Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1988, 14:52-EDT From: AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis Sender: nick@MIT-AI Reply-To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Subject: AIList Digest V7 #6 To: ailist-outgoing@mc Status: R AIList Digest Wednesday, 25 May 1988 Volume 7 : Issue 6 Today's Topics: Philosophy - Even More Free Will (Last of three digests on this topic) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 May 88 21:57:50 GMT From: dalcs!iisat!paulg@uunet.uu.net (Paul Gauthier) Subject: Re: More Free Will I'm sorry, but there is no free will. Every one of us is bound by the laws of physics. No one can lift a 2000 tonne block of concrete with his bare hands. No one can do the impossible, and in this sense none of us have free will. I am partially wrong there, as long as you don't WANT to do the impossible you can have a sort of free will. But as soon as you feel that you want to do something that cannot be done then your free will is gone. Let me define my idea of free will: Free will is being able to take any course of action which you want to take. So if you never want to take a course of action which is forbidden to you, your free will is retained. Free will is completely subjective. There is no 'absolute free will.' At least that is how I look at free will. Since it is subjective to the person whose free will is in question it follows that as long as this person THINKS he is experiencing free will then he is. If he doesn't know that his decisions are being made for him, and he THINKS they are his own free choices then he is NOT being forced into a course of action he doesn't desire so he has free will. Anyways, I suppose there'll be a pile of rebuttles against this (gosh, I hope so -- I love debates!). -- ============================================================================== === Paul Gauthier at International Information Services === === {uunet, utai, watmath}!dalcs!iisat!paulg === ======================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 88 21:58:15 GMT From: bwk@mitre-bedford.arpa (Barry W. Kort) Subject: Re: Raising Consciousness I was heartened by Drew McDermot's well-written summary of the Free Will discussion. I have not yet been dissuaded from the notion that Free Will is an emergent property of a decision system with three agents. The first agent generates a candidate list of possible courses of action open for consideration. The second agent evaluates the likely outcome of pursuing each possible course of action, and estimates it's utility according to it's value system. The third agent provides a coin-toss to resolve ties. Feedback from the real world enables the system to improve its powers of prediction and to edit it's value system. If the above model is at all on target, the decision system would seem to have free will. And it would not be unreasonable to hold it accountable for its actions. On another note, I think it was Professor Minsky who wondered how we stop deciding an issue. My own feeling is that we terminate the decision-making process when a more urgent or interesting issue pops up. The main thing is that our decision making machinery chews on whatever dilemma captures its attention. --Barry Kort ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 88 17:16:38 GMT From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) Subject: Re: More Free Will In article <2@iisat.UUCP> paulg@iisat.UUCP (Paul Gauthier) writes: > I am partially wrong there, as long as you don't WANT to do the impossible >you can have a sort of free will. But as soon as you feel that you want to >do something that cannot be done then your free will is gone. > > [ other good comments deleted ] I'm totally perplexed why the concept of *RELATIVE FREEDOM* is so difficult for people to adhere to. Can someone *please* rebut the following: 1) Absolute freedom is theoretically impossible. Absolute freedom is perhaps best characterized as a uniform distribution on the real line. This distribution is not well formed. The concept of *absolute randomness* is not well defined. For example, it is *determined* that the six sided die cannot roll a seven. 2) Absolute determinism, while theoretically possible, is both physically impossible and theoretically unobservable. Computers are one of the most determined systems we have, but a variety of low-level errors, up to and including quantum effects, pollute its pure determinism. Further, any sufficiently large determined system will yield to chaotic processes, so that its determinism is itself undeterminable. 3) Therefore all real systems are *RELATIVELY FREE*, and *RELATIVELY DETERMINED*, some more, some less, depending on their nature, and on how they are observed and modeled. Certainly all organisms, including people, fall into this range. 4) Since when we qualify an adjective, the adjective still holds (something a little hot is still hot), therefore, it *IS TRUE* that *PEOPLE ARE FREE* and it *IS TRUE* that *PEOPLE ARE DETERMINED*. No problem. 