The confusion between free will and determinism

My own comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38083093

I think I described it pretty well, and the point that determinism produces "free will" (in the "nothing else is influencing the outcome but me" sense) is probably the first time I put it in words.

QUOTE:

 > In my opinion my actions are a deterministic function of the state of my mind (including memory, personality) + input. I have no choice in the matter, only an illusion of one

It's important to note that as far as materialist physics goes, "you" are literally "your state of mind (including memory, personality) and input". The fact that this system (i.e. "you") produces an apparently deterministic result doesn't mean that "you" didn't do it.

The common confusion comes from the fact that systems cannot in general predict their own outputs without going through the required computational process. I think it's related to the concept of "computational irreducibility". So "you" as a system needs to go through the set of motions to figure out what you eventually decide to do. Before the deliberation you can't predict the result, and thus it "feels as if" "free will" is a messy indeterministic process. But that's not a given.

Weird things happen when some other system can predict "you". The problem there is that if "you" can be simulated, you don't know which "you" is "real". But the mere fact that your state of mind and inputs will deterministically produce decisions doesn't mean "you" don't have a choice. In fact it is opposite -- "you" do have a choice, and _only_ the system "you" makes the choice (and thus it is determined solely by "you", hence, deterministic!)

Prices and inflations, another voice

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UzMNewP5pc

呢條友講到佢發現新大陸咁

屌，講啲嘢仍然走唔出「印錢=>物價貴」嘅基本觀察... (i.e. https://centraltrunks.blogspot.com/2023/10/blog-post.html )

個問題係 BTC 本身係一個幾重殺戮嘅資產嚟..

共鳴

尋晚老朋友結婚，聽住啲人唱聖詩，忽然發現，我竟然明白佢哋講緊乜。

喺「地獄」之中先會發現最深厚嘅「恩典」，大概係我近年最意想不到嘅收獲。

 

Intelligence as an omnipresent phenomenon

 Is it possible that "intelligence" is an omnipresent phenomenon? Or even _the_ substrate of existence?

We already know that human-alike intelligence could be trained by a couple hundred lines of code (and lots of data and compute).

In the physical universe, data and compute can be "free" (if harnessed correctly). Trillions of molecules (as both data and computational things) are present in every speck of matter in our world.

We also know that language is limiting. Multimodal models seem to suggest that instead of using language as protocol, if we just feed neural networks vectorized stuff and give them some time to "learn" and adopt to the language, we don't need human-understandable language for things to work.

In fact, it seems to me that language is a limiting factor in such cases. Instead of vectorized representations of "meaning", language forces these vectors into a single dimension and small number (~10-20?) of bits for each word. We struggle to communicate with words, since they encode meaning poorly. 

So it's reasonable to hypothesize that if we plug two objects that emit signals together, they will be able to learn and communicate automagically. We won't understand the protocol since we always try to compress the vast amounts of signal into our language, but apparently this just works in nature (even across species).

The use of language is probably a mixed blessing - on the one hand it is a clear and physical manifestation of a simple protocol to convey meaning. On the other, the limitation of bandwidth (~20 bits per second?) severely retards the potential of thought and intelligence. The fact that we believe language is the pinnacle of human intelligence shows how naïve we are. And it probably explains the parable of the Tower of Babel as well....

----

So there are a couple weird ideas:

1. Does "computation" even need "data" to become intelligent? It depends on whether there is such a thing as universal intelligence? Consider that the structure to simulate worlds can be minimal (see eg. Mandelbrot, game of life, and even laws of physics), and these worlds can generate vast amounts of "data", it seems that even if computation systems are isolated to places with very little entropy or noise, the systems will eventually be able to achieve some kind of intelligence by simulating worlds and learning from them. This seems like a candidate for a theory of cosmology (i.e. we are just in one of such simulations) based on our latest understanding of the power of computational networks and generative systems.

2. if computational structures of the right type somehow exist in the universe, then intelligence is ubiquitous, omnipresent (and perhaps to a large extent omniscient). The "problem" is that, just as we do not understand the weights of LLMs, the meaning of the vectors of word embeddings, etc., we do not understand this universal "field" of intelligence, and attribute it as noise.

"Desert Fathers"

 我尋日諗咗好耐究竟出唔出post講：啲人話要跟從耶穌但佢哋做咗第一步(領洗)之後，連第二步都做唔撚到就話自己係基督徒有少少搞笑。最後冇出到，費事挑起無謂嘅紛爭啦。

第二步其實就係去沙漠做毒撚。話說我猜想呢招可以靠減少干擾去增強法力便於練習魔法。點解冇人做呢？

第二日我就好「隨機」咁得知有呢樣嘢： https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4LoXCl7drQ - 呢條片喺我個 playlist 一段時間冇認真睇。

