Yes, I cant tell you the number of people I know who say "Quake III / Unreal Tournament have a permanent spot on my hard drive" the way they do with Portal or UFO.Seems to me you are the one putting the past of a pedestal if you think the final years of the N64 and Dreamcast were 'fantastic'.
Failure to judge something when you have sufficient information is not a virtue, don't kid yourself.
You now aren't attacking my position, you are attacking someone who thinks games in late 1990 were better than games 5 years ago. I don't hold that position. Quake 3 era shooters were shite and the format was tired. The late 1990's were a shite time for gaming. The middle 2000-2010 were a great time for gaming where cool graphics were combined with neat new ideas to make some great games. Some time in the next 10 years I've no doubt things will get better and I will have some new games to add to my list of all time favourites. Nothing AAA has gone on that list in the last two years. I'm not putting the past of a pedestal, you are putting the present on one. Name one AAA game in the past two years that you think will be considered a classic 20 years from now in the way that UFO, or Halo, or Portal are (notice the nice spread of time frames there, this isn't nostalgia, it recognising things are right now, shite and turgid).
Do you genuinely believe that this game will even try to be as I've described? Do you really think EA will make a game like that? Do you have any reason at all to think that is what they are trying to from the press releases so far? Sure it could be like that, if some indie developer somehow go a hold of the IP. If that is what they were going to do they wouldn't be talking about the features they appropriated from Deus Ex, they would be touting how dark and morally challenging the game will be for the player.
At times those arguments were just as right in Commodore Format and Zapp 64 as they are today. Sometimes they were 'less right' in the sense that things were okay as opposed to turgid. Right now we are in a time when things are utterly turgid. It isn't entirely surprising, we are well into this generation of consoles, most of the innovation this round was done on the Wii (and in the casual gaming sphere, not my thing but that is just tough shit for me) and that has largely played itself out.
The games you are playing now are better in some ways. The graphics are better, the voice acting is better (oh dear lord is the voice acting better), the translation from Japanese is better. And in places these improvements have certainly made for a better experience. But Citizen Kane is still an amazing film even though it is in black and white and UFO: Enemy Unknown is still an amazing game even if by modern standards it looks like Fisher Price puked over Tokyo III. The tools available to developers today are better, and some great stuff has been done with them, but like 3D films, almost everyone is doing complete shite, and like 3D films they are doing it because the vogue technology has become more important that using the technology for artistic purposes. It will get better once people get bored of this bullshit (as they always have in the past), but right now, things suck.
Name one first person shooter which allowed you to order others to take morally reprehensible but seemingly necessary actions and did so in a way which made doing that seem more natural than just pulling the trigger yourself. I can put a screw in with a hammer, in very rare circumstances and with lots of practice I might be able to do a half decent job, especially if I change my screw enough that it is more nail like, but it is still the wrong tool for the job.
Your first complaint dodges the question. I (and I presume you) fit neither of those categories (I like FPS, I even enjoy games like Halo and Rainbow Six: Vegas, perennial whipping boys of the FPS bashers). We are therefore free to discuss if work in a genre has been innovative of late or not. I and most other gamers I know over 9 years old are bored of the homogeneity of style in AAA games.
It cant be a good game, and be Syndicate at the same time in this genre. Syndicate divorced you from the consequences of your actions by allowing you to control a squad. You ordered persuasion and murder rather than doing it yourself. You cant do that from a first person perspective. So either you make a good FPS, or a good Syndicate game, but you cant make both in one game. My point was that Fallout 3 was not a new direction, and I never complained at the time. It was an evolution of a concept. Fallout Tactics on the other hand was a bucket of shit, for precisely the same reason this will either be a bucket of shit, or not be Syndicate. You cant capture the essence of the Fallout universe in a TBS game. Warcraft gets to go in a different direction because at the time RTS games were tired as was the perspective on the Warcraft universe offered by the RTS genre. Do you want to try and argue that morally ambivalent, squad based real time strategy is tired? Do you want to try and make the case that the FPS genre isn't over done?
Third person RPG and first person RPG are compatible genres. Both tell the story from the perspective of a protagonist who is the player. Fallout 3 being a (pretty decent) oblivion clone with guns was not especially unnatural. Now WoW is not a Warcraft game, and having been a fan of Warcraft I was very disappointed that we got a MMORPG instead of something compatible with an RTS. But you know what, it wasn't a remake, it was the next iteration in a series. They weren't trying to make another Warcraft style game and at the time Warcraft was frankly a bit tired as it was implemented, so I don't really feel justified bitching about it. Series take different directions. Similarly if they made a Civ6 which was in the style of Paradox Interactive titles like Europa Universalis I wouldn't bitch at first, both because it would be a new direction and because these represent compatible genres. That is not what this is. The squad based RTS genre is not tired (the FPS certainly is), it is completely ignored because it doesn't play so well on consoles. But we need a gimmick to make our latest FPS more appealing! I know, lets slap on the name of some old piece of IP we happen to have the rights to, preventing anyone else from release a genuine re-imagining and piss off all the fans. You know what is really sad, it will probably work.