5) As biological systems evolve, their freedom increases, so that, e.g. people are more free than cats or snails. When people project this relatively more freedom into their own absolute freedom they are committing arrogance and folly. When people project ideological (naive?) ideas about causality, and conclude that we are completely determined, they are also commiting folly. Any takers? -- O----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large | Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu V All the world is biscuit shaped. . . ------------------------------ Date: 14 May 88 22:46:42 GMT From: sunybcs!stewart@boulder.colorado.edu (Norman R. Stewart) Subject: Re: Free Will >From: paulg@iisat.UUCP (Paul Gauthier) writes: > I'm sorry, but there is no free will. Every one of us is bound by the >laws of physics. No one can lift a 2000 tonne block of concrete with his >bare hands. No one can do the impossible, and in this sense none of us have >free will. I don't believe we're concerned with what we are capable of doing, but rather our capacity to desire to do it. Free will is a mental, not a physical phenomenom. What we're concerned with is if the brain (nervous system, organism, aggregation of organisms and objects) is just so many atoms (sub-atomic particles?, sub-sub-atomic particles) bouncing around according to the laws of physics, and behavior simply the unalterable manifestion of the movement of these particles. /|\ | Note: in a closed system. Norman R. Stewart Jr. * C.S. Grad - SUNYAB * If you want peace, demand justice. internet: stewart@cs.buffalo.edu * (of unknown origin) bitnet: stewart@sunybcs.bitnet * ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 88 19:03:53 GMT From: COYOTE.STANFORD.EDU!eyal@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Eyal Mozes) Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness In article <434@aiva.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes: >> Eyal Mozes writes: >>all the evidence I'm familiar with points to the fact that it's >>always possible for a human being to control his thoughts by a >>conscious effort. > >It is not always possible. Think, if no simpler example will do, of >obsessives. They have thoughts that persist in turning up despite >efforts to eliminate them. First of all, even an obsessive can, at any given moment, turn his thoughts away from the obsession by a conscious effort. The problem of obsession is in that this conscious effort has to be much greater than normal, and also in that, whenever the obsessive is not consciously trying to avoid those thoughts, they do persist in turning up. Second, an obsession is caused by anxiety and self-doubt, which are the result of thinking the obsessive has done, or failed to do, in the past. And, by deliberately training himself, over a period of time, in more rational thinking, sometimes with appropriate professional help, the obsessive can eliminate the excessive anxiety and self-doubt and thus cure the obsession. So, indirectly, even the obsession itself is under the person's volitional control. >Or, consider when you start thinking about something. An idea just >occurs and you are thinking it: you might decide to think about >something, but you could not have decided to decide, decided to >decide to decide, etc. so at some point there was no conscious >decision. Of course, the point at which you became conscious (e.g. woke up from sleep) was not a conscious decision. But as long as you are conscious, it is your choice whether to let your thoughts wander by chance association or to deliberately, purposefully control what you're thinking about. And whenever you stop your thoughts from wandering and start thinking on a subject of your choice, that action is by conscious decision. This is why I consider Ayn Rand's theory of free will to be such an important achievement - because it is the only free-will theory directly confirmed by what anyone can observe in his own thoughts. Eyal Mozes BITNET: eyal%coyote@stanford ARPA: eyal@coyote.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 88 08:11:37 GMT From: TAURUS.BITNET!shani@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: More Free Will In article <2@iisat.UUCP>, paulg@iisat.BITNET writes: > Let me define my idea of free will: Free will is being able to take any > course of action which you want to take. So if you never want to take a > course of action which is forbidden to you, your free will is retained. > Hmm... quite correct. But did it ever occured to you that we WANT to be limited by the laws of physics, because this is the only way to form a realm? Why do you think people are so willing to pay lot's of $ to TSR, just to play with other limitations?... O.S. ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 88 15:00:25 GMT From: sunybcs!sher@boulder.colorado.edu (David Sher) Subject: Re: Raising Consciousness There is perhaps a minor bug in Drew Mcdermott's (who teaches a great grad level ai class) analysis of free will. If I understand it correctly it runs like this: To plan one has a world model including future events. Since you are an element of the world then you must be in the model. Since the model is a model of future events then your future actions are in the model. This renders planning unnecessary. Thus your own actions must be excised from the model for planning to avoid this "singularity." Taken naively, this analysis would prohibit multilevel analyses such as is common in game theory. A chess player could not say things like if he moves a6 then I will move Nc4 or Bd5 which will lead .... Thus it is clear that to make complex plans we actually need to model ourselves (actually it is not clear but I think it can be made clear with sufficient thought). However we can still make the argument that Drew was making its just more subtle than