Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!ur-tut!sunybcs!bettingr
From: bettingr@sunybcs.uucp (Keith E. Bettinger)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: AIList V6 #86 - Philosophy
Message-ID: <10953@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 20:09:02 GMT
References: <1579@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <3200016@uiucdcsm>
Sender: nobody@sunybcs.UUCP
Reply-To: bettingr@sunybcs.UUCP (Keith E. Bettinger)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 69

In article <3200016@uiucdcsm} channic@uiucdcsm.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
}In his article Brian Yamuchi (yamauchi@speech2.cs.cmu.edu) writes:
}} /* ---------- "Re: AIList V6 #86 - Philosophy" ---------- */
}} In article <368693.880430.MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU}, MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) writes:
}} } Yamauchi, Cockton, and others on AILIST have been discussing freedom
}} } of will as though no AI researchers have discussed it seriously.  May
}} } I ask you to read pages 30.2, 30.6 and 30.7 of The Society of Mind.  I
}} } claim to have a good explanation of the free-will phenomenon.
}} 
}} Actually, I have read The Society of Mind, where Minsky writes:
}} 
}} | Everything that happens in our universe is either completely determined
}} | by what's already happened in the past or else depends, in part, on
}} | random chance.  Everything, including that which happens in our brains,
}} | depends on these and only on these :
}} |
}} | A set of fixed, deterministic laws.   A purely random set of accidents.
}} |
}} | There is no room on either side for any third alternative.
}} 
}I see plenty of room -- my own subjective experience.  I make mental
}decisions which are not random and are not completely determined (although
}certainly influenced) by past determinism.

How do you know that?  Do you think that your mind is powerful enough to
comprehend the immense combination of effects of determinism and chance?
No one's is.

} [...] But this BEGS THE
}QUESTION of intelligent machines in the worst way.  Show me the deterministic
}laws that create mind, Dr. Minsky, then I will believe there is no free will.
}Otherwise, you are trying to refute an undeniable human experience.

No one denies that we humans experience free will.  But that experience says
nothing about its nature; at least, nothing ruling out determinism and chance.

}Do you believe your career was merely the result of some bizarre genetic
}combination or pure chance?
             ^^
The answer can be "yes" here, if the conjunction is changed to "and".

}
}The attack is over.  The following is a plea to all AI researchers.  Please
}do not try to persuade anyone, especially impressionable students, that s\he
}does not have free will.  Everyone has the ability to choose to bring peace
}to his or her own life and to the rest of society, and has the ability to
}MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the world.  Free will should not be compromised for the
}mere prospect of creating an intelligent machine.

Believe it or not, Minsky makes a similar plea in his discussion of free will
in _The Society of Mind_.  He says that we may not be able to figure out where
free will comes from, but it is so deeply ingrained in us that we cannot deny
it or ignore it.

}
}Tom Channic
}University of Illinois
}channic@uiucdcs.cs.uiuc.edu
}{decvax|ihnp4}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!channic

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