Yes. It does what it’s configured to do, and nothing special beyond that. What it’s configured to do is learning and choosing.
No, I mean “each choice is not a choice, it’s just following the configuration”. “learning” is across time, and is about changes in configuration. But at each choice-point, there is no actual choice.
I can program a computer to use a random algorithm
Well, no. You can program it to use pseudorandom data in an algorithm, or even “hardware-random”, which isn’t necessarily random, just unpredictable by humans.
No, I mean “each choice is not a choice, it’s just following the configuration”. “learning” is across time, and is about changes in configuration. But at each choice-point, there is no actual choice.
That depends on what you mean by “actual choice”. From a mechanistic definition of choice, there is a choice: An action was output based on input information. I don’t know what a sensible definition of a choice looks like other than this. I also don’t understand what keeps this from being an “actual” choice. Is it that you feel like it’s not really you making the choice, if it’s just your brain running an algorithm? But you are that algorithm running on that brain. It is you who is making the choice.
Well, no. You can program it to use pseudorandom data in an algorithm, or even “hardware-random”, which isn’t necessarily random, just unpredictable by humans. ―Dagon
Compare what you said with what I said:
It is, though, an interesting question whether true randomness exists, or whether everything that appears random is just chaos. ―joseph_c
I am not claiming that true randomness necessarily exists, just that I can program a computer to use a random algorithm, so nondeterminism isn’t a mysterious question: Just supply true randomness to a random algorithm.
What makes it a choice in most conversations is the idea that it COULD HAVE output a different action. It’s a choice among possibilities, not just a single-output function.
If you’re asserting that there is no choice (in the usual sense), then I think I understand and agree, but that wasn’t obvious from my reading.
Suppose you have a neural network which classifies handwritten digits. It has 10 outputs for 10 logits, and its “choice” is the highest logit it outputs, given an input image. This is what I mean by a choice.
I don’t understand what it means to say an entity “COULD HAVE” output a different action than what they outputted, other than talking about either (1) a stochastic function, or (2) a claim that there exists a hypothetical other function which would have output something else. I think the second case is the right picture to have in your head, but you seem to have some other picture in your head. Would you mind explaining it?
No, I mean “each choice is not a choice, it’s just following the configuration”. “learning” is across time, and is about changes in configuration. But at each choice-point, there is no actual choice.
Well, no. You can program it to use pseudorandom data in an algorithm, or even “hardware-random”, which isn’t necessarily random, just unpredictable by humans.
That depends on what you mean by “actual choice”. From a mechanistic definition of choice, there is a choice: An action was output based on input information. I don’t know what a sensible definition of a choice looks like other than this. I also don’t understand what keeps this from being an “actual” choice. Is it that you feel like it’s not really you making the choice, if it’s just your brain running an algorithm? But you are that algorithm running on that brain. It is you who is making the choice.
Compare what you said with what I said:
I am not claiming that true randomness necessarily exists, just that I can program a computer to use a random algorithm, so nondeterminism isn’t a mysterious question: Just supply true randomness to a random algorithm.
What makes it a choice in most conversations is the idea that it COULD HAVE output a different action. It’s a choice among possibilities, not just a single-output function.
If you’re asserting that there is no choice (in the usual sense), then I think I understand and agree, but that wasn’t obvious from my reading.
Suppose you have a neural network which classifies handwritten digits. It has 10 outputs for 10 logits, and its “choice” is the highest logit it outputs, given an input image. This is what I mean by a choice.
I don’t understand what it means to say an entity “COULD HAVE” output a different action than what they outputted, other than talking about either (1) a stochastic function, or (2) a claim that there exists a hypothetical other function which would have output something else. I think the second case is the right picture to have in your head, but you seem to have some other picture in your head. Would you mind explaining it?