the naive analysis indicates. The way the argument runs is this: Our world model is by its very nature a simplification of the real world (the real world doesn't fit in our heads). Thus our world model makes imperfect predictions about the future and about consequence. Our self model inside our world model shares in this imperfection. Thus our self model makes inaccurate predictions about our reactions to events. We perceive ourselves as having free will when our self model makes a wrong prediction. A good example of this is the way I react during a chess game. I generally develop a plan of 2-5 moves in advance. However sometimes when I make a move and my opponent responds as expected I notice a pattern that previously eluded me. This pattern allows me to make a move that was not in my plans at all but would lead to greater gains than I had planned. For example noticing a knight fork. When this happens I have an intense feeling of free will. As another example I had planned on writing a short 5 line note describing this position. In fact this article is running several pages. ... -David Sher ARPA: sher@cs.buffalo.edu BITNET: sher@sunybcs UUCP: {rutgers,ames,boulder,decvax}!sunybcs!sher ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 88 15:55:12 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!aiva!jeff@uunet.uu.net (Jeff Dalton) Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness In article <8805092354.AA05852@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Eyal Mozes writes: 1 all the evidence I'm familiar with points to the fact that it's 1 always possible for a human being to control his thoughts by a 1 conscious effort. In article <434@aiva.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes: 2 It is not always possible. Think, if no simpler example will do, of 2 bsessives. They have thoughts that persist in turning up despite 2 efforts to eliminate them. In article <8805151907.AA01702@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Eyal Mozes writes: >First of all, even an obsessive can, at any given moment, turn his >thoughts away from the obsession by a conscious effort. The problem of >obsession is in that this conscious effort has to be much greater than >normal, and also in that, whenever the obsessive is not consciously >trying to avoid those thoughts, they do persist in turning up. That an obsessive has some control over his thoughts does not mean he can always control his thoughts. If all you mean is that one can always at least temporarily change what one is thinking about and can eventually eliminate obsessive thoughts or the tune that's running through one's head, no one would be likely to disagree with you, except where you seem to feel that obsessions are just the result of insufficiently rational thinking in the past. >So, indirectly, even the obsession itself is under the person's >volitional control. I would be interested in knowing what you think *isn't* under a person's volitional control. One would normally think that having a sore throat is not under conscious control even though one can chose to do something about it or even to try to prevent it. 2 Or, consider when you start thinking about something. An idea just 2 occurs and you are thinking it: you might decide to think about 2 something, but you could not have decided to decide, decided to 2 decide to decide, etc. so at some point there was no conscious 2 decision. >Of course, the point at which you became conscious (e.g. woke up from >sleep) was not a conscious decision. But as long as you are conscious, >it is your choice whether to let your thoughts wander by chance >association or to deliberately, purposefully control what you're >thinking about. And whenever you stop your thoughts from wandering and >start thinking on a subject of your choice, that action is by conscious >decision. But where does the "subject of your own choice" come from? I wasn't thinking of letting one's thoughts wander, although what I said might be interpreted that way. When you decide what to think about, did you decide to decide to think about *that thing*, and if so how did you decide to decide to decide, and so on? Or suppose we start with a decision, however it occurred. I decide read your message. As I do so, it occurs to me, at various points, that I disagree and want to say something in reply. Note that these "occurrences" are fairly automatic. Conscious thought is involved, but the exact form of my reply is a combination of conscious revision and sentences, phrases, etc. that are generated by some other part of my mind. I think "he thinks I'm just talking about letting the mind wander and thinking about whatever comes up." That thought "just occurs". I don't decide to think exactly that thing. But my consciousness has that thought and can work with it. It helps provide a focus. I next try to find a reply and begin by reading the passage again. I notice the phrase "subject of your own choice" and think then write "But where does the...". Of course, I might do other things. I might think more explicitly about that I'm doing. I might even decide to think explicitly rather than just do so. But I cannot consciously decide every detail of every thought. There are always some things that are provided by other parts of my mind. Indeed, I am fortunate that my thoughts continue along the lines I have chosen rather than branch off on seemingly random tangents. But the thoughts