Youtube synchronicity 同 Facebook synchronicity 真係好撚強大⋯

PS : 之後發現臉書朋友個 comment 都有，係同一日睇到嘅，但我過兩日先留意到。

Manifestation

 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02Xhup7kZBZUYGvp8t9imQYTPBH7ggu3DFrRokML27jeSXBDV3YmP8j7nrG6kzxwuhl&id=61550893512996

呢啲互相印證嘅嘢真係要抄低：

#指導靈談顯化

文／怡伶

2023.6.5

指導靈一直對我相當有耐心，不管是我在接訊息時遇到了什麼樣需要中斷的情況，上廁所、被小孩呼喚、或是分心去做其他事，祂都從未催促或不耐。

—-

昨天在接訊息的時候，指導靈告訴我所謂的顯化是怎麼一回事。

以能量上來說，顯化是一瞬間的事情，比如說送光、比如意念的傳達。

然而在物質層面上，顯化就需要時間了。（妳想要什麼東西，需要時間去透過行動把它實踐出來。）

顯化就是「意念+行動」。然後需要耐心等待。

比如說指導靈可以透過意念將訊息傳送給我，我也可以馬上接收到，但是要將他說的話顯化成文字，就需要我的行動（把這些句子寫下來），這段時間祂能做的就是等待。

指導靈說，許多人沒有顯化出成果，不是因為它不能實現，而是因爲他失去耐心。

顯化，需要意念、行動，還要耐心，就像指導靈對我這樣，祂一直在等著我接到祂的訊息，接到訊息後也等著我將訊息寫下來。

「這點等待不算什麼，我們已經等人類覺醒等好幾千年了！」

只能說，神靈們對人類真是真愛，超級無比有耐心。

感謝，感謝，再感謝啊🙏

圖/網路

物質嘅沉重

聽聞「心想事成」係宇宙基本法則嚟，起碼「你真心相信啲乜，嗰樣嘢就高機率發生」呢樣嘢理論上係真嘅，係真係有如此嘅理論，古今中外亦都有呢個傳統。

咁但係點解唔係成日work，甚至成日都唔work？

本身我好直觀咁諗咗幾個原因出嚟：

1. multiplayer 世界唔可以出咁多 cheat
2. 人類自己封印咗自己嘅能力
3. 物質世界啲變化通常比理想中慢好多，一般期望變化係幾秒幾幾個星期內發生，但好多時啲反應係以年計 (呢個絕對係真)

所以一直都有啲想試下驗證 #1 而走去啲少啲人嘅地方睇下局部地區嘅 single player mode 存唔存在。

但睇完呢度 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550893512996 講嘅嘢之後忽然醒起，人少嘅地方唔代表靈少⋯ 而有佢哋喺度都唔可以話係 single player mode。我 X，咁睇唔到某片土地嘅「靈口」有幾密集嘅話就試唔到呢樣嘢⋯ orz

然後我喺度諗，照計多樹多動物嘅地方嘅「靈口」就唔會少，可能都真係啲沙漠嘅地方先掂。

然後我又諗起耶穌大佬，一開始都係走咗去沙漠修行四十日⋯ 有時啲嘢講到咁白，問題係冇咩人夠膽自己一條友走去啲冇人嘅沙漠幾十日覺醒神力⋯

講真耶穌出道嗰幾步全部都係好make sense嘅，基本上你夠膽照做只要唔死唔癲都理論上會得到啲力量⋯

第一、領洗  - 係借助某啲傳統，攞咗「會籍」先。「會籍」係比喻嚟，我諗重點都係借助某啲傳承嘅力量去 kick start 啲嘢，否則好難開始。

第二、走去冇干擾嘅地方，快速養成同練習使用力量。 (見上 hypothesis #1)

第三、有力量之後，總會受到個人貪妄嘅誘惑，引你不當咁使用力量。呢下要小心唔好中伏 https://hnfong.github.io/public-crap/writings/2022/06-%E8%80%B6%E7%A9%8C%E3%80%81%E9%AD%94%E9%AC%BC%E3%80%81%E5%B9%BB%E8%A6%BA.html 

第四、要發願出到嚟為救濟萬民於苦海，唔係用嚟達成私利。（出得嚟行，搞到咁高調，通常都要倒貼⋯ 用返我認知嘅系統去講，耶穌出嚟濟世幾年就死於非命，係啲神蹟去得太盡，唔單止係世俗個世界接受唔到，甚至連宇宙法則都可能打碎咗幾條，我估喺靈界層面都接受唔到 （起死回生嗰啲，雖然話人命未必係直接兌換咁換，但冇咩理由唔使付代價⋯） anyway 使盡自己嘅生命力去救人，大概結局都只能夠係咁。

anyway, 講返原本話題⋯ ehh 就係如果要試 single player mode 可能真係要去啲冇咩生命嘅地方。 That said *聽聞* 冇地球生命嘅地方可能有其他生命，所以... 雖然我不斷重申我唔想睇到啲非物質東東，但有時真係覺得睇到會比較方便自己做實驗多啲⋯ :-/