RE: Free Will, Free Won't?
September 17, 2013 at 7:10 pm
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2013 at 7:25 pm by The Reality Salesman01.)
(September 17, 2013 at 6:31 pm)Zone Wrote: There is an easy test for free-will. Ask an intelligent being whether they think they have freewill and if they answer in the positive assume they do. If you asked an AI computer simulation it likely wouldn't understand the nature of the question, it's a bit like the Turing Test.
I'm not sure that's a very good way to discern truth. How can I know if the person I ask has any idea what they're talking about? If a person answers in the affirmative to the question, all that means is that they've comprehended the question, and have an opinion which prompted a response. Nothing has been established with regards to the validity of the claim they've just affirmed. If I ask somebody if there's a God, and they say yes, are you suggesting that's enough to assume they are right? Would a computer have a distinct and true answer for such a question? If so, how?
Keep in mind, Computers can't form opinions based on presuppositions of their own, and therefore, cannot form beliefs based upon them, or anything other than the data they have been programmed to utilize. I just asked Siri out of curiosity, and she gave a very good answer-"I'd rather not say." Funny. I asked her if God exists, and she said "I have a strict policy of the separation of church and silicon." ...lol.
The answers provided by a computer in the Turing test being different from a human's, in this case, are not indicative of anything other than a human being's tendency to offer answers to questions they are not qualified to answer, and a computer's lack of ability to engage in such a thing.