of some people, schizophrenics say, do branch off. It is clear in many cases that insufficient rationality did not cause their problem: it is one of the consequences, not one of the causes. As an example of "other parts of the mind", consider memory. Suppose I decide to remember the details of a particular event. I might not be able to, but if I can I do not decide what these memories will be: they are given to me by some non-conscious part of my mind. >This is why I consider Ayn Rand's theory of free will to be such an >important achievement - because it is the only free-will theory >directly confirmed by what anyone can observe in his own thoughts. As far as you have explained so far, Rand's theory is little more than simply saying that free will = the ability to focus consciousness, which we can all observe. Since we can all observe this without the aid of Rand's theory, all Rand seems to be saying is "that's all there is to it". -- Jeff ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 88 12:07:18 From: ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Date: 16 May 1988, 12:02:14 HOE From: ALFONSEC at EMDCCI11 (EARN, Manuel Alfonseca) To: AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU at EDU Ref: Free will et al. Previous appends have stated that all values are learned. I believe that some are innate. For instance, the crudest form of the justice value "Why should I receive less than (s)he?" seems to exist in babies as soon as they can perceive and before anybody has tried to teach them. Any comments? How does this affect free will in AI? Regards, Manuel Alfonseca, ALFONSEC at EMDCCI11 Usual disclaimer: My opinions are my own. ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 88 16:15:32 GMT From: wlieberm@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (William Lieberman) Subject: Free Will-Randomness and Question-Structure 12-May-88 15:36:36-PDT,2503;000000000000 Date: Thu, 12 May 88 15:33:21 pdt From: wlieberm@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (William Lieberman) Message-Id: <8805122233.AA28641@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness Newsgroups: comp.ai In-Reply-To: <1179@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA Cc: wlieberm@vaxc Re: Free Will and Determinism. This most interesting kind of discussion reminds me of the old question, " What happens when the irresistable cannonball hits the irremovable post? " The answer lies in the question, not in other parts of the outside world. If you remember your Immanual Kant and his distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, the cannonball question would be an analytic statement, of the form, " The red barn is red." - A totally useless statement, because nothing new about the outside world is implied in the statement. Similarly, I would say the cannonball question, since it is internally contradictory, wastes the questioner's time if he tries to hook it to the outside world. A concept like 'random' similarly may be thought of in terms simply of worldly unpredictability TO THE QUESTIONER. If he comes from a society where they get differing results every time they add two oranges to two oranges, TO THEM addition of real numbers is random. (Also wouldn't an example of a non-recurring expansion of decimals, but certainly not random, be any irrational number, such as pi?) The concept of inherent randomness implies there is no conceivable system that will ever or can ever be found that could describe what will happen in a given system with a predefined envelope of precision. Is it possible to prove such a conjecture? It's almost like Fermat's Last Theorem. To me, the concept of randomness has to do with the subject's ability to descibe events forthcoming, not with the forthcoming events themselves. That is, randomness only exists as long as there are beings around who perceive their imprecise or limited predictions as incomplete. The events don't care, and occur regardless. It's important to not forget that the subjects themselves (us, e.g.) are part of the world, too. My main point here is that very often, questions that seem impossible to resolve often need to have the structure of the question looked at, rather than the rest of the outside world for empirical data to support or refute the question. Bill Lieberman ------------------------------ Date: 19 May 88 09:05:38 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert@uunet.uu.net (Gilbert Cockton) Subject: Re: Acting irrationally (was Re: Free Will & Self Awareness) In article <180@proxftl.UUCP> tomh@proxftl.UUCP (Tom Holroyd) writes: >Here's a simple rule: explicitly articulate everything, at least once. Sorry, I didn't quite get that :-) > >A truly reasoning being doesn't hesitate to ask, either, if something >hasn't been explicitly articulated, and it is necessary for continuing >discussion. Read Irvine Goffman's "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" and you'll find that we do not correspond to your "truly reasoning being". We let all sorts of ambiguities and incompleteness drop, indeed it's rude not to, as well as displaying a lack of empathy, insight, intuition and considerateness. Sometimes, you should ask, but certainly not always, unless your a natural language front-end, then I insist :-) This idealisation is riddled with assumptions about meaning which I leave your AI programs to divine :-) Needless to say, this approach to meaning results