), and then add 1000x things we can't be aware of...a we are begining to grasp why unless you understand what's happening, you will end up with nothing much than food (as in proteins, carbohydrates and stuff that does nothing interesting).
Now, fast forward 200 years, and imagine you have the hardware, and the power to emulate the physical later, and that you can fully grow a person in-digit (as in-vitro but virtual). What you have there? A digital human! But you need to also replicate the world atom by atom for the human to be able to do anything interesting (abstracting and pretending the human doesn't need organs, and many interactions like receiving sunlight, food, etc.... means you are back at having to understand most every part and interaction to design for this...if that the case, go back to my previous paragraphs and re-read). So you end with a Digital Human that's a 100% copy of the physical layer. Suppose you could do that, and based on DNA you could grow a human digitally...SO DAMN WHAT? You gained nothing. You ported the human to an identical platform bit by bit. Yes, a Digital Human. You ended up doing an emulation layer that just wastes time and energy. You are better of doing a good service to that lady you saw yesterday that was in need.
All in all...I did not study physics, I did not read any of what you have posted, and I am not a computer scientist. But for crist sake...unless you understand what is happening (and you need to understand the code for that, and fairly well), or unless you understand exactly what is happening with the living thing (ie: dump of windows memory bit by bit, each hert)...and only then, you will be able recreate intelligence. Also, being able to emulate a human (but imitating nature) adds nothing to the equation. And no, it will definitely not be more able to make itself more intelligent that we are by self evolution...than what we are know. And my neighbor or coworkers, and even myself, could not evolve our DNA in any conscious direction, just as your digital version.
All in all, it's just more complicated than it looks, and that's my take.
I think not even 10,000 more processing power will give you "intelligence". We'd need to be able to program 1,000,000,000,000,000 better if we are ever going to make anything intelligent. And the shortcut may be our DNA, in chich case we've proven we can embrace and extend, to our extinction. So computer could "maybe" emulate great "software" and give the final results. In which case the merit is not our for sure, much less for the computer. The computer at most will be a container.
1) The were scared when we detonated the first TNT bomb. They where even more scared when the atomic bomb showed up. They are now even scared about this 10000 megatons bombs we plan to send to the moon if everything goes well,as research shows. Your argument is silly, it doesn't matter if people are scared or not scared. The real problem is what will happen, and the implications of what we do: That we can only now guess (and having different scientific opinions does help).
2) It was new and different and therefore SPOOOKY. There are a lot of new, different SPOOOKY things we don't care about. But messing inventing a COPY-PASTE from analog - deteriorating mammals - is not one of them. Offspring are made from sperm and ovum, not cloning. If the sperm reaches naturally, or if you replace the exterior, it may be spoooky, but you aren't changing nature (just overhelping).
3) Cloning mammals is very different, and no matter how PRO SPOOOKY you may be, it doesn't make SPOOOKY stuff good or bad per se. In fact, SPOOOKY has nothing to do with the concerns of the potential problems of mammal cloning in itself. But yes, something unnatural must have an important reason, and having meat prices go down maybe 10% is not one of them.
>All in all, there's nothing to worry about,
Nothing in what sense, if you can't know.
> and labeling meat as 'CLONED' will just make it easier for consumers to boycott perfectly safe products.
Boicotting perfectly safe products has been happening all the time since capitalsm took hold. It's a the core of the system. In Russia, you had to accept whatever the goverment and their companies mandated. In the US....guess what, it's supposed to run the opposite way: consumer are the ones that choose, and get to decide what perfectly safe products they need. Maybe you lived in Russia, or a based in Cuba, but that I don't know.
>I don't think that enabling advocacy groups to spread a bunch of FUD is the best plan.
FUD is not the problem. You need to educate the consumer if they want them to buy you cloned animals. Your argument is like saying you'll want all baseball teams should use the same name and clothes, so that perfectly good teams will not be discriminated against. Excuse me, a cloned animal may be a perfectly well, but I am entitled to listen to the FUD and to clearly detect if the animal was cloned or not in the supermarket, because it's important for me, and many others.
A cow is supposed to have sex, THEN kids. An apple is supposed to get cloned, grafted or even grow by chance. Apples are also self-incompatible; they must cross-pollinate to develop fruit. That's not by chance I believe and it applies to cows.
Your opinion is equivalent to saying teddy bears are cloned, so why not clone bears. An apple is not a Cow. Cloning a Cows is hard, cloning an Apple is something very easy. I've never seen a cow cloned in nature, but on Apples it must have happened lots of times. The apples can survive without our help and prosper peacefully after we get extinct, there is no real feed for our cloning. We might enjoy eating the same apples over and over, or that tasty T-Bone, and get away with it, but it's not as if you can equate altering something that does never happen by chance (a clone from a born cow) with something that can, and does, happen naturally.
It's just not the same, never. But go an clone cows, humans. That's how we learn what not to do anyway. It may be the case that nothing ever happens at that we can get away with it.
Look what happened to people eating mad cows. After all, the cows where only eating remains of other animals, what was wrong with that? Yes, I don't much, but I would have never fed a cow with floor made from their comrades bones.
I expect science not to be disturbed by mad creationists, and the fight to stop. Just don't let it intimidate or make you mad, bad science is bad science, as always.
Defense is possible if you can quickly aim the mirror orthogonal to the light source...ie, beaming back 80% will probably annoy the attacker.
