Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!reading!onion!henry!jadwa
From: jadwa@henry.cs.reading.ac.uk (James Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk>
Date: 3 May 88 08:45:49 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: 59

In article 1380 of comp.ai: bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W.
Kort) says:

> Suppose I were able to inculcate a Value System into silicon.
> And in the event of a tie among competing choices, I use a
> random mechanism to force a decision.  Would the behavior of
> my system be very much different from a sentient being with
> free will?

Well ...

I take, "free will" to mean that an agent can choose what action
to take despite the choices that other agents might make and
despite unchosen events in the world.

There are a number of corollaries to this definition.

1)  I am a strong minded person, so I often exercise free will,
    but you can deny me free will, say, by killing me.

2a) You might exercise your free will by making an oath with
    yourself never to deny me free will, say, by never applying
    irresistible force to me.

2b) Making an oath does not deny your own free will. You can
    chose to break the oath.

3a) Random events in the choice mechanism deny free will to the
    extent that they prevent the agent from determining the
    outcome of a decision.

3b) I know of no way to discover, by observing the behaviour of an
    agent, that exception (3a) applies to it. So the answer to
    your question is "yes": I can not tell apart the behaviour of
    a random system and one with free will. A free-will system
    could, for example, chose to behave randomly.

4) An event which is not of any agents choosing might deny me
   free will. The event may be random, as in losing a game of
   Russian roulette, or deterministic, like being being drowned
   in a rising tide.

So far, so good. But here comes the free will paradox, with knobs
on!

If the world is deterministic I am denied free will because I can
not determine the outcome of a decision. On the other hand, if
the world is random, I am denied free will because I can not
determine the outcome of a decision. Either element, determinancy
or randomness, denies me free will, so no mixture of a
deterministic world or a non-deterministic world will allow me
free will.

I am going to think about that for a little while before I post
again.

James

(JANET) James.Anderson@reading.ac.uk