New Criticism essentially asserts that there is nothing to a work beyond that which is written on the page (the view expressed by the GP). It suggests that opinions about what the work means are all as valid as the expertise of the person reading them, but that expertise is in criticism, not authorship, nor history, nor psychology. This results in the hilarious assertion that (unless an expert in criticism, specifically the techniques of the New Criticism) the authors opinion on their own work is meaningless / irrelevant.
New Criticism is fine as a methodology (if impossible to actually implement since language is an adaptive social construct and works are not and cannot be made independent of language) because it can reveals new things about the work that you didn't realise before (for example a work read in isolation might be horrifically racist, but in context and given the authors intent, very progressive). The problem comes when people start saying things like "the only correct way to analyse a text is with the techniques of New Criticism". Or "One should not care about the authors opinion they are just another reader".
It is literary criticism, not the scientific method, not ethics. The notion that there is a correct way to do thing is manifest bullshit. There are interesting and insightful ways to do things, and there are not. The hubris of the New Criticism lies in it's desire to have its methodology reign supreme, when it has no justification for this other than its adherents own fanaticism.
No criticism is better than another until you decide upon a value, utility function or something similar. New Criticism rules out a very large number of possible values with no justification. It is the equivalent of a historian refusing to consider anything but primary sources. Sure that might be one way to get a picture of what happened and provide context, but if it was the only method that would be a very poor way to conduct the discipline.
Ah yes, New Criticism, because Leavis and his idiotic ilk took a look at the downfall of logical positivism and said "if only our discipline could show such absurd hubris with even less justification". The second you make normative statements about criticism, is the second you look like a moron.
Before you mount a defence of your absurd position I have two words for you I consider highly appropriate given the context, assassination, Macbeth.
"Second, a slacker who spends money for goods and services is obviously better for the economy that somebody who doesn't."
No they really aren't. They are worse because they are taking up productive capacity for unproductive ends. If a fantastically wealthy person happened to be say the CEO of a company and were more productive if they were say eating excellent food (or if they were motivated to do more / better by getting nicer food) then that nicer food in some sense represents an investment (even if it is exceedingly expensive).
Unless they are working hard themselves the only thing the heirs of the very wealthy do is serve as an example for people of what can happen if you are very rich and able to pass on that wealth. Does the thought that your daughter (if you have one) might turn out like Paris Hilton incentivse you to work harder?
You are completely correct, it's completely absurd, especially in specialised disciplines. You know how you can tell when I'm programming? I'm sat in the office with my feet up throwing a ball in the air. Thinking.
No it is not identical because the halting thesis is answered on turing machines and deal with arbitrary algorithms. simulate() is not an arbitrary algorithm running on a Turing machine.
It is perfectly reasonable to presuppose that given that there exists halts(prog,input) we can write a function bodgeup(p) which leads to a contradiction and proves the halting thesis because we can write the pseudo code for bodgeup(). If halts() is general and we apply it to bodgeup() we find a contradiction. However the existence of the function bodgeup() does not change the code for prog().
simulate() (which you identify with prog above) cannot have a counterpart bodgeup() however because introducing bodgeup() would require us to change simulate() and by definition simulate() cannot change. By definition simulate cannot have a counterpart bodgeup() and you cant write the pseudocode for it because the second you do you have to change the code for simulate(). It is not possible to write both functions at the same time.
This is why I keep pointing out that simulate() is not an arbitrary function. The existence of it's counterpart in the halting thesis is ruled out by it's definition. Assuming it has such a counterpart assumes free will exists because it assumes a contradiction.
Please go ahead and try to write the pseudocode for bodgeup() in your simple system. Every time you write it you will find you need to change the code for simulate() because it no longer meets the definition you set for it.
As far as I can tell qualia is basically the reification of abstract forms of sense data. It in essence defines the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. What reason do you have for inferring that your experience of the colour red is a real material thing?
"I'm seeing (or not seeing) the same colour as you are when I look at that tree/lake" - is in essence meaningless. The experience of colour is an abstraction, not a thing. The way you can tell this is the case is because you can tell we are looking at the same lake but you cant tell if we are experiencing the same colour.
Our sense data has a material counterpart (or rather, we can reasonably infer a material counterpart to our sense data). This is the state of our brain when we experience something. And we can say within a suitable framework if this is the same or not.
If you are not reifying something manifestly immaterial (experience) then I still have no idea what qualia is.
