A stable algorithm is a mathematical concept that means small changes in input do not cause large changes in output. It does not become random or pseudo random. Most algorithms, including algorithms for heuristics, do not use seeds for pseudo random effects. A heuristic algorithm is uncertain with respect to the application; it is not non-deterministic or inherently pseudo random or more complex. Counting lines of code written is not the principles and concepts of computer and programming theory.

The arbitrary claim of biological reductionism was yours. Mechanistic versus mysticism is a false alternative. That you are conscious and your consciousness has a nature subject to scientific study is not mysticism. Belief in explaining life, including consciousness, as mechanistic is faith, not science.

You don't have to be an "expert in Objectivism" to avoid basic fallacies. Basic understanding of Objectivism is not too much to suggest on an Ayn Rand forum. The "ignorant slut" "we are done" platitudes are your own.

The introduction of randomness into an algorithm is a long standing way of making a method non-deterministic. Most artificial random number generators don't really break determinism, just make the result virtually impossible for a human to determine, although the choice of a seed, if hardware based can break that. The precision of sensors necessary to deal with the real world does introduce that randomness. Run it over and over again and you will get different answers.

I have been programming computers for over 45 years and have personally written well over a million lines of code. I can tell you from personal experience that it's relatively easy to write a chess playing algorithm that requires you to stop trying to "determine" what the program is going to do and start playing chess.

I admit to not being an expert in Objectivism.

As to biological reductionism and free will we are moving into the realm of faith. Since we do not understand the nature of consciousness, we cannot definitively determine whether it is mechanistic.

We also seem to be moving into the area of "Jane, you ignorant slut", so perhaps we are done.

A heuristic algorithm is not more inherently complex than any other algorithm and precision of sensors does not make algorithms random. A method is either stable or it isn't.

There is no credible argument against free will. Denying it is contradictory.

Biological reductionism is a fallacy for the reasons cited. The number of processes running on your pc is irrelevant.

The Touring test does not say that A and B are not distinguishable. It redefines distinguishable to be limited observation with no understanding, misapplied to declare whether or not the source is human.

You don't seem to understand much about either the theory of computers and programming or philosophy, in particular Objectivism. All of this has been answered long before now.

A complex heuristic algorithm may be theoretically deterministic but require so much analysis that practically speaking only no human can determine what it will do. Once you start interacting with the world then you come up against the fact that sensors are physical objects with precision errors which introduce randomness. Given a known signal (if you could exactly reproduce one) you still have a variety of readings you could get based on the precision of the sensor. With the input into the algorithm changed, even slightly, the result of complex calculations will result in different choices and you no longer have a deterministic system unless you specify the inputs to higher precision than is possible.

As I suggested, whether humans are deterministic or not has long been a debatable issue. Whether our "free will" is real or an illusion is a long-standing argument.

As you say, no one has explained how consciousness works, but that does not mean that it is not an algorithm running in "the background". While I am typing this message, my PC is currently running 113 processes.

As to the Turing Test, if A is not distinguishable from B, then aren't they the same?

A heuristic program is a deterministic program in which criteria uncertain with respect to the application are employed for the deterministic program decisions. It does not change the nature of the program itself to be something other than deterministic.

AI does not depend on "how you view man's reason". Man's reason is what it is and so is the nature of programming. Neither changes in accordance with a "view". That the nervous system is part of how the brain works is well known. No one has explained how it results in and works in conjunction with what we know as the axiomatic fact of consciousness. That has nothing to do with mysticism and alleged souls. Mechanistic versus mystic is a false alternative.

The philosophical materialist claim that all phenomena of life, including consciousness, can be accounted for by reductionism from the physics of the inanimate, let alone the mechanistic, is a fallacy with no grounding in science or logic. A science, including biology, is determined by the nature of its subject matter, not what anyone decides to believe what mechanistic physics must be able to do, without regard for the nature and role of consciousness, which physics does not study or explain.

For a full discussion of the fallacy of reductionism in biology see Robert Efron's "Biology without Consciousness" in The Objectivist Vol 7, nos 2-4, Feb-May, 1968, reprinted from Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Vol II, No. 1, Autumn 1967, pp 9-36.

The Turing test is a fallacy based in Logical Positivism. That someone can or cannot distinguish effects of a human versus a machine says nothing about the nature of either or what else it can or will do, and explains nothing.

An accounting program that surprises you is definitely a bug. A chess playing program is not -- at least unless it's a bad mistake. While the idea of computers being programmed for specific algorithms is the essence of programming, when you move into the realm of heuristic programming you no longer as saying if this than that -- at least at the level that you can predict the final outcome.

I guess the issue depends on how you view man's reason. If it is the product of our nervous system and the mechanisms that it entails, it is inevitable that we will be able to develop hardware and software to duplicate the functionality. Only if we move into mysticism and says that the mind exists outside of the biological construct is it possible that we will never succeed for lack of being able to create a soul.

I believe we are mechanistic.

I would argue that if a robot were to be constructed in such a manner that you would be unable to distinguish it from another human (the Turing Test), then it is performing the same function and has the same capability. Of course the volitional capacity of humans has been a subject of much debate.

It was called the "Civil War". It wasn't fought against punishments for crime.

Robots do not choose on their own, i.e., with our volitional capacity. They do only what they are programmed to do, including "learning". They don't have their own motives or purpose. Their "continuing to learn" means following programmed instructions on how to continue modifying their own internal state defining what limited discrete decisions are made in accordance with the program.

