Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Sorry, no philosphy allowed here.
Message-ID: <928@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 07:00:47 GMT
References: <4134@super.upenn.edu> <3200014@uiucdcsm> <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1069@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 53

In article <1069@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
> > What about compatibilism?  There are a lot of arguments that free will is
> > compatible with strong determinism.  (The ones I've seen are riddled with
> > logical errors, but most philosophical arguments I've seen are.) (R. O'Keefe)
> I would not deny the plausibility of this approach.  However, detection of 
> logical errors in an argument is not enough to sensibly dismiss it, otherwise
> we would have to become resigned to widespread ignorance.  My concern over AI
> is, like some psychology, it has no integration with social theories, especially
> those which see 'reality' as a negotiated outcome of social processes, and not
> logically consistent rules.  If the latter approach to 'reality', 'truth' etc.  
> were feasible, why have we needed judges to deliver equity? For some AI 
> enthusiasts, the answer of course, is that we don't.  In the brave new world, 
> machines will interpret the law unequivocably, making the world a much fairer
> place:-) Anyway, everyone know's that mathematicians are much smarter
> than lawyers and can catch up with them in a few months. Hey presto, rule-base!

The rider was intended to indicate that I neither endorse nor reject
compatibilism.  In philosphy, I fear that I _have_ become resigned to
ignorance (though some recent moral philosophers have raised my hopes).

Concerning 'reality' as a negotiated outcome of social processes, do you
remember the old days when we were assured that colour terms were a social
construct, and that biological species were merely a theoretical construct
imposed on a world with no boundaries?  An archaeologist once commented in
a lecture that I attended that a number of ancient peoples had the practice
of "killing" the deceased's possessions (breaking bowls, bending knives,
tearing cloth &c), and that by and large the artefacts that had been
damaged least (e.g. just a "token" chip out of the rim of a bowl) were the
ones the archaeologists found most beautiful (comparing reconstruction with
reconstruction).  Negotiated social processes between people 5,000 years
apart?

Why have we needed judges to deliver equity?
(a) Because anyone who does that we _call_ a judge.
(b) They don't.
(c) The use of judges has nothing to do with the nature of reality.
    The facts may be known to both parties, yet either or both may
    simply be pushing to see what it/they can get away with.
    Ever heard of "the Kerry alibi?"
(d) This is something of a loaded example, insofar as law _is_ a socially
    negotiated field (particularly in the USA).  But none of the admittedly
    few books on jurisprudence I've read makes any claim that the law is an
    instrument for reaching 'truth' or 'reality', only a mechanism for
    reducing the level of dispute in a society to a workable degree.  (It
    doesn't even matter too much if a law is and is known to be unjust,
    so long as you know what it _is_ and can rely on it well enough to avoid
    its consequences.)

For an example of someone who _has_ looked at AI with an eye to sociology,
	Plans and Situated Actions : The problem of human/machine communication
	Lucy A. Suchman
	Cambridge University Press 1987
	ISBN 0-521-33739-9