Again, most problems in philosophy stem from ontologies which admit reality to things without justification. Positions in ethics other than meta-ethical nihilism, theist perspectives on the divine, any position on purpose other than existential nihilism, and position in ontology other than materialism (and many forms of materialism are highly suspect as well). So much confusion in philosophy stems, in my opinion, from wishing that nature gave two hoots (as though nature can have intent) about how we wish it was and what we wished was present in it. Your inclination that there 'must be' something which underlies your experience other than the material world and sense data is as far as I can tell simply wishful thinking. I can assure you that once I understood how to infer the reality of things through the congruence of sense data I rapidly recognised my own inclinations about the universe for what they were, my own desires, not a reflection of how things are.
"in all circumstances" in the second paragraph is meant to imply there must exist at least one circumstance where the future cannot be determined.
Also my second example in the third paragraph I swapped trees and houses when I shouldn't. If all houses are trees then there are no houses that are not trees. Obviously there can still be trees that are not houses.
"Of course not - it's impossible to define properly. It still 'exists' in some very real form though despite that."
No, no it doesn't. I have access to sense data. I have access to emotions. I do not have access to qualia, I don't even know what it is supposed to be since you wont provide me with a definition.
Truth is not a popularity contest. I do not experience qualia, and neither do you. If you did, you would be able to tell me what it is.
You aren't seeing blue. I'm not seeing blue either. I have sense data that I have, for expediency labelled as blue. Blueness is a social construct, not a real thing. Same goes for the taste of cinnamon or apple. None of these things are real. They are convenient labels for collections of sense data that aid organisation and communication.
Science cant answer an ill defined question because it is ill defined (which is not to say there aren't well defined questions science cant answer, but it has no hope with ill defined ones). This is hardly surprising. You wont find the taste of cinnamon in someone's brain because there is no such thing as the taste of cinnamon. There is only the sense data I experience when eating cinnamon which we reify for convenience. I infer that this encoding does exist (in so far as having a very precise analogue in sense data) in my brain because there are collections of neurons which are identically correlated with the experience of eating cinnamon.
Repeated reification of poorly defined concepts is precisely the problem with philosophy as it is practices today. Metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of the mind, these are all areas where abstract notions are treated like they are real physical things. Even philosophy of science is permeated by this notion that things like atoms or forces are 'real'. In ordinary language this is convenient, but in the case of things like god or qualia we are just needlessly multiplying entities.
"The problem is, if the future state of the universe can be calculated, and it says that you're going to respond to this Slashdot post, you can choose, well, not to respond to this Slashdot post."
Again, no I cant. If I have determined that I will respond to your post then I will respond to your post and there is no way I can not respond to your post. Not because determinism is true but because by definition it is impossible for me to defy the results of my calculation because if I do then I haven't calculated what I claimed I calculated, the future state of the universe. You keep missing this, if it is possible to compute the function simulate() then the universe is by definition deterministic, and no agent can act in a manner contrary to the results of the simulate() function. In a non-deterministic universe it is impossible even in principle to compute the function simulate() in all circumstances.
This has nothing to do with the truth of determinism in fact. If all cars are red, there can be no green cars. If all houses are trees there can be no trees that are not also houses. If there exists a function simulate() which predicts the future of some universe there cannot exist in that universe an entity which acts contrary to this function.
Again, you haven't demonstrated that is the case. You have not shown that it is not always in principle possible to determine the future state of the universe. What you have succeeded in doing in showing that either robots that violate determinism are impossible, or that determinism is false. This was obvious from the start.
Why do you think that a robot which has a mistaken assumption about the universe (that is, that assumes it can do what it is not going to do) can run the simulate() function? Broken cars do not prove locomotion is impossible.
If the purpose of your argument is not to show that there is free will then why is your conclusion that there is free will? If the robots actions are not determined (which according to your thesis they are not), then by your own definition it has free will.
I'm confused by your last sentence, I assume it is missing the word 'not' since otherwise it runs counter to the argument you presented. If it is not then I would point out that it is trivial to imagine a wholly deterministic toy universe, for a start a universe which contains nothing is wholly deterministic.
Again, all you have shown is that an entity which has resolved to do the opposite of what they are going to do cannot determine what they are going to do. Their inability to determine what they are going to do does not mean it is not determined however. All that is necessary for determinism to be true is for it to be in principle possible to determine the future state of the universe given the current state.
The structure of the proof of the halting thesis may be the same but it does not apply. simulate() is not an arbitrary function and you cant feed whatever you want into it. It is a well defined function which operates on what may well be a comparatively small (in so far as it may be finite) set, states of the universe. You can only apply this function to real states of the universe.
Sure the proof is analogous, sure the structure is the same. And just like every other proof for free will it makes assumptions that are simply unfounded. All you have succeeded in doing is rephrasing an old proof of free will with some computer science baggage.
Your argument can simply be rephrased "assume there is a robot with free will, therefore free will". That is precisely what PF3 assumes because the whole point of determinism is you cant build a robot which can decide to do something other than what it is going to do.
