Proving Free Will & Entity Existence: Serious Responses Only

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The discussion centers on the philosophical question of proving one's existence as a sentient being versus being a computer program or part of a programmed reality. Key points include the challenge of demonstrating free will and the nature of existence, with some participants suggesting that complex human creativity and imagination cannot be replicated by computers. The conversation also touches on the idea that all experiences might be illusory, making it impossible to definitively prove anything's reality. References to the concept of the universe as a computer or a form of information processing are made, alongside the notion that humans, as creators, possess qualities that programs lack. The dialogue emphasizes the difficulty of defining existence and the implications of living in a potentially simulated reality.
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Can you prove that you are not a computer program, or a part of a prorgramed existence, how can you prove you have (free will)? can you prove that the penquin is an (entity) rather than a computer virus ?
can you show that a flesh and blood (creature) wrote this is false.
Only serious/ semi serious responses will be given any truck.
 
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wolram said:
Can you prove that you are not a computer program, or a part of a prorgramed existence
Maybe a very complicated and abstracted painting which can only be explained by sense of integration of images in human mind will work.
 
what constituency proof for this question?
 
Anttech said:
what constituency proof for this question?

May be you could show the impossibility/possibility of a computer program to respond correctly to the question.
 
It's pretty simple, Woolie. No computer could have the imagination necessary to come up with the likes of you. :-p
 
Danger said:
It's pretty simple, Woolie. No computer could have the imagination necessary to come up with the likes of you. :-p

But do computers need imagination? i guess my existence could be modeled with a series of 1s and 0s, but yours would have to be modeled on (virtual)
1s and 0s :-p
 
mine would be on 1's and 0's with the ocational 2
 
Try proving that you are. Presenting some data that is in your favour could be nice before I attack the situation.
 
Ok , i have just found out that tom and jerry are not real characters, but with only the film evidence how can i prove/disprove either way?
 
  • #10
As you have it stated, there is no such proof. Crudely speaking, there is no way to be sure that what we experience is real - thus there is no way to prove that *anything* is real.
 
  • #11
its a proven fact that we are basicaly made up of 1's 2's 3's and 4's (IE DNA bases)

so sory but it was ment as a JOKE
 
  • #12
wolram said:
i guess my existence could be modeled with a series of 1s and 0s
I doubt that. More likely ?s and ~s.
 
  • #13
star.torturer said:
its a proven fact that we are basicaly made up of 1's 2's 3's and 4's (IE DNA bases)

so sory but it was ment as a JOKE

Well this is a semi/serious thread sir/ess, no jokes allowed :-p
 
  • #14
Danger said:
I doubt that. More likely ?s and ~s.

Only things i can understand will be permited in this thread, i have put you with worm holes, Waaay out :biggrin:
 
  • #15
wolram said:
Can you prove that you are not a computer program,
I can see my hands. You, on the other hand, exist only on my computer screen...

In fact, the only person in here that I am absolutely certain is real is Moonbear...
or a part of a prorgramed existence, how can you prove you have (free will)?
Irrelevant question. If you have freewill, you damn well better act like it. If you don't have freewill, it doesn't matter if you act like it or if you don't. And since you don't know, you damn well better act like you do.
can you prove that the penquin is an (entity) rather than a computer virus ?
The penguin isn't a virus, it is a bot.
can you show that a flesh and blood (creature) wrote this is false.
That isn't a sentence, so, uh, no?
Only serious/ semi serious responses will be given any truck.
How can I (or anyone else) be serious if I don't exist? I can only be programmed to look serious.
 
  • #16
Typical programed response, ok Russ you can return to the collective now.

:smile:
 
  • #17
Somebodies been watching too much of the Matrix methinks :-p
 
  • #18
In a computer program, do you have any idea how to create a notion of existence in any piece of the code?
 
  • #19
heartless said:
In a computer program, do you have any idea how to create a notion of existence in any piece of the code?

I do not even want to go down the philisophical road and try to define existence, that is way over my head.
 
  • #20
wolram said:
Can you prove that you are not a computer program, or a part of a prorgramed existence, how can you prove you have (free will)? can you prove that the penquin is an (entity) rather than a computer virus ?
can you show that a flesh and blood (creature) wrote this is false.
Only serious/ semi serious responses will be given any truck.

if we are inside a giant PC, then there must be some kind of circuitry conducting orders in and out of the Universe. i mean, cables connected to your brain, and all. In truth, this circuitry must be very thin, and difficult to discover.

Seth Lloyd is one of the fanatics of the Computer universe concept, and in March 2006 a book by him appeared in the market

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos
 
  • #21
i mean, cables connected to your brain, and all. In truth, this circuitry must be very thin, and difficult to discover.
or, like in the matrix, they just programed them not to apear in the "avatars"
 
  • #22
I've just read this recent interview with S. Lloyd, who assigns great weight to the concept of information:

"My daughter Zoey says, "No, Daddy, everything is made of atoms, except for light." So I tell her, "Yes, Zoey, but those atoms are also information""

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/play.html?pg=4
 
  • #23
I thing one overbaring point is that humans can be programmers but programs can't be humanners
 
  • #24
I like this bit.

Would it be fair to say the universe is a mind?
You could use that metaphor. And if you did, then you and I and my cat are its thoughts. But the vast majority of the universe's thinking is about humble vibrations and collisions of atoms.
 
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