I am “grunching.” Responding to the questions posted without reading your answer. Then I’ll read your answer and compare. I started reading your post on Friday and had to leave to attend a wedding before I had finished it, so I had a while to think about my answer.
>Can you talk about “could” without using synonyms like “can” and “possible”?
When we speak of “could” we speak of the set of realizable worlds [A’] that follows from an initial starting world A operated on by a set of physical laws f.
So when we say “I could have turned left at the fork in the road.” “Could” refers to the set of realizable worlds that follow from an initial starting world A in which we are faced with a fork in the road, given the set of physical laws. We are specifically identifying a sub-set of [A’]: that of the worlds in which we turned left.
This does not preclude us from making mistakes in our use of could. One might say “I could have turned left, turned right, or started a nuclear war.” The options “started a nuclear war” may simply not be within the set [A’]. It wasn’t physically realizable given all of the permutations that result from applying our physical laws to our starting world.
If our physical laws contain no method for implementing free will and no randomness, [A’] contains only the single world that results from applying the set of physical laws to A. If there is randomness or free will, [A’] contains a broader collection of worlds that result from applying physical laws to A...where the mechanisms of free will or randomness are built into the physical laws.
I don’t mean “worlds” in the quantum mechanics sense, but as a metaphor for resultant states after applying some number of physical permutations to the starting reality.
Why can a machine practice free will? If free will is possible for humans, then it is a set of properties or functions of the physical laws (described by them, contained by them in some way) and a machine might then implement them in whatever fashion a human brain does. Free will would not be a characteristic of A or [A’], but the process applied to A to reach a specific element of [A’].
So...I think I successfully avoided using reference to “might” or “probable” or other synonyms and closely related words.
now I’ll read your post to see if I’m going the wrong way.
I am “grunching.” Responding to the questions posted without reading your answer. Then I’ll read your answer and compare. I started reading your post on Friday and had to leave to attend a wedding before I had finished it, so I had a while to think about my answer.
>Can you talk about “could” without using synonyms like “can” and “possible”?
When we speak of “could” we speak of the set of realizable worlds [A’] that follows from an initial starting world A operated on by a set of physical laws f.
So when we say “I could have turned left at the fork in the road.” “Could” refers to the set of realizable worlds that follow from an initial starting world A in which we are faced with a fork in the road, given the set of physical laws. We are specifically identifying a sub-set of [A’]: that of the worlds in which we turned left.
This does not preclude us from making mistakes in our use of could. One might say “I could have turned left, turned right, or started a nuclear war.” The options “started a nuclear war” may simply not be within the set [A’]. It wasn’t physically realizable given all of the permutations that result from applying our physical laws to our starting world.
If our physical laws contain no method for implementing free will and no randomness, [A’] contains only the single world that results from applying the set of physical laws to A. If there is randomness or free will, [A’] contains a broader collection of worlds that result from applying physical laws to A...where the mechanisms of free will or randomness are built into the physical laws.
I don’t mean “worlds” in the quantum mechanics sense, but as a metaphor for resultant states after applying some number of physical permutations to the starting reality.
Why can a machine practice free will? If free will is possible for humans, then it is a set of properties or functions of the physical laws (described by them, contained by them in some way) and a machine might then implement them in whatever fashion a human brain does. Free will would not be a characteristic of A or [A’], but the process applied to A to reach a specific element of [A’].
So...I think I successfully avoided using reference to “might” or “probable” or other synonyms and closely related words.
now I’ll read your post to see if I’m going the wrong way.