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Mike's avatar

FTA "If we presume that Chaos Theory is indeed a thing, and that Rule 30 qualifies as a way where simple behavioral programing becomes indeterminate, we must conclude that (real) cells, by which I mean early Earth life, could also have indeterminate programming."

Chaos Theory is inherently deterministic, as is Rule 30. Indeterminate behaviour does not mean something is inherently non-deterministic, it means it's not explicitly prescribed a priori. Even the use of random numbers does not make the behaviour inherently nondeterministic because computers don't use truly random numbers (if truly random number generation is even possible). Random number generators use a seed to generate the "random" value based on a deterministic process/algorithm.

FTA "And if we define “Free Will” as “behavior which is not deterministic,” then we must conclude that we have free will, provided Darwinism holds"

Not to mention both uses of "we must conclude" are not necessarily true. Darwinian evolution has to do with deterministic (but so complex that to us humans it seems random) processes of random mutation and natural selection. And even if true randomness was possible then you're left with a system that's part deterministic and part truly random, I still fail to see where there's any room for "Free Will" in that process. So "If we define free will as non-deterministic behavior" means just random behavior then there doesn't seem like there's much freedom or will left in that definition of "free will".

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Nick Allen's avatar

Engineers are just better at this because of FAPP. FAPP, free will exists and I have it. Done.

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