More to the point, we can actually try to build your robot and show what folly the argument is. Simple universe in which a robot has control of the switch and calls a recursive function (with the initial input the current state of the LED, such as:
SIMULATE(x):
return(~SIMULATE(x))
Such a robot would never flip the switch because F(x) would never return (or in reality crash). The system is however wholly determined and we could build our own simulate() function that would behave exactly as required. It has the form:
simulate(x):
return(x)
We cannot build a robot which does the opposite of this function because we have to modify it to take into account that the robot intends to defy the outcome, causing the function to never halt (meaning that it ceases to meet the definition of simulate()). However because the robot will never flip the switch we always know the outcome of the experiment, the LED always stays the same. The robot has no free will.
In this simple toy universe it is therefore manifest that free will does not exist, that one cannot build a robot which at the same time intends to violate the simulate() function and is capable of actually running the real simulate() function, and that the simulate function does exist, and can be computed.
"Ultra raw experience" is not a definition. I do not experience this 'ultra raw experience'. I experience sense data, emotion, so on and these things have simple experiential or practical definitions. Giving something a name without even the vaguest notion what it is has neither practical nor philosophical utility.
The nature of what you describe is not only not deducible through science (big deal, one epistemology cant tell you an answer, we all knew extreme forms of epistemological naturalism sucked), it's nature isn't deducible at all. You can tell it cant be described because you haven't described it.
To any reasonable philosopher there is no qualia, no ultra raw experience, you have made up something which you have no argument for, or evidence supporting, nor experience of. All you can say with any degree of certainty is that your mind when exposed to red has one response, and another when exposed to green. Other minds do the same thing. It is reasonable to infer these minds correspond exactly and wholly to brains in nature and these brains have encodings (states) which correspond to experiences, emotions, etc. It is therefore reasonable to infer that questions about the nature of experience, emotion etc. are wholly answered by examining differences within and between individuals with regard to their brain states. That is what your sense data and experience backs up. That response is all there is, there is no inherent nature to it beyond that any more than there are mystical invisible fairies or gods. We cant say such a thing does not exist but debating it is as meaningless as debating the existence of unicorns and about as useful.
I fail to see the relevance of the halting thesis. I'm not asserting that simulate() halts, it does by your own definition, I am asserting that PF2 and probably PF3 are false.
Since simulate() by definition halts, the robot is not capable of lighting the LED in defiance of the result of the simulate() function. A robot that can do that is a square circle. If the robot could do that, then the simulate() does not exist.
We are not dealing with a general program but a specific algorithm. You need to show that simulate() does not halt, not merely assert this is the case without proof. Asserting that this is the case begs the question.
All you have succeeded in doing is showing that hard determinism is related to the halting problem, which was somewhat obvious from a simulation perspective anyway.
"The robot sets the LED directly to the inverse of the return value of simulate()." - How do you know that this is possible? By definition what you suggest the robot should do is impossible.
You cant work out what is going to happen and then not do it because by definition it is what is going to happen. If you could not do it then you hadn't worked out what was going to happen in the future. You might just as well suggest that the robot make 1+1=7.
You have made so many hidden assumptions there it beggars belief.
What if one cant measure U0? Your function simulate does not exist since it does not meet it's own definition (it does not predict the future). What if computing simulate() in a reasonable time requires more energy than is in the universe? Your whole argument is one big sequence of begging the question.
Free will is meaningless as you define it. It does not correspond to what we traditionally think of as free will. Determinism as you define it is just the statement 'physics works' and frankly most people who argue physics does indeed work.
Put very simply, if your robot computes simulate() and simulate() exists as you define it, it cannot turn it's LED to any state other than the one it computes. To presuppose it can is to assume that free will exists.
Define qualia in a manner which makes it practical to investigate it and I will provide you with a scientific and mathematical basis for it. What evidence do you have that this thing call qualia exists? If qualia is the representation in my brain of an experience or of sense data then qualia has a very simple mathematical definition and the surrounding problems are all very simple to answer in terms of brain states. If that is not what qualia is then what is it?
Not really my field of expertise but as far as Saudi Arabia goes Surah 9 Ayah 28 is probably a good place to start, although really that is specific to Mecca. It is a complicated issue with ties to religion, politics and a host of other factors.
Couple that religious sentiment with the fact that Saudi Arabia is a unpopular monarchy (which is pretty much antithetical to a caliphate at least in principle, although historically the distinction is muddy) and you have a situation where foreign troops are seen to be on holy land propping up a regime which runs counter to both liberal traditions and Islamic traditions. Not to mention that by propping up the Saudi government and constantly going after Iran we have put ourselves firmly on one side of an age old sectarian conflict (Sunni vs. Shia).
Slashdot Mirror
Cynicism is the word people who don't live in the real world misappropriate to describe people who do.
