I am sorry but there is nothing left to discuss.

Well, you are not providing an argument as to why OP is invalid. I think that is the end of the discussion.

1) OP says, doubt : an experience of uncertainty in a situation. From that (and other observations) it follows there must be a free mind. — Carlo Roosen

So you agree that the conclusion follows from OP?

2) My problem is that "experience" and "mind" are both related to consciousness. There is so much debate about this topic, not leading to any useful conclusions. This post says it all: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15512/logical-proof-that-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-impossible-to-solve . Basically it says: when consciouness is involved, logical thinking is not capable to draw conclusions. Wrong tools for the job. — Carlo Roosen

I am familiar with the hard problem of consciousness. What is consciousness to you?

3) So to test you logic, I proposed another, temporal, definition of doubt, one that does not require consciousness. A mechanical "doubt", so to speak. This alternative definition: doubt = "a situation of uncertainty".
4) That is where my little program comes in. It is very simple of course, it just shows you can make a choice even if the both options are equally preferable. — Carlo Roosen

Probably I wrote around a thousand codes during my career. Don't take me wrong I know what you are talking about.

5) This shows that your OP depends on consciousness. — Carlo Roosen

Sure. I am talking about a conscious agent who has a doubt in a situation.

6) To me that means that I lose all interest in the matter, I have a different view on consciousness that shows why thinking/words are incapable of making conclusions about it, quite similar to the article I mentioned in 2) — Carlo Roosen

If you have no interest in discussing OP which crucially depends on consciousness then that is the end of discussion.

I don't think there's any reason to assume a detemrinistic system cannot have 'doubt' implemented into a thing in that system. — flannel jesus

I would use uncertain if the system is not conscious otherwise I use doubt. I agree that a deterministic system could reach a state of uncertainty or doubt.

I'm actually pretty sure LLMs have already learned to internally represent various degrees of certainty in particular situations. — flannel jesus

What are LLMs? Large language models?

ok enough is enough. You are not discussing, you are just repeating and not trying to understand things in context. — Carlo Roosen

I am open to discussing OP further if you wish.

So your algorithm is biased and not free. What does this have to do with OP which discusses that humans have minds?

What do you do when a==b?

All he is saying is that there exists an exploratory approach to these kind of problems. You start with an idea, try it out in simulation, and continue from there, until you have something you like. — Carlo Roosen

So you start with an idea! Don't you?

First thing first, I am talking about humans and their capacity to freely decide. It then follows that we have minds. Secondly, your example of a computer being in a doubtful situation because a variable has the value "01" does not make any sense at all.

That is because experience is in your definition, and you do not accept my example. — Carlo Roosen

Your example just does not make any sense to me. You said that the value 01 or whatever resembles a doubt. What do you want me to accept?

Do you mean that the AI should be able to solve problems?

Again, you are reacting emotionally without really trying to understand what I am saying. I am not your enemy, I try to make your idea more clear and getting it more precise. — Carlo Roosen

I didn't say that you are my enemy. I would be happy to accept the error in my reasoning if you can show it. All I said was that my argument is not what you are saying.

I am saying that without the need for "experience" your logic fails. — Carlo Roosen

But you were not able to define a doubtful situation in which experience is not needed.

What do you mean by showing intelligence?

Look, you shove a term "experience" in your definition of doubt, and end up with a proof of "mind" at the other end. And you do this without explicitely pointing out what these two terms mean and how they relate. That is not a clear line of logic, it is confusing. — Carlo Roosen

No, my argument does not work like that, there is experience therefore there is a mind.

Instead, if you would define "doubt" without the need for "experience", you end up with my example program and there is no need for a mind at all. — Carlo Roosen

So according to you assigning a variable to be X which is arbitrary means that the computer has doubt.

He most likely means that we can try out different ideas until it starts thinking in a way that we like. — Carlo Roosen

Trying different ideas means that you have something in your mind about how the simulation should work. Also, what do you mean by "it starts thinking"?

That opens a can of worms. Okay, let others continue this. I've done what I can. — Carlo Roosen

Pardon me! That does not open a can of worms but clears up the discussion. If you are interested in discussing mind and consciousness you at least need to have a basic knowledge about them. This wiki page provides the basics for you.

One of the things that you need to make clear is whether doubt requires consciousness. You use the word "experience" in your definition, so it seems, yes. — Carlo Roosen

Yes.

You end up with the conclusion that, based on this definition, there must be a mind. — Carlo Roosen

The existence of experience does not mean that there is a mind. The existence of doubt together with the ability that you can decide in a doubtful situation means that you have a mind given the fact that the brain is a deterministic entity.

"01" is just a number. Isn't it? Are you saying that when a variable is "01" then the computer has doubt?

"01" does not represent a doubtful situation as I defined it in OP and gave an example of it.

You need to be more careful with your argumentation. You cannot just say the opposite of what I said. I gave an explanation of what I meant, you didn't. "In my program there is a memory location reserved. It contains data. The interpreter or compiler has a check and generates an error if you want to print it before you define it." — Carlo Roosen

No, again undefined variable in your code does not represent a doubtful situation. I precisely defined doubt in OP and also gave an example of a situation in which an agent has doubt.

In my program there is a memory location reserved. It contains data. The interpreter or compiler has a check and generates an error if you want to print it before you define it. But undefined means the same as doubt. — Carlo Roosen

No, undefined does not mean doubt.

So, why can't it be part of a deterministic system? The code example I gave is deterministic. — Carlo Roosen

I already explained. A deterministic system goes from one state to a unique state later so at each point in time there is only one state available to the system. There are two states to choose from when we have a doubt though.

define x
for a = 1 to 1000000000
y = y + 1 / a
next a
x = 2 + y

x is "in doubt" while calculating y — Carlo Roosen

No, x is not determined while the program is calculating y.

