Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar
From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness
Message-ID: <5511@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 13 May 88 01:06:53 GMT
References: <4134@super.upenn.edu> <3200014@uiucdcsm> <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1029@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <912@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <5404@venera.isi.edu> <1115@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Sender: news@venera.isi.edu
Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute
Lines: 22

In article <1115@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert
Cockton) writes:
>
>Anyway, the simplified, and thus inadeqaute argument is:
>
>	machine intelligence => determinism
>	determinism => lack of responsibility
>	lack of responsibility => no moral blame
>	no moral blame => do whatever your rulebase says.
>
Until this argument gets fleshed out further, I would argue that its weakest
link is on the second line.  There are plenty of deterministic systems which
are too complex for us to comprehend in any coherent manner.  After all,
physics begins to elude our grasp as soon as we consider more than two
bodies!  When confronted with such complexity, the only way we can deal
with it is through abstraction;  and there lies a possible situation in
which every individual must make choices (what will be "abstracted away"
and what remains as "priority items") and must, consequently, accept
responsibility for the committment to those choices.  I am responsing
to a simplified sketch with an equally simple sketch of my own, but
perhaps this can provided a basis for discussion in less flaboyant
use of language.