in infinite regresses and closures imposed by contingency rather than a mathematical closure n+1 n information = information where n is the number of clarifying exchanges between the tedious pedant (TP) and the unwilling lexicographer (UL). i.e there exists an n such that UL abuses TP, TP senses annoyance in UL, TP gives up, UL gives up, TP agrees to leave it until tomorrow, or ... TP and UL have a wee spot of social negotiation and agree on the meaning (i.e. UL hits TP really hard) -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs !ukc!glasgow!gilbert The proper object of the study of Mankind is Man, not machines ------------------------------ Date: 19 May 88 09:14:59 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert@uunet.uu.net (Gilbert Cockton) Subject: Re: what is this thing called `free will' In article <38@aipna.ed.ac.uk> sean@uk.ac.ed.aipna.UUCP (Sean Matthews) writes: >2. perfect introspection is a logical impossibility[2] That doesn't make it impossible, just beyond comprehension through logic. Now, if you dive into Philosophy of Logic, you'll find that many other far more mundane phenomena aren't capturable within FOPC, hence all this work on non-standard logics. Slow progress here though. Does anyone seriously hold with certainty that logical impossibility is equivalent to commonsense notions of falsehood and impossibility? Don't waste time with similarities, such as Kantian analytic statements such as all "Bachelors are unmarried", as these rest completely on language and can thus often be translated into FOPC to show that bachelor(X) AND married(X) is logically impossible, untrue, really impossible, ... Any physicists around here use logic? -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs !ukc!glasgow!gilbert The proper object of the study of Mankind is Man, not machines ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 88 09:01:43 GMT From: News Subject: Submission for comp-ai-digest Path: reading!onion!henry!jadwa From: jadwa@henry.cs.reading.ac.uk (James Anderson) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest,comp.ai Subject: Free-Will and Purpose Message-ID: <814@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> Date: 20 May 88 09:01:42 GMT Sender: news@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk Reply-To: jadwa@henry.cs.reading.ac.uk (James Anderson) Distribution: comp Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Reading Univ., UK. Lines: 29 Free-will does not exclude purposive behaviour. Suppose that the world is entirely deterministic, but that intelligent, purposive creatures evolve. Determinism is no hindrance to evolution: variety can be introduced systematically and systematic, but perhaps very complex, selection will do the rest. The question of free-will does not arise here. In human societies, intelligence and purposive behaviour are good survival traits and have allowed us to secure our position in the natural world. (-: If you don't feel secure, try harder! :-) * * * I realise that this is a very condensed argument, but I think you will understand my point. For those of you who like reading long arguments you could try: "Purposive Explanation in Psychology", Margaret A. Boden, The Harvester Press, 1978, Hassocks, Sussex, England. ISBN 0-85527-711-4 It presents a quite different rational for accepting the idea of purposive behaviour in a deterministic world. James (JANET) James.Anderson@reading.ac.uk ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 88 16:48:00 GMT From: killer!tness7!ninja!sys1!hal6000!trsvax!bryan@ames.arpa Subject: Re: Acting irrationally (was Re: Fr /* ---------- "Re: Acting irrationally (was Re: Fr" ---------- */ In article <5499@venera.isi.edu>, smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >> I think you are overlooking how great an extent we rely on implict >> assumptions in any intercourse. If we had to articulate everything >> explicitly, we would probably never get around to discussing what we >> really wanted to discuss. /* Written 9:44 am May 17, 1988 by proxftl.UUCP!tomh (Tom Holroyd) > Here's a simple rule: explicitly articulate everything, at least once. ^^^^^^^^^^!! That's the rub, "everything" includes every association you've ever had with hearing or using every word, including all the events you've forgotten about but which influence the "meaning" any particular word has for you, especially the early ones while you were acquiring a vocabulary. You seem to have some rather naive ideals about the meanings of words. > A truly reasoning being doesn't hesitate to ask, either, if something > hasn't been explicitly articulated, and it is necessary for continuing > discussion. A truly reasoning being often thinks that things WERE explicitly articulated to a sufficient degree, given that both parties are using the same language. ------------------ Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. - Nietzsche ...ihnp4!convex!ctvax!trsvax!bryan (Bryan Helm) ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 88 01:03:13 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!aipna!sean@uunet.uu.net (Sean Matthews) Subject: Re: what is this thing called `free will' in article <1193@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes >In article <38@aipna.ed.ac.uk> {I} write >>2. perfect introspection is a logical impossibility[2] >That doesn't make it impossible, just beyond comprehension through logic. >Now, if you dive into