Doubt is a mental state.

I went back to your definition in the OP, and based on that, of course, I have doubts. Right now, for example: Should I respond to your post and have my name appear two or three times on the homepage? Some people already say I post too often. — Carlo Roosen

It is great progress that we agree that you can have doubt. Doubts are not allowed in a deterministic system. That is true since a deterministic system moves from one state to another unique state later. So only one state is available for a deterministic system at any given time. There are two states available to choose from when we have doubts though.

It can be simulated even if one doesn't know how it works. — noAxioms

This means that you didn't simulate any system in your life. Did you?

My hypothesis is that language plays a key role in thinking. With "I love sushi" I have some debate about that, there are people without language abilities that still show intelligence. So many sides to the topic... — Carlo Roosen

I don't think that the process of thinking requires language. The thinking process is nothing but a neural process in which neurons fire until a pattern is recognized. The process is terminated when the further process does not change the pattern that is recognized. You are not aware of neural processes which occur in your brain when you think. You just become aware of the outcome of the neural process so-called idea when a pattern is recognized and the process of thinking is terminated.

I have to say that language is important when you want to communicate with an AI. That is true since for communication you need to provide input for an AI and receive output. The input should be meaningful for the AI and the AI should provide a meaningful output as well based on the outcome of the thinking process. How to make an AI recognize a sentence and provide a meaningful sentence is another topic.

If we know how humans think, we can simulate thinking using a neural network.

I don't have answers to all questions as well. It is however strange to me that a person who doesn't have doubt can define it.

Haha I don't know how I should read your question. Do you mean that I sound so confident that I would never have a doubt? I have been called arrogant here. — Carlo Roosen

My question was simple. Have you ever had a doubt? Yes or no?

That doesn't change the universe into an object itself. — noAxioms

I didn't say that the universe is an object.

Have you ever had a doubt?

Read up on Bernardo Kastrup. I can’t break it down for you in a forum post. Try this https://besharamagazine.org/science-technology/mind-over-matter/ — Wayfarer

I read the article. It does not explain what he means by that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe.

Do you agree that his statement is contradictory? He stated that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe yet he claims that computer is not conscious.

Do some research. — Wayfarer

On which topic?

Consciousness is fundamental: Kastrup believes that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, not a product of complex physical systems like the human brain. This means that AI, which is a product of human design and operates on physical principles, cannot inherently possess consciousness. — Wayfarer

Well, that seems contradictory to me. Everything should be conscious if consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. So a computer that simulates intelligence is also conscious. What is its subjective experience is however the subject of discussion. Its subjective experience could be simple low-level that allows the computer to run the code. I highly doubt that its subjective experience is high-level such as thoughts though even if its behavior indicates that it is intelligent.

Did you read the OP? If yes, what is your opinion about it? I defined all the necessary terms.

No problem. Feel free to ask if you have another question.

As you suggest, at the level of reality whatever the heck doubt is, is not what we're assessing here. A prehistoric human, like other animals lacked this 'artificial' autonomous process. When it faced a divergence in a path, it either used its senses and responded in accordance with its conditioning to follow the 'right' path, or it just moved forward indifferently. It did not have the pronoun to attach either congratulations for a right choice nor doubt with respect thereto. — ENOAH

I think even a mouse can freely decide when it is in a maze.

We are assessing a thing we have over eons constructed and reconstructed, and transmitted from generation to generation, such that whatever real doubt is, has been displaced by it. The 'doubt' we are assessing is not that biochemistry, but the deterministic movement of images constructed and projected into this world of moving images--not world of natural conditioning where the chemistry is at play. And I realize they function together on a feedback loop, but we're really talking about the surface, the world of images, where d-o-u-b-t abides, with all of its triggering powers. I'm confident we're not going to find
d-o-u-b-t in any chemicals. — ENOAH

We know that doubt is the result of the biochemical processes in the brain. Doubt is a sort of conscious phenomenon and all conscious phenomena are correlated with biochemical processes in the brain.

I'm saying (oversimplified for space and time) those images move deterministically. For humans born into history, confronted by a divergence in a path, if one path appears rugged and dangerous, the other smooth, and these are the only factors, reason, moving images of a specific variety, autonomously gets to work, and the easy path is selected. If a given person happens to defy reason, they did not. Their 'reason,' just as autonomously applied as conventional reason, the rugged so-called choice was triggered by moving images of xyz autonomously moving them to take the rugged path. Finally if one cannot choose, and 'reads' into experience, moving images called doubt, that too, is pushed upon the body at that moment, e.g., a balance of xyz's or conflicting structures, just as autonomously playing on the next step/no step as reason or defiance did. — ENOAH

I used the example of the maze to show that doubt is real. We are not dealing with a doubtful situation in which one path is smooth and another one is rugged.

So MoK is talking about only 'things' (objects). The universe is not such a 'thing', so the conclusion from the OP is relevant only to objects, not the universe, per this restricted definition of 'nothing' to mean literally 'no thing'. — noAxioms

The universe is a collection of objects so OP applies to the universe.

By reference to an initial state, and by use of past tense, you imply that some time (the earliest time), it could have been finite, but that it isn't finite now. That requires, at some moment, a transition from finite to infinite.

The universe (our 4D spacetime) is considered to be infinite in all four dimensions, and bounded at one end of the time dimension. — noAxioms

I have an argument for the whole being limitless, which you can find here. My main problem however is that I don't have any argument to show that the whole is filled by material so there could be areas filled by material and others that are empty.