Of course you couldn't, you were predestined to write that.

Of course you should. Even if life it self is pointless (though it's not), it is infinitely more pointless to end it. And if you consider so, I can't do anything else then to urge you to seek professional help, or to inform them of these thoughts if you already have gotten some help.

And our lives are more then sparking neurons, but unfortunately, I don't know how to tell you.. I think you have to experience it, and that is one of the reasons I recommended a walk in the forest. I find that calming some times

I'm not about ready to shoot myself or anything (despite what I may have said in a previous post ), but the thought has crossed my mind...but I've dealt with "professional help" before (albeit with less stressful issues than this one), and basically the only real "help" they could give was to put me on some kind of medication. I hate it when they do that, because usually those meds (at least for me) do more harm than good. Plus which, just the fact that they're recommending some kind of chemical stimulant (or suppressant) is suggestion enough that they believe that life really isn't anything more than a bunch of chaotically (not randomly! there is a difference) sparking neurons...

I couldn't exactly articulate it to you with 100% accuracy, either. But that's a lot of why I'm having this problem! It's because I (very strongly) believe in something beyond what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, and yet I don't think of myself as being associated with any religious affiliation (that I know of), and because of that, there's no real easy way to explain my point of view. I think you're right in that I need to get out more, though.

One of those Point-Of-View guns would come in handy right about now...

I think my big problem in understanding all of this is that I have two thinking paradigms that are conflicting with each other: the physical, and the metaphysical. I don't know which one to choose, and I feel like I can't have both, since they're seemingly mutually incompatible with one another ("If the objects which you interact with every day obey the known laws of physics, why should your brain be an exception?"). As you can('t?) well imagine, this is really deep-cutting on an emotional level for me.

I don't know if there is something metaphysical controlling us or not, but it still feels like we have free will.

Still, even if it's predetermined, you still make the choices. It's just predetermined that you will make them.

Something I was thinking about a lot is the idea that if the mind is mostly a machine that acts on its current input, then even a tiny, insignificant event can eventually change your whole life. This kind of made me depressed because I thought that if my current "state" is influenced by bad events, then whatever project I'm doing is influenced by those bad events. And I really felt depressed about the idea that my project is influenced by and thus accociated with bad events. But I know that bad events or not, I still have to do stuff, and that kinda helped me.

As an example of how little things can change your life, I remember that the reason I discovered Linux is after a more than week-long chain reaction of many events starting with me searching for how the GIF image format works.

Sorry if this seems a little off-hand, but another thought occurs: If someone were to design the "perfect" AI, wouldn't they have to be able to completely comprehend how free will "works", if indeed it does exist?

What I mean is, wouldn't you need proof for or against free will in order to construct an AI that either really did or simply seemed like it exercised free will?

If that's true, then couldn't you deduce from that that it's impossible to create the "perfect" AI, since you can't (at least not scientifically) fully prove whether or not free will exists?

I suppose one argument against that might be if you were constructing it based merely based on current psychological knowledge, and the AI just *happened* to seem like it was exercising free will, even though it wasn't constructed with that specifically in mind.

And then there are other counter-arguments to that point, and so on and so forth...here we go again

Not necessarily. It may be possible to take a genetic algorithm approach to creating an AI. You could reach a result which demonstrated intelligence, consciousness, and free will without understanding much about how it works.

I believe humanity will create an AI that surpasses human abilities. And then that AI will create an even stronger one, and so on. Homo sapiens will be superseded. That does not mean we will become extinct immediately, but we will cease to be the most intelligent species we know. Our welfare will to an extent depend upon the behaviour of the AIs. (Even if they're not robots - sentient software could attempt to break into our computer systems and influence our physical world that way.) That in turn will likely depend on our behaviour towards them. Once a strong AI is created, we must treat it as we would treat a person, lest we get the equivalent of a punch in the face.

Maybe I shouldn't have said a word...now you've got me down again.

Perhaps it's just our conflicting viewpoints: you believe that humans are really nothing special, and that eventually we'll be outmoded, whereas I believe that we couldn't create the "perfect" AI, because we're unique.

Maybe it's about time I used the forum's "ignore list" feature...I'm sorry, I just can't take it anymore. If there indeed is a "robot revolution", I'll probably be one of the first humans to go. Not because one of the robots will have killed me, but because I will have taken my own life.

No, not necessarily. One of the issues holding AI-research back is the the word "intelligence" as they havn't agreed on a uniform definition. And it's a little hard to make something that isn't properly defined. However, the point is to make as intelligent program as possible so in practices they are researching on it, but on a theoretical level, there are disagreements.

So until there is a clear definition it's kind of hard to answer your question, but my point is that depending on the definition, you could be intelligent without self-awareness. That's one of the topics they are arguing about though. Some claim self-awareness an intelligence are two distinct things, while other think they are linked together.

Something tells me that unless something not short of a miracle happens in the field of AI, then we'll always be having this lack of uniform definition of "intelligence".

*I'd* like to think so, at least. *crosses fingers, hoping I didn't just jinx it*

*2 days later, reads some headline about new breakthrough in sentient artificial intelligence, AUGH!*

Time for a session with that paragon of AI, the Emacs psychotherapist:

That's not a very smart AI

Besides, isn't it kind of ironic that you'd be asking your computer about the whole free will vs. no free will problem?

Is it because of your life you say isnt it ironic...Oh NO!!! I've been taken over by Emacs!

I know what you mean, but there are other professional approaches, such as cognitive behaviour therapy or rational emotive behaviour therapy, if you want to take them up. They start from the assumption that people are (or can be) in control of their own lives and minds.

For peace of mind, the important thing is not so much what you believe as the attitude you choose to take to it, and from this point of view, the concept that there is no meaning to life is liberating. There are many schools of belief that claim that the meaning has been pre-determined by a deity or the universe. But, if you reject all those, then you have the freedom to choose to create one for yourself. Making a choice is, of course, a paradox if you believe that our thoughts and actions are determined. But, if that is so, then you have nothing to lose by behaving as if it is not. And, of course, I am determined to persuade you that that is the way to go. ;-)

I guess what you guys are all trying to tell me is that I need to find my own truth, rather than trying to rationally derive it from sources other than myself.

I suppose the only problem I have with that statement is the whole "you have nothing to lose" part. To me, the thing I have to lose is my control, I guess. I feel like acting as if there is free will when [if] there indeed isn't is like having a great cosmic veil pulled over your eyes, so to speak. But I suppose if there's no escaping it anyway, then even trying to "think outside the box" is still "thinking inside the box", and I think that's what most disturbs me.

In any case, I think that you're right, in that if I just not worry about it for a while, I'll be able to come to my own conclusions about it. Perhaps I'll decide that the truth is something entirely different!

I've been told that if you really believe in something, you can make it happen. So I figure with that, if I believe that free will exists, then I can make it exist (for me), whether some physicists/neuroscientists like it or not.

BTW, I just want to add a little correction:

See, I know that once something has happened, it's happened. You can't really take back something that you've already done (at least not on an intrinsic level), but what I was getting at was whether or not you could "take back" a decision before you even consciously were aware of making it.

All decisions are determined once they happen, but the question is: are they all predetermined before you're consciously aware of making them in the future?

Anyways, in light of what I just mentioned, I think I'm gonna take a break from this thread for a while. Need to get my spirits up (no pun intended ).

What makes you think that these "physicists" know more than you? Or religious leaders? Or politicians? I know what's best for me, and, as long as I draw breath, I will make the decisions that guide (?) my life, destiny or no.

Riddle me this: What if destiny depends on, and is defined by, each of us acting of our own free will?