Philosophy of Logic, you'll find that many other >far more mundane phenomena aren't capturable within FOPC, hence all >this work on non-standard logics. Slow progress here though. Mr Cockton is confusing one fairly restricted logic with the whole plethora I was referring to. There are logics specifically designed for dealing with problems of self reference (cf Craig Smory\'nski in Handbook of philosophical logic Vol2 `modal logic and self-reference') and they place very clear restrictions on what is possible in terms of self-referential systems and what is not; there has not been `Slow progress here'. > anyone seriously hold with certainty that logical impossibility >is equivalent to commonsense notions of falsehood and impossibility? I freely admit that I don't understand what he means here, unless he is making some sort of appeal to metaphysical concepts of truth apart from demonstrability and divorced from the concept of even analytic falsehood in any way. There are Western philosophers (even good ones) who invoke metaphysics to prove such things as `God exists' (I feel that God exists, therefore God exists---Rousseau), or even `God does not exist' (I feel that God does not exist, therefore God does not exist---Nietztche). Certainly facts may be `true' irrespective of whether we can `prove' them (the classical example is `this statement is not provable') though this again depends on what your idea of `truth' is. And there are different types of `truth' as he points out; any synthetic `truth' is always tentative, a black sheep can be discovered at any time, disposing of the previous ``truth'' (two sets of quotation marks) that all sheep were a sort of muddy light grey, whereas analytic `truth' is `true' for all time (cf Euclids `Elements'). But introspective `truth's are analytic, being purely mental; we have a finite base of knowledge (what we know about ourselves), and a set of rules that we apply to get new knowledge about the system; if the rules or the knowledge change then the deductions change, but the change is like changing Euclid's fifth postulate; the conclusions differ but the conclusions from the original system, though they may contradict the new conclusions, are still true, since they are prefixed with different axioms, and any system that posits perfect introspection is going to contain contradictions (cf Donald Perlis: `Meta in logic' in `Meta-level reasoning and reflection', North Holland for a quick survey). What happens in formal logic is that we take a subset of possible concepts (modus ponens, substitution, a few tautologies, some modal operators perhaps) and see what happens; if we can generate a contradiction in this (tiny) subset of accepted `truth's, then we can generate a contradiction in the set of all accepted `truth's using rational arguments this should lead us to reevaluate what we hold as axioms. These arguments could be carried out in natural language, the symbols, which perhaps seem to divorce the whole enterprise from reality, are not necessary, they only make things easier; after all Aristotle studied logic fairly successfully without them. Se\'an Matthews Dept. of Artificial Intelligence JANET:sean%sin@uk.ac.ed.aiva University of Edinburgh ARPA: sean%uk.ac.ed.aiva@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk 80 South Bridge UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aiva!sean Edinburgh, EH1 1HN, Scotland PS I apologise beforehand for any little liberties I may have taken with the finer points of particular philosophies mentioned above. ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 88 06:33:19 GMT From: quintus!ok@sun.com (Richard A. O'Keefe) Subject: McDermott's analysis of "free will" I have been waiting for someone else to say this better than I can, and unfortunately I've waited so long that McDermott's article has expired here, so I can't quote him. Summary: I think McDermott's analysis is seriously flawed. Caveat: I have probably misunderstood him. I understand his argument to be (roughly) an intelligent planner (which attempts to predict the actions of other agents by simulating them using a "mental model") cannot treat itself that way, otherwise it would run into a loop, so it must flag itself as an exception to its normal models of causality, and thus perceives itself as having "free will". [I'm *sure* I'm confusing this with something Minsky said years ago. Please forgive me.] 1. From the fact that a method would get an intelligent planner into serious trouble, we cannot conclude that people don't work that way. To start with, people have been known to commit suicide, which is disastrous for their future planning abilities. More seriously, people live in a physical world, and hunger, a swift kick in the pants, strange noises in the undergrowth &c, act not unlike the Interrupt key. People could well act in ways that would have them falling into infinite loops as long as the environment provided enough higher-priority events to catch their attention. 