,the program which invariably in this example originates in the mind of the programmer.
Not invariably. We are at the point now where there are AI programs that write code. The man who writes the AI code does not have any way to know what the AI will produce.
Or see the wikipedia article and scroll down to Meta-Genetic Programming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming
Or a scholarly article if the wikipedia article doesn't satiate:
http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/elektrik ... 0008-5.pdf
The human mind, unlike a computer, is being "programmed" every second of every day, and has been since before birth. Formation and rearrangement of synapses never ceases. There is no single "initial state".
The simile of a computer to a human brain is that informational processing is supervenient on physical systems. The argument need not go further to have it's impact. We don't need to trace all inputs. Berlinski's tact of pointing out starting conditions is a distinction that makes no difference.
Maybe you could expand on this as I'm not quite sure what you mean. Does the mind get born? I seem to remember you saying in the past that psychopaths were perfectly made to be psychopaths. They are 'wired' that way. Correct me if I'm misrepresenting you,but surely this is an argument of genetic expression.
Our genes have an impact on our psychology. The impact is overall brain size of the various regions, hormone and neurotransmitter ratios to reuptake cells, initial synaptic wiring of the sympathetic nervous systems, and other items that I'm sure we haven't pinned down yet.
But as we both know, are brains are far more than those few items. All the information we retain, categorized as "knowing how" and "knowing that", along with recognition of our 10(or 11?) senses, is information that serves as an "input" to our brains from before we are born. Even though there is a small amount of influence that can be traced back to genetic expression, almost all of this is acquired above and beyond the expression of our genes.
I don't believe psychopaths are perfectly made to be psychopathic. Trauma at an early stage in life could damage a person's ability to feel empathy, and is a likely cause of psychopathy.
As far as the "residue of our evolutionary heritage" part. Slight variations from person to person could hypothetically be plotted on a graph, and would resemble a bell curve. At one extreme, you would have a person who produces excess oxytocin. The result would be an exceptionally loving, empathetic person. At the other end would be a person whose brain creates very little oxytocin, and so has an inability to bond or feel empathy.
Oxytocin, Dopamine, Seratonin, GABA, Glutamate, etc, are all chemicals that affect how our brains work and the emotions we feel. They "influence" the manner in which we learn new information, but do not "control" the information. They are part of our evolutionary heritage, but the majority of the information that is held within the brain is not.
I also think there are real problems with the materialist reductionist explanations including the idea that the self concious I is some sort of extension, concocted by the brain.
I challenge you to take drugs. See what happens to your conscious self.
There is supervenience. This much I think you're required to admit. The issue is, if you admit supervenience to at least a partial extent, then what reason do you have not to admit supervenience for the rest? Consider the fact that when we lose consciousness, our brain-state correspondingly changes with our mind-state. There is supervenience to consciousness. This is strong evidence that our consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of the physical brain. Unless you have contrary evidence that is just as strong, I'm curious why you aren't sold on the plausibility of the explanation.
Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne who dissects one such notion.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnH5tk22ee4 It's titled; Implausibility of Physical Determinism. By Richard Swinburne.
I'd like to watch it, but cannot watch videos currently. Is there a transcript? Or could you summarize his most compelling points? I know this is meaningless to say, but I assure you that physical determinism is not implausible.