Yes, I cant tell you the number of people I know who say "Quake III / Unreal Tournament have a permanent spot on my hard drive" the way they do with Portal or UFO.Seems to me you are the one putting the past of a pedestal if you think the final years of the N64 and Dreamcast were 'fantastic'.
Failure to judge something when you have sufficient information is not a virtue, don't kid yourself.
You now aren't attacking my position, you are attacking someone who thinks games in late 1990 were better than games 5 years ago. I don't hold that position. Quake 3 era shooters were shite and the format was tired. The late 1990's were a shite time for gaming. The middle 2000-2010 were a great time for gaming where cool graphics were combined with neat new ideas to make some great games. Some time in the next 10 years I've no doubt things will get better and I will have some new games to add to my list of all time favourites. Nothing AAA has gone on that list in the last two years. I'm not putting the past of a pedestal, you are putting the present on one. Name one AAA game in the past two years that you think will be considered a classic 20 years from now in the way that UFO, or Halo, or Portal are (notice the nice spread of time frames there, this isn't nostalgia, it recognising things are right now, shite and turgid).
Do you genuinely believe that this game will even try to be as I've described? Do you really think EA will make a game like that? Do you have any reason at all to think that is what they are trying to from the press releases so far? Sure it could be like that, if some indie developer somehow go a hold of the IP. If that is what they were going to do they wouldn't be talking about the features they appropriated from Deus Ex, they would be touting how dark and morally challenging the game will be for the player.
At times those arguments were just as right in Commodore Format and Zapp 64 as they are today. Sometimes they were 'less right' in the sense that things were okay as opposed to turgid. Right now we are in a time when things are utterly turgid. It isn't entirely surprising, we are well into this generation of consoles, most of the innovation this round was done on the Wii (and in the casual gaming sphere, not my thing but that is just tough shit for me) and that has largely played itself out.
The games you are playing now are better in some ways. The graphics are better, the voice acting is better (oh dear lord is the voice acting better), the translation from Japanese is better. And in places these improvements have certainly made for a better experience. But Citizen Kane is still an amazing film even though it is in black and white and UFO: Enemy Unknown is still an amazing game even if by modern standards it looks like Fisher Price puked over Tokyo III. The tools available to developers today are better, and some great stuff has been done with them, but like 3D films, almost everyone is doing complete shite, and like 3D films they are doing it because the vogue technology has become more important that using the technology for artistic purposes. It will get better once people get bored of this bullshit (as they always have in the past), but right now, things suck.
Name one first person shooter which allowed you to order others to take morally reprehensible but seemingly necessary actions and did so in a way which made doing that seem more natural than just pulling the trigger yourself. I can put a screw in with a hammer, in very rare circumstances and with lots of practice I might be able to do a half decent job, especially if I change my screw enough that it is more nail like, but it is still the wrong tool for the job.
Your first complaint dodges the question. I (and I presume you) fit neither of those categories (I like FPS, I even enjoy games like Halo and Rainbow Six: Vegas, perennial whipping boys of the FPS bashers). We are therefore free to discuss if work in a genre has been innovative of late or not. I and most other gamers I know over 9 years old are bored of the homogeneity of style in AAA games.
It cant be a good game, and be Syndicate at the same time in this genre. Syndicate divorced you from the consequences of your actions by allowing you to control a squad. You ordered persuasion and murder rather than doing it yourself. You cant do that from a first person perspective. So either you make a good FPS, or a good Syndicate game, but you cant make both in one game.
My point was that Fallout 3 was not a new direction, and I never complained at the time. It was an evolution of a concept. Fallout Tactics on the other hand was a bucket of shit, for precisely the same reason this will either be a bucket of shit, or not be Syndicate. You cant capture the essence of the Fallout universe in a TBS game.
Warcraft gets to go in a different direction because at the time RTS games were tired as was the perspective on the Warcraft universe offered by the RTS genre. Do you want to try and argue that morally ambivalent, squad based real time strategy is tired? Do you want to try and make the case that the FPS genre isn't over done?
Third person RPG and first person RPG are compatible genres. Both tell the story from the perspective of a protagonist who is the player. Fallout 3 being a (pretty decent) oblivion clone with guns was not especially unnatural. Now WoW is not a Warcraft game, and having been a fan of Warcraft I was very disappointed that we got a MMORPG instead of something compatible with an RTS. But you know what, it wasn't a remake, it was the next iteration in a series. They weren't trying to make another Warcraft style game and at the time Warcraft was frankly a bit tired as it was implemented, so I don't really feel justified bitching about it. Series take different directions. Similarly if they made a Civ6 which was in the style of Paradox Interactive titles like Europa Universalis I wouldn't bitch at first, both because it would be a new direction and because these represent compatible genres.
