Beat is for Sonny Bono, beat is for Yoko Ono
SIMON: We have free will in the sense that our resulting behavior will depend on who we are and the situation we are in. People respond differently when confronting the same situation.
BORGES: So, when faced with a situation in which there is a choice to be made between two possible behaviors, we can choose one of them?
SIMON: Your mental programming does the choosing.
It seems to me that Simon is here arguing for what philosophers call “compatibilism” — the idea that determinism can coexist with meaningful human choice and responsibility.
[…]
BORGES: Now, does this account for all of our actions? That is, if my right hand is resting on my left hand, is it because it has to be this way? I believe people do quite a lot of things without any thinking.
SIMON: That’s the doing of our subconscious mind. […] that’s because we are heavily programmed. […] when we study a person who is in the process of solving a problem, we start from the assumption that every little thing has a cause. We are not always able to identify those causes.
{ When Jorge Luis Borges met one of the founders of AI | Continue reading }
oil and charcoal on linen { Chris Ofili, Iscariot Blues, 2006 }
