Live data from Hacker News

What's expected of us

nature.com

21–30 of 59 posts

Re: What's expected of us

#21

Anyone that liked this should definitely check this one as well by the same author: http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm

I highly recommend Ted Chiang. I really enjoyed "Story of your Life" available in this short story collection of the same name: http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/193... Some of the stuff is a but uneven but he's written some of the most thought-provoking sci-fi I've read in some time.

I last heard his name when a good friend recommended "Hell is the Absence of God" to me.

I later tried to recommend it to my mother, but found myself incapable of doing so.

Re: What's expected of us

#22

This reminds me of the Isaac Asimov spoof article "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" which describes "experiments" on a substance that reacts so aggressively with water that it reacts before the water is added. Can't find the text unfortunately, but Wikipedia has a summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline

I just read about that in Asimov's autobiography. He wrote it when he was a grad student at Columbia and was worried that it (a satire of chemistry papers) might harm his chances of passing his final (oral) PhD examination. His examiners never mentioned it until the very end... when one asked him what he knew about resublimated thiotimoline, at which time Asimov burst out in a fit of nervous laughter.

He passed.

Re: What's expected of us

#24
post #4

The predictor already exists, there's a common FMRI experiment in neuroscience where with about 80% accuracy the scientists can predict you're about to push the button about one second before you decide to do it. Someone no doubt will post a link, I don't have time to Google it now. I'm guessing it's the inspiration for this story. I'm more curious about what you guys think. I've long thought the arguments against fr…

All it realls proves is that "deciding to do something" is not the simple, conscious event that it seems to us.

Re: What's expected of us

#25
Oh my... another meditation on the issue of free will, and the existential angst we would experience if we learned that our choices are deterministic. Personally, however, I think that the whole question of free-will vs. determinism is a false dilemma. For me, another issue is more important:

Determinism vs. randomness.

If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random. I would rather be deterministic than random. In any case, if they are random, it means that I don't have free will either.

I like to think that all my choices are a result of the past; my genetics, my childhood upbringing (that I don't even remember, but which formed the neural pathways in my brain), my early memories, my environment, education, experiences, friends, knowledge that I have absorbed from the world... In each and every moment, I make a choice, which is the best choice I can make given my brain power/structure, my motivations and the external constraints given (is it raining? can I fly? when do I need to pay the rent). Even my motivations are largely determined by my genetics - avoid pain, strive for pleasure. I definitely hope that my choices are not random.

How does morality come into play, if our choices are deterministic? It doesn't - my morality is my internal concept that I use to make choices more quickly/easily. I don't impose my morality on other people and I don't really care how they make their choices, but I support different forms of punishment that modify the incentives of other people so that the society can function.

Finally, I don't think that the future is predictable, even though it is deterministic. Like you don't know what 1048936701349 * 13046871435 is before you calculate it, like even the computer cannot predict the result before calculating it (i.e. the fastest calculation algorithm is also the fastest prediction algorithm), the same way we cannot predict the future before it happens, i.e. before the universe "calculates" it.

Re: What's expected of us

#26
post #23

[deleted]

I think you are fooling yourself by constructing a more complex scenario that is therefore more impenetrable. The story already says that the light flashes one second before you press the button, or rather no matter how hard you try, you can't press the button sooner than one second after the flash - consequently you wouldn't be able to knock the device away. You could already say "if the light flashes, you press the button within 0.5 seconds, therefore the story can't be true". But the story says you can't do that.

So by inventing your mechanical device you haven't added any information to the puzzle, only confusion.

I think Searle's Chinese Rooms employs the same fallacious way of thinking to refute strong AI.

Re: What's expected of us

#27
post #25

Oh my... another meditation on the issue of free will, and the existential angst we would experience if we learned that our choices are deterministic. Personally, however, I think that the whole question of free-will vs. determinism is a false dilemma. For me, another issue is more important: Determinism vs. randomness. If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random. I would rather be deterministic than ran…

You seem to be assuming that "random" must mean "uniformly at random". A weighted die that 99.99999% of the time comes up "3" is still random, but not uniformly random. The outcome of the die roll is nearly certain.

Re: What's expected of us

#28
Reminds me of Comed-Tea in "Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality":

"If you drink it, something surprising is bound to happen which makes you spill it on yourself or someone else. But it's charmed to vanish just a few seconds later"

Re: What's expected of us

#29
post #25

Oh my... another meditation on the issue of free will, and the existential angst we would experience if we learned that our choices are deterministic. Personally, however, I think that the whole question of free-will vs. determinism is a false dilemma. For me, another issue is more important: Determinism vs. randomness. If my choices are not deterministic, they must be random. I would rather be deterministic than ran…

I think that the brain is influenced by what is often called true randomness (e.g. radioactive decay). If neurons are influenced by true randomness in our environment, then the way they fire is not purely deterministic. But I'm not so sure anymore that radioactive decay and the like are purely random. Are they (because of quantum mechanical effects)?

Re: What's expected of us

#30
Cool idea for creative writing class, would've helped in plausibility if they'd thrown a few nano and quantum randomly into the essay instead of "negative time delay circuit".
Post reply on HN