Functioning of a program that surprises its programmer is a common "bug" :-( A program that modifies its own instructions can go haywire but at 'random', not evolving into purposeful conscious creatures. No one knows what it would take to make an artificial human, let alone how to program it, or build something that could stumble onto it on its own. Robots doing that on their own from today's limited technology is science fiction.

If you're asking if an artificial human can ever be created, no one knows. There is too much still unknown about how we work. We do know that today's programmed machines and "artificial intelligence" are nothing like man the rational animal, and that there is no evidence that it is anything but far off. There are still more than enough problems getting AI to do what it is being sold as even in limited functions.

Or out of control human. The cops have the off switch for them.

Why do you think an android cannot exist with the same self awareness as a biological human. It's not that far off actually

If it's so "well known", how about a reference?

The word "autonomously" is rather hazy here. If by it you mean they spontaneously started learning without human input, no they didn't. However they can continue to do so without further guidance.

To a degree we are "programmed to react to signals from sensors".

It's relatively easy to get a computer algorithm so complex that it does things that surprise the programmer.

Robots are not conscious beings who think and conspire. The danger of an out of control robot is the same as any other out of control machine. Keep the off switch nearby.

Yes it makes no sense that they would have confused slavery with punishment for crimes so they made it clear in the amendment that it wasn't about banning punishment for crimes and that banning "involuntary servitude" as slavery could not be used for that. The history of why the amendment was passed is well known.

Autonomy is coming to robots. Thats one fear the designers have. At some point the robots may be making their own decisions based on their experiences in "growing up"

Do you have any references for that statement? Since white people had been imprisoned or otherwise punished for crimes long before the Civil War, it makes no sense that people of that time would have confused imprisonment or other criminal punishment with slavery.

It was put there so as not in the name of anti-slavery to legally rule out punishment of crimes "whereof the party shall have been duly convicted".

Robots do not observe or autonomously learn on their own. They are programmed to react to signals from sensors. Neural nets are "trained", not autonomous.

I did not say that primitives could understand the "Bill of Rights". Calling slavery a "revolutionary advancement" is not science. If you want further discussion then stop ignoring responses to you with your repetitious pronouncements and sarcastic nonsense.

Re: "There was never any question of putting people into slavery as punishment for a crime. " Then why was that "except" phrase put into the 13th Amendment? If there was never any question about the issue, that phrase would not have been put there.

I have been reading lately about great advances in robot technology including some robots that can observe and learn on their own- like human babies do.

You might find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Yjv... interesting to see how far robotics has gotten already.

The articles I have been reading in WIRED magazine and TECHNOLOGY REVIEW are starting to talk about the neural network designs that autonomously learn on their own. There is even some discussion about how that could be a bad thing, in that the robot can turn into something that wasnt desired at all- all by itself.

I think there was a very substantial hatred of England and a desire to never let them take over the government again. Hence things like the second amendment to protect the citizens FROM another oppressive government. Religious freedom as a big deal too, although not for the Mormons. It looked to me like they wanted to get rid of the Church of England's oppressive control primarily. But not every other religion was OK. There was a very big desire to take over land, at the expense of the very rights that were mentioned in the Constitution.

There wasnt a distinct protection of private property in the constitution, as far as I can see. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (whatever that is?) seems to be the main points.

The lack of specific private property in the list of what is to be protected seems to have led us to many wealth transfer programs of our government over the years. Too bad too.

Later, when the south wanted to secede from the union, that could not be allowed in order to "protect" the union by force and killing.

My point is that the history of the USA is not as pristine as portrayed. There were some great things that came out of disgust with the English rule and a desire to be free that have done us all very well for the last 200+ years. There is a basic respect for humanity that didnt exist before that, and I applaud that.

But we should accept that there were contradictions in our history that should be accepted. They were there and wont go away.
There was slavery, persecution of the indigenous indian population, dubious wars with Mexico, the running off of the Mormons, not to mention in modern times the many "wars" that the US has been engaged in- both international and domestic. Most all of which are unconstitutional, and/or are not purely defensive in nature.

Thats why I mentioned that I was disappointed in Johnson's less than consistent application of libertarian principles. I dont expect Trump or Hillary to come anywhere close to that, but Johnson was going to be our hope for a return to individual rights. I can understand why he caved on a number of things, however. He would get NO traction in todays culture if he were consistent. Look what happened to Ron Paul or even Ted Cruz.

I think Johnson, or his successor, should BE consistent on principles, but NOT run for president at the same time in some sort of popularity contest like its become. However, he should slowly and consistently be a voice for individual rights over a period of years before he would attempt to mount a campaign. The people must be ready, and they are certainly NOT at this point.

This is anthropology, not culural relativism. So, you seem to be saying that the neanderthals were perfectably capable of having a republican government, as well as creating and understanding the Bill of Rights? I didn't know that you are a Creationist who believes that humans were hatched in a fully developed state.

You don't need a university to understand that primitive tribalism and cannibalism are not revolutionary efficiencies and that slavery was not an "advancement". We don't expect better of primitives; we do of civilized people in the 21 century telling us that different versions of tribalist brutality were an "advancement". This is a forum for Ayn Rand's ideas, not cultural relativism and pragmatism.

Every normal human being is capable of using his rational mind. Degree of intelligence is not the issue. The culture we see around us is the result of the spread of wrong ideas, not inherent incapability of rational thought. There is no excuse for slavery as some kind of determined inherited mental trait.