That is not what this is. The squad based RTS genre is not tired (the FPS certainly is), it is completely ignored because it doesn't play so well on consoles. But we need a gimmick to make our latest FPS more appealing! I know, lets slap on the name of some old piece of IP we happen to have the rights to, preventing anyone else from release a genuine re-imagining and piss off all the fans. You know what is really sad, it will probably work.
New Criticism essentially asserts that there is nothing to a work beyond that which is written on the page (the view expressed by the GP). It suggests that opinions about what the work means are all as valid as the expertise of the person reading them, but that expertise is in criticism, not authorship, nor history, nor psychology. This results in the hilarious assertion that (unless an expert in criticism, specifically the techniques of the New Criticism) the authors opinion on their own work is meaningless / irrelevant.
New Criticism is fine as a methodology (if impossible to actually implement since language is an adaptive social construct and works are not and cannot be made independent of language) because it can reveals new things about the work that you didn't realise before (for example a work read in isolation might be horrifically racist, but in context and given the authors intent, very progressive). The problem comes when people start saying things like "the only correct way to analyse a text is with the techniques of New Criticism". Or "One should not care about the authors opinion they are just another reader".
It is literary criticism, not the scientific method, not ethics. The notion that there is a correct way to do thing is manifest bullshit. There are interesting and insightful ways to do things, and there are not. The hubris of the New Criticism lies in it's desire to have its methodology reign supreme, when it has no justification for this other than its adherents own fanaticism.
No criticism is better than another until you decide upon a value, utility function or something similar. New Criticism rules out a very large number of possible values with no justification. It is the equivalent of a historian refusing to consider anything but primary sources. Sure that might be one way to get a picture of what happened and provide context, but if it was the only method that would be a very poor way to conduct the discipline.
Ah yes, New Criticism, because Leavis and his idiotic ilk took a look at the downfall of logical positivism and said "if only our discipline could show such absurd hubris with even less justification". The second you make normative statements about criticism, is the second you look like a moron.
Before you mount a defence of your absurd position I have two words for you I consider highly appropriate given the context, assassination, Macbeth.
"Second, a slacker who spends money for goods and services is obviously better for the economy that somebody who doesn't."
No they really aren't. They are worse because they are taking up productive capacity for unproductive ends. If a fantastically wealthy person happened to be say the CEO of a company and were more productive if they were say eating excellent food (or if they were motivated to do more / better by getting nicer food) then that nicer food in some sense represents an investment (even if it is exceedingly expensive).
Unless they are working hard themselves the only thing the heirs of the very wealthy do is serve as an example for people of what can happen if you are very rich and able to pass on that wealth. Does the thought that your daughter (if you have one) might turn out like Paris Hilton incentivse you to work harder?
You are completely correct, it's completely absurd, especially in specialised disciplines. You know how you can tell when I'm programming? I'm sat in the office with my feet up throwing a ball in the air. Thinking.
No it is not identical because the halting thesis is answered on turing machines and deal with arbitrary algorithms. simulate() is not an arbitrary algorithm running on a Turing machine.
It is perfectly reasonable to presuppose that given that there exists halts(prog,input) we can write a function bodgeup(p) which leads to a contradiction and proves the halting thesis because we can write the pseudo code for bodgeup(). If halts() is general and we apply it to bodgeup() we find a contradiction. However the existence of the function bodgeup() does not change the code for prog().
simulate() (which you identify with prog above) cannot have a counterpart bodgeup() however because introducing bodgeup() would require us to change simulate() and by definition simulate() cannot change. By definition simulate cannot have a counterpart bodgeup() and you cant write the pseudocode for it because the second you do you have to change the code for simulate(). It is not possible to write both functions at the same time.
This is why I keep pointing out that simulate() is not an arbitrary function. The existence of it's counterpart in the halting thesis is ruled out by it's definition. Assuming it has such a counterpart assumes free will exists because it assumes a contradiction.
Please go ahead and try to write the pseudocode for bodgeup() in your simple system. Every time you write it you will find you need to change the code for simulate() because it no longer meets the definition you set for it.
Again, how is the colour cyan one of these quale?
As far as I can tell qualia is basically the reification of abstract forms of sense data. It in essence defines the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. What reason do you have for inferring that your experience of the colour red is a real material thing?
"I'm seeing (or not seeing) the same colour as you are when I look at that tree/lake" - is in essence meaningless. The experience of colour is an abstraction, not a thing. The way you can tell this is the case is because you can tell we are looking at the same lake but you cant tell if we are experiencing the same colour.
Our sense data has a material counterpart (or rather, we can reasonably infer a material counterpart to our sense data). This is the state of our brain when we experience something. And we can say within a suitable framework if this is the same or not.
If you are not reifying something manifestly immaterial (experience) then I still have no idea what qualia is.