The fact that they can be right is what you are missing. if their theory is wrong, then nathing can make it work. If it is right, then why oppose it? I really don't give a shit about any theory and look at all facts with a suspicious attitude. For example, you seem to have an agenda too, and are willing to hide facts to "protect" ... who...from a bad theory?
- First, there is not "one" definition of intelligence, but at least several very different intelligences (kinetic, language, musical, visual, etc.), located in different parts of the brain.
:-)
- Second, how you wire your neurons it's up to you a great degree something you can choose. This is how you solve problems and connect ideas.
- Third, there is practice and experience.
- Forth, there's also motivation that chemically affects how well memory stores information.
So it's not about being politically correct here, nor is it about trying to establish that all of are are equally "intelligent". The point here is that a learning attitude towards life, not caring about "abstract" intelligence absolutes that brings a "I'll to it better on-average each month", where setbacks are great feedback for improving and trying new approaches, and keeping a high morale (motivation, interest, "Do or not do, there is no try" - where the point here is not on NOT failing, but on believing will reach destination sooner or later) will make you not only perform better, but will make you more "intelligence" by anyone's definition (though it does have more to do with attitude, with learning to learn, and with developing your hidden mental abilities, which everyone has)...
I have a stupid example: in my family nobody dances...they are not made for dancing, the have two left foots... So I thought likewise for years, and hated being forced into a dance scenario. One day I was a couple having so much fun (and dancing with great feeling) I recognized I wanted to feel the same way...(ie: not dancing well, but having so much fun and style). I went to classes, reminding me everyday that I didn't want to be "good", I wanted to have "fun" each day, I would not compare me to others, I'd not evaluate advances in the short term, I'd see others learning faster as a great indication of how to get better and a "sources to learn from"...I brief, I stopped caring about being smart, relaxed and went for the fun...and that enabled the change. It's not that I can dance now, it's that I don't care about doing it right, and end up doing it pretty much right to the point of having people I don't know come by and saying "wow, that was amazing" and comments like that. This was when I was 29, and because I challenged the idea that I was hard-coded as a bad dancer...and the idea that dancing is for non-intelectual types (sounds stupid, yeah).
The same happened with presentation skills. I decided I wouldn't feel bad nor good about any particular presentation. I'd just pay attention and get better over time. I had scene panic in day 1. Two years later I was presenting in public events with great please. By boss told me I didn't have to do it better, I only needed to have more fun. It was so true, I though that advise was completely stupid and maybe even dishonest. The advise was definitely right on track, and I managed to to get really good on client feedback surveys. I had fun, I prepared so that clients had a bit of fun, challenge, etc. Before all this, I focused on being totally right...felt the need to show I knew a lot, assumed a defensive positions when challenged (or got nervous).
I learned all this at age >28, after moving to another country (I lieved with my parents before). You can't be any smarter that you are, but you ARE MUCH smarter that you think. You can exploit your potential by NOT caring to be smart, NOT caring of being less/more smart than someone else, BUT by having fun, persevering...getting amused, seing mistakes as guides and part of the process, and by paying attention at what works, what does not, why...and did I mention fun and "no competition focus" worked wonders? You end up being very competitive if you stop trying to compete, and start having the right approach.
This is from my experience, so I am glad there are 30 years of studies that in a way resemble what I learned for for me. As Esther Dyson once say "Always Make New Mistakes"...and I'd add: don't be set back, it's the way to learn
So the agenda is pre made, and you discuss the details. Like "Should we go to the zoo or not go to the zoo" and then all youcan do is discuss the merrits of going to the zoo because someone said it, but you can't say "We shouldn't, because they are featuring Movie X at the Cinema and it makes more sense for us movie fans".
So in truth, you lack all context, and allow erally nasty things to develop WHILE you still think you are making sense and are more rational than others.
I'd suggest not accepting any particular agenda, and that you start trying to determine what agenda is better for your country. It can be done, you just need to go beyond the smoke curtains.
>until better evidence to the contrary comes along
Your point of view is a little limited . If better evidence comes along, God will be scientific, and to get to know God, you'd have to be as powerful (for lack of a better word) as God. Would you expect a Quake II bot to get to know what humans and the real world is, to be able to explain the real world? And this is not a good example, but it gives the idea. The bots could say: god exists. If they do, these would be more close to reality that those that want evidence...they'd never find it. The chance of bot getting to understand really what is causing stuff is 10^100000 more likely to happen than us being able to explain God, yet we'd exist, and God would. We are so limited we mostly create stuff that resembles us (our math, 2D or 3D worlds, etc.).
>My proof that your god doesn't exist is your lack of proof that he does.
My proof that your science doesn't exist is that you never know when you are awake or dreaming. You can't prove you are not dreaming, else, you'd always know when you are dreaming and you don't.
If you are really pessimistic, you will fear it being an illusion, you may believe "this's is not it", etc. You are not really optimistic I venture to say, but agnostic. If not then, I do tend to see it that way. No matter the outcome, it's great for me. I don't have time to add bad thoughts to a reality that...mh...is. Instead of disliking the outcome, you start to figure things out as great lessons, and you learn to not matter much about the outcome, because the process (attitude?) always takes you where you want to go. Optimism per se helps in a different context. If you don't think an outcome is possible, it will probably not happen. But if you are to worried about an outcome, it may well not happen. Optimism as hope is not great, optimism as attitude does. This is MHO.