Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!ucbvax!pasteur!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!sher
From: sher@sunybcs.uucp (David Sher)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Raising Consciousness
Keywords: philosophy, free will
Message-ID: <11275@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: 16 May 88 15:00:25 GMT
References: <29049@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@sunybcs.UUCP
Reply-To: sher@wolf.UUCP (David Sher)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 44

There is perhaps a minor bug in Drew Mcdermott's (who teaches a great
grad level ai class) analysis of free will.  If I understand it
correctly it runs like this:
To plan one has a world model including future events.
Since you are an element of the world then you must be in the model.
Since the model is a model of future events then your future actions
are in the model.
This renders planning unnecessary.
Thus your own actions must be excised from the model for planning to
avoid this "singularity."

Taken naively, this analysis would prohibit multilevel analyses such
as is common in game theory.  A chess player could not say things like
if he moves a6 then I will move Nc4 or Bd5 which will lead ....
Thus it is clear that to make complex plans we actually need to model
ourselves (actually it is not clear but I think it can be made clear
with sufficient thought).  

However we can still make the argument that Drew was making its just
more subtle than the naive analysis indicates.  The way the argument 
runs is this:
Our world model is by its very nature a simplification of the real
world (the real world doesn't fit in our heads).  Thus our world model
makes imperfect predictions about the future and about consequence.  
Our self model inside our world model shares in this imperfection. 
Thus our self model makes inaccurate predictions about our reactions
to events.  We perceive ourselves as having free will when our self
model makes a wrong prediction.  

A good example of this is the way I react during a chess game.  I
generally develop a plan of 2-5 moves in advance.  However sometimes
when I make a move and my opponent responds as expected I notice a
pattern that previously eluded me.  This pattern allows me to make a
move that was not in my plans at all but would lead to greater gains
than I had planned.  For example noticing a knight fork.  When this
happens I have an intense feeling of free will.  

As another example I had planned on writing a short 5 line note
describing this position.  In fact this article is running several
pages.  ...

-David Sher
ARPA: sher@cs.buffalo.edu	BITNET: sher@sunybcs
UUCP: {rutgers,ames,boulder,decvax}!sunybcs!sher