If we can simulate brains on computers then we cannot have free will

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Rozellelily said:
I’m not sure if that’s the case because people can have illnesses where their will and cognition/intellect regions of their brain are severely affected (eg:dementia and severe schizophrenia) due to neuronal cell loss,but I presume they still have a soul simply due to still being alive. …
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When the brain is damaged then the soul’s will and intellect are limited similar to the state of bodily death awaiting resurrection.
 
Rozellelily said:
That’s interesting.
Can you please elaborate?
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I think @Vico is pointing out that, if an interface is damaged, then it doesn’t imply that the actor using the interface is damaged. However, it does mean that the actor’s ability to interact with the environment is compromised, since he cannot use the interface as he could when it had full functionality.
 
If we can simulate strawberries using a computer simulation, maybe strawberry scented shampoo can’t be real?

Lower animals have brains as well, but they usually act in predictable ways. It’s not the mere possession of a brain that grants free will, but the possession of a rational soul.
 
Thanks @Gorgias,

It’s hard to grasp that because we often associate ourselves as being our minds (if that makes sense).
 
Rozellelily said:
It’s hard to grasp that because we often associate ourselves as being our minds (if that makes sense).
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Right. Imagine, however, a baby who – as soon as he’s born – is given VR glasses and headphones. Everything he does – everything that he “is” – is experienced through those glasses. One day, the equipment goes on the fritz. What can he do? He still thinks, he still reasons, he’s still capable of controlling the interface… but the interface itself is broken. He can no longer control the interface in the way he’s accustomed to doing. Everyone else using their interfaces now sees that he’s just laying there, motionless. Has he ceased to reason, to experience, to live? They don’t know. To their view, though, he’s lifeless.

No… it’s just that his interface is broken, but he’s doing just fine.
 
Thanks Gorgias.

Unfortunately people with severe Dementia or severe Schizophrenia really aren’t doing fine in the sense that their actual reasoning and perceptions can be seriously “wiped out” ,their personality wiped out so they just sit there “mindless” so to speak,not able to function or work etc so I don’t think the interface can be seperate from the self/brain/mind.
I don’t think it’s everyone else’s interfaces that just gives them the perception that the person with severe Dementia is without reasoning etc-I think that actually is the experience for the person with the Dementia.
(Maybe this is relevant though to something like locked in syndrome,which unlike severe dementia or schizophrenia it is presumed that person still has full reasoning and clear perceptions etc but is “locked in” and can’t express their mind states?)

So,isnt the interfacing and the brain (whether reason,perception,personality or otherwise) actually one and the same in humans or have I completely misunderstood what you are saying?
 
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Rozellelily said:
Unfortunately people with severe Dementia or severe Schizophrenia really aren’t doing fine in the sense that their actual reasoning and perceptions can be seriously “wiped out” ,their personality wiped out so they just sit there “mindless” so to speak,not able to function or work etc so I don’t think the interface can be seperate from the self/brain/mind.
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Aah, but the soul and the intellect remain. They just cannot express themselves through the physical body.
Rozellelily said:
I don’t think it’s everyone else’s interfaces that just gives them the perception that the person with severe Dementia is without reasoning etc-I think that actually is the experience for the person with the Dementia.

So,isnt the interfacing and the brain (whether reason,perception,personality or otherwise) actually one and the same in humans or have I completely misunderstood what you are saying?
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Just as every analogy must fall short, so does mine. The difference here (there has to be a ‘difference’, or else this would be a description and not just an analogy, right?) is that we are a soul/body composite. We’re not a body that has a soul, or a soul who owns a body – or, to fit the analogy, a soul who ‘operates the interface of a body’. But, we would hold, the soul – although bereft of its ability to interact through and with its body – still has its will and intellect, notwithstanding that its ability to act is limited. That’s what @Vico was getting to, I think, in his comment from yesterday.
 
Simulation is a systematic method which uses a set of laws in a system to see what would be outcome given income. By definition there is not any set of laws which can formulate a system with free will.
 
STT said:
Simulation is a systematic method which uses a set of laws in a system to see what would be outcome given income. By definition there is not any set of laws which can formulate a system with free will.
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Spot on. Nor does simulation create the system, but rather, it merely models its effects. If I build a box that waddled, had feathers, and quacked, I wouldn’t claim that I’d built a real duck, would I? 😉
 
a_fun_username said:
would it be possible to isolate the secondary movement without all the rest of the brain that works in the deterministic/ random way? @vico?
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By comparison of the behavior of an non-human animal nervous system with a human nervous system, perhaps.
 
a_fun_username said:
assuming that in the far future we have computers powerful enough to perfectly simulate human brains, all the (name removed by moderator)uts and outputs then if we start a simulated brain with a given starting condition we will inevitably receive the same output because computers execute code the same every time and because the computer perfectly simulated the brain then it must be coherent with reality so if the brain in the computer is just reacting to stimuli without accuracy choosing the output then the brain in the real world must like the computer brain must be just reacting to things without choosing it

but just for a moment lets assume that there is some true randomness (which we have observed at the quantum level) then we wouldn’t always receive the same output… but that version of free will would be the same as a pair of dice claiming that it chose to roll whatever number it landed on.
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Nothing in the physical world is random. Quantum physics isn’t entirely understood but it deals in probability of outcomes.

Free will is an article of faith that is associated with the spiritual realm, the same as, for example, belief in the existence of Heaven & hell, or of the angels, or of the Real Presence of the Eucharist. None of those things are observable or knowable, except on extreme occasions when they are seen miraculously.

The physical world operates through the laws of physics & chemistry & biology. You can’t observe a soul through physical instruments or methods, otherwise it wouldn’t - by definition - be a soul. It would then be a physical component of the body, such as the brain or liver or lungs or skin, all of which are organs of the body that serve various functions and they can be observed and manipulated. In this respect, mapping the brain isn’t any different from mapping a fingernail, except of course that it is a lot more work and a lot more complicated.

The angels, for example, are purely spiritual and possess no brain cells or brain, yet their intellect far surpasses human intellect. God is purely spiritual, yet His intellect is infinite. There is a spiritual reality that overlaps the physical reality.
 
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Good summary. Software has no free will (I write the stuff, I know 🙂 ). That fact alone means we won’t be able to perfectly simulate the human brain (or maybe I should say, the human mind). And then there’s the issue of not having the brain attached to a body - what would simulating the brain/mind even mean in that situation? Finally, since every person is different, how would one even demonstrate that the simulation was 100% correct? What is the comparison standard?
 
TK421 said:
The angels, for example, are purely spiritual and possess no brain cells or brain, yet their intellect far surpasses human intellect.
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How do you know that their intellect is superior to the human intellect?
 
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