Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!aiva!jeff
From: jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <403@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 5 May 88 20:19:25 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Dept. of AI, Univ. of Edinburgh, UK
Lines: 28

In article <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> jadwa@henry.cs.reading.ac.uk (James Anderson) writes:
>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.

Just so.  Having one's actions determined randomly isn't much help.

One of the problems with discussing free will here is that it's too
easy to simply rehash arguments that have been handled in the
philosophical literature.  I thought it best to make this point
in response to an article that I agreed with, though, because I'm
not claiming that no one ever says anything valuable or that I am
some kind of expert in these matters with no time to listen to the
rest of you.

Nonetheless, anyone who is seriously interested in such topics should
be willing to do some reading.  I would recommend Dennet's Elbow Room:
The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting for its discussion of free
will, for its relevance to AI, and for the interesting things that
come up along the way.

Jeff Dalton,                      JANET: J.Dalton@uk.ac.ed             
AI Applications Institute,        ARPA:  J.Dalton%uk.ac.ed@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Edinburgh University.             UUCP:  ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!J.Dalton