Can you program a simple calculator with an algorithm and make it so that it does at least some arithmetic problems incorrectly? (Important here is the supposition that the errors be non-random)? I suppose Yes. Can you make a program that uses an algorithm to detect whether or not the said calculator's program is set to work correctly? Let's suppose the answer is yes. But can you make that program defective so that it fails to catch some programs? If the answer to the other two is yes, then Yes to this question as well. In such a case, can a calculator, relying on algorithms in any sense be said to know that it knows when it has the right answer? No.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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