Again, most problems in philosophy stem from ontologies which admit reality to things without justification. Positions in ethics other than meta-ethical nihilism, theist perspectives on the divine, any position on purpose other than existential nihilism, and position in ontology other than materialism (and many forms of materialism are highly suspect as well). So much confusion in philosophy stems, in my opinion, from wishing that nature gave two hoots (as though nature can have intent) about how we wish it was and what we wished was present in it. Your inclination that there 'must be' something which underlies your experience other than the material world and sense data is as far as I can tell simply wishful thinking. I can assure you that once I understood how to infer the reality of things through the congruence of sense data I rapidly recognised my own inclinations about the universe for what they were, my own desires, not a reflection of how things are.
Clarification and correction.
"in all circumstances" in the second paragraph is meant to imply there must exist at least one circumstance where the future cannot be determined.
Also my second example in the third paragraph I swapped trees and houses when I shouldn't. If all houses are trees then there are no houses that are not trees. Obviously there can still be trees that are not houses.
"Of course not - it's impossible to define properly. It still 'exists' in some very real form though despite that."
No, no it doesn't. I have access to sense data. I have access to emotions. I do not have access to qualia, I don't even know what it is supposed to be since you wont provide me with a definition.
Truth is not a popularity contest. I do not experience qualia, and neither do you. If you did, you would be able to tell me what it is.
You aren't seeing blue. I'm not seeing blue either. I have sense data that I have, for expediency labelled as blue. Blueness is a social construct, not a real thing. Same goes for the taste of cinnamon or apple. None of these things are real. They are convenient labels for collections of sense data that aid organisation and communication.
Science cant answer an ill defined question because it is ill defined (which is not to say there aren't well defined questions science cant answer, but it has no hope with ill defined ones). This is hardly surprising. You wont find the taste of cinnamon in someone's brain because there is no such thing as the taste of cinnamon. There is only the sense data I experience when eating cinnamon which we reify for convenience. I infer that this encoding does exist (in so far as having a very precise analogue in sense data) in my brain because there are collections of neurons which are identically correlated with the experience of eating cinnamon.
Repeated reification of poorly defined concepts is precisely the problem with philosophy as it is practices today. Metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of the mind, these are all areas where abstract notions are treated like they are real physical things. Even philosophy of science is permeated by this notion that things like atoms or forces are 'real'. In ordinary language this is convenient, but in the case of things like god or qualia we are just needlessly multiplying entities.
"The problem is, if the future state of the universe can be calculated, and it says that you're going to respond to this Slashdot post, you can choose, well, not to respond to this Slashdot post."
Again, no I cant. If I have determined that I will respond to your post then I will respond to your post and there is no way I can not respond to your post. Not because determinism is true but because by definition it is impossible for me to defy the results of my calculation because if I do then I haven't calculated what I claimed I calculated, the future state of the universe. You keep missing this, if it is possible to compute the function simulate() then the universe is by definition deterministic, and no agent can act in a manner contrary to the results of the simulate() function. In a non-deterministic universe it is impossible even in principle to compute the function simulate() in all circumstances.
This has nothing to do with the truth of determinism in fact. If all cars are red, there can be no green cars. If all houses are trees there can be no trees that are not also houses. If there exists a function simulate() which predicts the future of some universe there cannot exist in that universe an entity which acts contrary to this function.
"And that is not possible."
Again, you haven't demonstrated that is the case. You have not shown that it is not always in principle possible to determine the future state of the universe. What you have succeeded in doing in showing that either robots that violate determinism are impossible, or that determinism is false. This was obvious from the start.
Why do you think that a robot which has a mistaken assumption about the universe (that is, that assumes it can do what it is not going to do) can run the simulate() function? Broken cars do not prove locomotion is impossible.
If the purpose of your argument is not to show that there is free will then why is your conclusion that there is free will? If the robots actions are not determined (which according to your thesis they are not), then by your own definition it has free will.
I'm confused by your last sentence, I assume it is missing the word 'not' since otherwise it runs counter to the argument you presented. If it is not then I would point out that it is trivial to imagine a wholly deterministic toy universe, for a start a universe which contains nothing is wholly deterministic.
Again, all you have shown is that an entity which has resolved to do the opposite of what they are going to do cannot determine what they are going to do. Their inability to determine what they are going to do does not mean it is not determined however. All that is necessary for determinism to be true is for it to be in principle possible to determine the future state of the universe given the current state.
The structure of the proof of the halting thesis may be the same but it does not apply. simulate() is not an arbitrary function and you cant feed whatever you want into it. It is a well defined function which operates on what may well be a comparatively small (in so far as it may be finite) set, states of the universe. You can only apply this function to real states of the universe.
Sure the proof is analogous, sure the structure is the same. And just like every other proof for free will it makes assumptions that are simply unfounded. All you have succeeded in doing is rephrasing an old proof of free will with some computer science baggage.