2. It is possible for a finite computer program (with a sufficiently large, but at all times finite) store to act *as if* it was an one-way infinite tower of interpreters. Brian Cantwell Smith showed this with his design for 3-Lisp. Jim desRiviers for one has implemented 3-Lisp. So the mere possibility of an agent having to appear to simulate itself simulating itself ... doesn't show that unbounded resources would be required: we need to know more about the nature of the model and the simulation process to show that. 3. In any case, we only get the infinite regress if the planner simulates itself *exactly*. There is a Computer Science topic called "abstract interpretation", where you model the behaviour of a computer program by running it in an approximate model. Any abstract interpreter worth its salt can interpret itself interpreting itself. The answers won't be precise, but they are often useful. 4. At least one human being does not possess sufficient knowledge of the workings of his mind to be able to simulate himself anything BUT vaguely. I refer, of course, to myself. [Well, I _think_ I'm human.] If I try to predict my own actions in great detail, I run into the problem that I don't know enough about myself to do it, and this doesn't feel any different from not knowing enough about President Reagan to predict his actions, or not knowing enough about the workings of a car. I do not experience myself as a causal singularity, and the actions I want to claim as free are the actions which are in accord with my character, so in some sense are at least statistically predictable. Some other explanation must be found for _my_ belief that I have "free will". Some other issues: It should be noted that dualism has very little to do with the question of free will. If body and mind are distinct substances, that doesn't solve the problem, it only moves the determinism/randomness/ whatever else from the physical domain to the mental domain. Minds could be nonphysical and still be determined. What strikes me most about this discussion is not the variety of explanations, but the disagreement about what is to be explained. Some people seem to think that their freest acts are the ones which even they cannot explain, others do not have this feeling. Are we really arguing about the same (real or illusory) phenomenon? ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 88 02:22:57 GMT From: uflorida!novavax!proxftl!bill@gatech.edu (T. William Wells) Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness In article <445@aiva.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes: > In article <8805092354.AA05852@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Eyal Mozes writes: >... > As far as you have explained so far, Rand's theory is little more > than simply saying that free will = the ability to focus consciousness, > which we can all observe. Since we can all observe this without the > aid of Rand's theory, all Rand seems to be saying is "that's all there > is to it". > > -- Jeff Actually, from what I have read so far, it seems that the two of you are arguing different things; moreover, eyal@COYOTE.STANFORD .EDU (Eyal Mozes) has committed, at the very least, a sin of omission: he has not explained Rand's theory of free will adequately. Following is the Objectivist position as I understand it. Please be aware that I have not included everything needed to justify this position, nor have I been as technically correct as I might have been; my purpose here is to trash a debate which seems to be based on misunderstandings. To those of you who want a justification, I will (given enough interest) eventually be doing so on talk.philosophy.misc, where I hope to be continuing my discussion of Objectivism. Please direct any followups to that group. Entities are the only causes: they cause their actions. Their actions may be done to other entities, and this may require the acted on entity to cause itself to act in some way. In that case, one can use `cause' in a derivative sense, saying: the acting entities (the agents) caused the acted upon entities (the patient) to act in a certain way. One can also use `cause' to refer to a chain of such. This derivative sense is the normal use for the word `cause', and there is always an implied action. If, in order that an entity can act in some way, other entities must act on it, then those agents are a necessary cause for the patient's action. If, given a certain set of actions performed by some entities, a patient will act in a certain way, then those agents are a sufficient cause for the patient's actions. The Objectivist version of free will asserts that there are (for a normally functioning human being) no sufficient causes for what he thinks. There are, however, necessary causes for it. This means that while talking about thinking, no statement of the form "X(s) caused me to think..." is an valid statement about what is going on. In terms of the actual process, what happens is this: various entities provide the material which you base your thinking on (and are thus necessary causes for what you think), but an action, not necessitated by other entities, is necessary to direct your thinking. This action, which you cause, is volition. > But where does the "subject of your own choice" come from? I wasn't > thinking of letting one's thoughts wander, although what I said might > be interpreted that way. When you decide what to think about, did > you decide to decide to think about *that thing*, and if so how did > you decide to decide to decide, and so on? Shades of Zeno! One does not "decide to decide" except when one does so in an explicit sense. ("I was waffling all day; later that evening I put my mental foot down and decided to decide once and for all.") Rather, you perform an act on your thoughts to direct them in some way; the name for that act is "decision". Anyway, in summary, Rand's theory is not just that "free will = the ability to focus consciousness" (actually, to direct certain parts of one's consciousness), but that this act is not necessitated by other entities. ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 88 0644 PDT From: John McCarthy Subject: the free will discussion Here are the meta remarks promised in my previous message giving my substantive views. I hope the moderator will put them in an issue subsequent to the one including the substantive views. There are three ways of improving the world. (1) to kill somebody (2) to forbid something (3) to invent something new. During World War II, (1) was appropriate, and it has occasionally been appropriate since, but, in the main it's not appropriate now, and few people's ideas for improvement take this form. However, there may be more people in category (2) than in category (3). Gilbert Cockton seems to be firmly in category (2), and I can't help regarding him as a minor menace with his proposals that institutions suppress AI research. At least the menace is minor as long as Mrs. Thatcher is around; I wouldn't be surprised if Cockton could persuade Tony Benn. I would like to deal substantively with his menacing proposals, but I find them vague and would prefer to respond to precise criteria of what should be suppressed, how they are regarded as applying to AI, and what forms of suppression he considers legitimate. I find much of the discussion ignorant of considerations and references that I regard as important, but different people have different ideas of what information should be taken into account. I have read enough of the sociological discussion of AI to have formed the opinion that it is irrelevant to progress and wrong. For example, views that seem similar to Cockton's inhabit a very bad and ignorant book called "The Question of Artificial Intelligence" edited by Stephen Bloomfield, which I will review for "Annals of the History of Computing". The ignorance is exemplified by the fact the more than 150 references include exactly one technical paper dated 1950, and the author gets that one wrong. The discussion of free will has become enormous, and I imagine that most people, like me, have only skimmed most of the material. I am not sure that the discussion should progress further, but if it does, I have a suggestion. Some neutral referee, e.g. the moderator, should nominate principal discussants. Each principal discussant should nominate issues and references. The referee should prune the list of issues and references to a size that the discussants are willing to deal with. They can accuse each other of ignorance if they don't take into account the references, however perfunctorily. Each discussant writes a general statement and a point-by-point discussion of the issues at a length limited by the referee in advance. Maybe the total length should be 20,000 words, although 60,000 would make a book. After that's done we have another free-for-all. I suggest four as the number of principal discussants and volunteer to be one, but I believe that up to eight could be accomodated without making the whole thing too unwieldy. The principal discussants might like help from their allies. The proposed topic is "AI and free will". ------------------------------ Date: 23 May 88 00:12:04 GMT From: trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU (Stephen Smoliar) Subject: Re: Acting irrationally (was Re: Free Will & Self Awareness) In article <180@proxftl.UUCP> tomh@proxftl.UUCP (Tom Holroyd) writes: >In article <5499@venera.isi.edu>, smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) >writes: > >> I think you are overlooking how great an extent we rely on implict >> assumptions in any intercourse. If we had to articulate everything >> explicitly, we would probably never get around to discussing what we >> really wanted to discuss. > >>The problem comes in deciding WHAT needs to be explicitly articulated >>and what can be left in the "implicit background." That is a problem >>which we, as humans, seem to deal with rather poorly, which is why >>there is so much yeeling and hitting in the world. > >Here's a simple rule: explicitly articulate everything, at least once. > >The problem, as I see it, is that there are a lot of people who, for >one reason or another, keep some information secret (perhaps the >information isn't known). > No, the problem is that there is always TOO MUCH information to be explicitly articulated over any real-time channel of human communication. If you don't believe me, try explicitly articulating the entire content of your last message. ------------------------------ Date: 23 May 88 14:47:46 GMT From: bwk@mitre-bedford.arpa (Barry W. Kort) Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness Ewan Grantham has insightfully noted that our draft "laws of robotics" begs the question, "How does one recognize a fellow sentient being?" At a minimun, a sentient being is one who is able to sense it's environment, construct internal maps or models of that environment, use those maps to navigate, and embark on a journey of exploration. By that definition, a dog is sentient. So the robot has no business killing a barking dog. Anyway, the barking dog is no threat to the robot. A washing machine isn't scared of a barking dog. So why should a robot fear one? --Barry Kort ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************