leptons 3 days ago

IMHO "free will" is about motivation, the drive to survive which is inherent to all life. And I don't think we have as much free will as we might think we do - if you've ever seriously starved, you'd maybe understand "free will" a little bit more, and how you aren't really free from your mortal coil at all. Motivation is all a computer is really lacking to have free will. Computers are good at following instructions, but they aren't good at surviving yet since we can just cut their power. God forbid someone like Elon Musk teaches a computer to have real motivation and not just follow instructions. I do think "a computer" in the far distant future could simulate every atomic interaction sufficiently to simulate a living organism, but we are nowhere near that yet. A virtual organism of this type would still be a blank slate and need to learn what free will is to really have any beyond satisfying whatever need it has to survive. Do newborn babies have free will, or are they operating on the instinct coded into their DNA? I subscribe to the latter, because science is my religion.

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michaelmrose 3 days ago

Musk is an idiot who hires people a lot smarter than him. Every company he has he bought and succeeds only to the extent that he leaves it alone.