Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!att-ih!pacbell!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!AI.AI.MIT.EDU!MINSKY From: MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: AIList V6 #86 - Philosophy Message-ID: <368693.880430.MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Date: 1 May 88 03:39:49 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 29 Approved: ailist@kl.sri.com 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. I agree with Gilbert Cockton that it is not the lack of answers that should be criticised, but the contemporary ignorance of the subject. (As for why my own answer evaded philosophers for millenia, My hypothesis is that philosophers have not been very insightful about actual psychological phenomena - which is why it had to wait for Freud - or, perhaps, Poincare - to produce convincing discussions about the importance of unconscious thinking.) Cockton also sagely points out that a rule-based or other mechanical account of cognition and decision making is at odds with the doctrine of free will which underpins most Western morality. ... Scientists who seek moral, ethical, epistemological or methodological vacuums are only marginalising themselves into positions where social forces will rightly constrain their work. I only disagree with Cockton's insertion of "rightly". Like E.O.Wilson, I prefer follow ideas even where they lead to potentially unpopular conclusions. Indeed, I feel it is only proper for those social forces to try to constrain my work. When the researchers feel constrained to censor their own work, then everyone may end up the poorer in the end. I'm not even sure this is a disagreement. A closer look might show that this is what Cockton is actually saying, too.