Comment by quotemstr
6 months ago
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bkr9BozFuh7ytiwbK/my-hour-of...
> Clearly computers are deterministic. Are people?
Give an LLM memory and a source of randomness and they're as deterministic as people.
"Free will" isn't a concept that typechecks in a materialist philosophy. It's "not even wrong". Asserting that free will exists is _isomorphic_ to dualism which is _isomorphic_ to assertions of ensoulment. I can't argue with dualists. I reject dualism a priori: it's a religious tenet, not a mere difference of philosophical opinion.
So, if we're all materialists here, "free will" doesn't make any sense, since it's an assertion that something other than the input to a machine can influence its output.
Some accounts of free will are compatible with materialism. On such views "free will" just means the capacity of having intentions and make choices based on an internal debate. Obviously humans have that capacity.
Input/output and the mathematical consistency and repeatability of the universe is a religious tenet of science. Believing your eyes is still belief.
As long as you realize you’re barking up a debate as old as time, I respect your opinion.
What I don't get is, why would true randomness give free will, shouldn't it be random will then?
In the history of mankind, true randomness has never existed.
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