Your argument can simply be rephrased "assume there is a robot with free will, therefore free will". That is precisely what PF3 assumes because the whole point of determinism is you cant build a robot which can decide to do something other than what it is going to do.
More to the point, we can actually try to build your robot and show what folly the argument is. Simple universe in which a robot has control of the switch and calls a recursive function (with the initial input the current state of the LED, such as:
SIMULATE(x):
return(~SIMULATE(x))
Such a robot would never flip the switch because F(x) would never return (or in reality crash). The system is however wholly determined and we could build our own simulate() function that would behave exactly as required. It has the form:
simulate(x):
return(x)
We cannot build a robot which does the opposite of this function because we have to modify it to take into account that the robot intends to defy the outcome, causing the function to never halt (meaning that it ceases to meet the definition of simulate()). However because the robot will never flip the switch we always know the outcome of the experiment, the LED always stays the same. The robot has no free will.
In this simple toy universe it is therefore manifest that free will does not exist, that one cannot build a robot which at the same time intends to violate the simulate() function and is capable of actually running the real simulate() function, and that the simulate function does exist, and can be computed.
"Ultra raw experience" is not a definition. I do not experience this 'ultra raw experience'. I experience sense data, emotion, so on and these things have simple experiential or practical definitions. Giving something a name without even the vaguest notion what it is has neither practical nor philosophical utility.
The nature of what you describe is not only not deducible through science (big deal, one epistemology cant tell you an answer, we all knew extreme forms of epistemological naturalism sucked), it's nature isn't deducible at all. You can tell it cant be described because you haven't described it.
To any reasonable philosopher there is no qualia, no ultra raw experience, you have made up something which you have no argument for, or evidence supporting, nor experience of. All you can say with any degree of certainty is that your mind when exposed to red has one response, and another when exposed to green. Other minds do the same thing. It is reasonable to infer these minds correspond exactly and wholly to brains in nature and these brains have encodings (states) which correspond to experiences, emotions, etc. It is therefore reasonable to infer that questions about the nature of experience, emotion etc. are wholly answered by examining differences within and between individuals with regard to their brain states. That is what your sense data and experience backs up. That response is all there is, there is no inherent nature to it beyond that any more than there are mystical invisible fairies or gods. We cant say such a thing does not exist but debating it is as meaningless as debating the existence of unicorns and about as useful.
I fail to see the relevance of the halting thesis. I'm not asserting that simulate() halts, it does by your own definition, I am asserting that PF2 and probably PF3 are false.
Since simulate() by definition halts, the robot is not capable of lighting the LED in defiance of the result of the simulate() function. A robot that can do that is a square circle. If the robot could do that, then the simulate() does not exist.
We are not dealing with a general program but a specific algorithm. You need to show that simulate() does not halt, not merely assert this is the case without proof. Asserting that this is the case begs the question.
All you have succeeded in doing is showing that hard determinism is related to the halting problem, which was somewhat obvious from a simulation perspective anyway.
"The robot sets the LED directly to the inverse of the return value of simulate()." - How do you know that this is possible? By definition what you suggest the robot should do is impossible.
You cant work out what is going to happen and then not do it because by definition it is what is going to happen. If you could not do it then you hadn't worked out what was going to happen in the future. You might just as well suggest that the robot make 1+1=7.
You have made so many hidden assumptions there it beggars belief.
What if one cant measure U0? Your function simulate does not exist since it does not meet it's own definition (it does not predict the future). What if computing simulate() in a reasonable time requires more energy than is in the universe? Your whole argument is one big sequence of begging the question.
Free will is meaningless as you define it. It does not correspond to what we traditionally think of as free will. Determinism as you define it is just the statement 'physics works' and frankly most people who argue physics does indeed work.
Put very simply, if your robot computes simulate() and simulate() exists as you define it, it cannot turn it's LED to any state other than the one it computes. To presuppose it can is to assume that free will exists.
Define qualia in a manner which makes it practical to investigate it and I will provide you with a scientific and mathematical basis for it. What evidence do you have that this thing call qualia exists? If qualia is the representation in my brain of an experience or of sense data then qualia has a very simple mathematical definition and the surrounding problems are all very simple to answer in terms of brain states. If that is not what qualia is then what is it?
Not really my field of expertise but as far as Saudi Arabia goes Surah 9 Ayah 28 is probably a good place to start, although really that is specific to Mecca. It is a complicated issue with ties to religion, politics and a host of other factors.
Couple that religious sentiment with the fact that Saudi Arabia is a unpopular monarchy (which is pretty much antithetical to a caliphate at least in principle, although historically the distinction is muddy) and you have a situation where foreign troops are seen to be on holy land propping up a regime which runs counter to both liberal traditions and Islamic traditions. Not to mention that by propping up the Saudi government and constantly going after Iran we have put ourselves firmly on one side of an age old sectarian conflict (Sunni vs. Shia).