Are There Personal Explanations whitout Persons? by Hugo Pérez Ramírez

Dear Hugo,

I appreciated your unconventional approach to the problem.

The question of when a system has not just goals or desires, but also "reasons for", seems particularly interesting. I think most would accept that the fitness function in an evolutionary model provides the (illusion of) a goal for a population, or at least a signal of differential goal-achievement.

But it is certainly the case that evolution doesn't give organisms "reasons for" doing something. They do them, or do not, and thrive accordingly. Your rational choice example of there being reasons-for is nice; yet it's not directly applicable because it's a model we build ourselves. We're using rational choice to determine reasons for doing something, but that's because we're interested in reasons. How does that reason-making itself arise? I think you punt a bit on this one, cramming it into the last two paragraphs.

Years ago I was at a lecture where speaker suggested that the neutron "calculated its mass every X nanoseconds" (or something). We (a roomful of physicists) were all mystified about what he meant--he was trying to make a too-cute point about how long it took *us* to calculate the mass using computers. In the end I think he was wrong: it is one thing to be X, or have property X; another to infer, calculate, or compute it. I think you make a similar slip in the last two paragraphs.

Perhaps I'm missing something here. You've taken an approach that reminds me of my data with the analytic philosophers. One of their great virtues, in addition to high alcohol tolerance, is to take a non-scientific idea like "having a reason for doing something" and just relentlessly refusing to cash it out in scientific terms.

Yours,

Simon

Dear Hugo Pérez Ramírez,

Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Hi Hugo,

This is an interesting essay that is very different than the others in its conclusion.

If I got you correctly, you are saying that "there is a parallelism between the systems that tend to order and the personal explanations that describe behaviour towards goals."

Then you say: "Furthermore, I would say that such physical information makes those personal explanations irreducible to scientific explanations." "The desires and reasons which can be attributed to physical events lacking a person are not the same that the description of the physical causes and conditions occurring in said events. the systems processes the information and therefore refers to something beyond matter."

In other words: People are fundamentally different from machines. And, AI is a futurist goal...but we may be limited to machine augmentation. Did I understand you correctly?

I like your essay....Thank you,

Don Limuti

Hugo -

Thank you for the excellent and thoughtful essay. I wish you had written more!

I have made a similar claim In my essay (The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention) about the existence of reasons (intention) without persons (agents), and that these intentions are fundamental to the operation of the universe at all levels - physical as well as biological .

You may also be amused to know that I also have called upon the typing monkeys and their production of Hamlet!

Sincere regards - George Gantz

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