Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik
From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will
Summary: Free will is connected to the linguistic concept of Agent.
Keywords: philosophy
Message-ID: <5392@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 11 May 88 16:32:18 GMT
References: <28705@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 26

In article <28705@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> dvm@yale.UUCP (Drew Mcdermott) writes:
DM> Hence any system that is sophisticated enough to model situations that its own
DM> physical realization takes part in must flag the symbol describing that
DM> realization as a singularity with respect to causality.  There is simply
DM> no point in trying to think about that part of the universe using causal
DM> models...  

I like your metaphor of 'a singularity with respect to causality'.  It
neatly captures the concept of the Agent case role in linguistic theory.
But it goes beyond modelling one's own physical realization.  Chuck
Fillmore used to teach (in the heyday of Case Grammar) that simple clause
structure only admits to two overtly marked causers--the Agent and the
Instrument.  This is a fairly universal fact about language (the only
exception being languages with 'double agent' verbs, where the verb stem
can have an affix denoting indirect causation).  Agents refer to verbal
arguments that are 'ultimate causers' and Instruments refer to those that
are 'immediate causers'.  He has always been quite explicit in his belief
that the human mind imposes a kind of filter on the way we can view chains
of causally related events--at least when we try to express them in
language.   One of the practical side effects of the belief in free will
is that it provides us with a means of chunking chains of causation up
into conceptual units.
-- 
Rick Wojcik   csnet:  rwojcik@boeing.com	   
              uucp:   uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik 
address:  P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346
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