Evolutionary psychologists dislike the distinction between “genetics” and “the environment” on the grounds that the environment is mostly biological, and, therefore, ultimately genetic. They prefer to distinguish between ‘closed’ biological things which vary only by genetic mechanisms (eg sight), and ‘open’ biological things which vary with the environment (eg language). A third level of variation could be self-modification. The environment versus genetics debate tends to be framed within the question of what does the determining. However, the ability to self-modify looks like what is needed for a compatibilist faculty of free will, and the ability to indeterministically self modify looks like what is needed for libertarian free will.
ETA
Therefore, to say of a neural net that is it is “biological” is missing the point. Is it self-modifiable, environmentally modifiable, or genetically fixed? Environmental modification can be taken for granted, since it would be little use otherwise. So we have free will in some sense if we have self-modification abilitites. And neither how much we have, nor what kind we have is given by the observation that we are “biological”.
Evolutionary psychologists dislike the distinction between “genetics” and “the environment” on the grounds that the environment is mostly biological, and, therefore, ultimately genetic. They prefer to distinguish between ‘closed’ biological things which vary only by genetic mechanisms (eg sight), and ‘open’ biological things which vary with the environment (eg language). A third level of variation could be self-modification. The environment versus genetics debate tends to be framed within the question of what does the determining. However, the ability to self-modify looks like what is needed for a compatibilist faculty of free will, and the ability to indeterministically self modify looks like what is needed for libertarian free will.
ETA Therefore, to say of a neural net that is it is “biological” is missing the point. Is it self-modifiable, environmentally modifiable, or genetically fixed? Environmental modification can be taken for granted, since it would be little use otherwise. So we have free will in some sense if we have self-modification abilitites. And neither how much we have, nor what kind we have is given by the observation that we are “biological”.