Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!umd5!cvl!spector
From: spector@cvl.umd.edu (Lee Spector)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Raising Consciousness
Summary: "reflexive extracausality" and freedom: discussed by Sartre
Keywords: philosophy, free will
Message-ID: <2867@cvl.umd.edu>
Date: 19 May 88 16:48:31 GMT
References: <29049@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Organization: Center for Automation Research, Univ. of Md.
Lines: 28

Jean-Paul Sartre, in THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE EGO, discusses the freedom
of the individual and its relation to "unreflected consciousness," which
is necessarily irreflexive and alleged to be necessarily present in any
consciousness.  I will not attempt to summarize Sartre's arguments here, for
I would surely do an inadequate job (though perhaps I will work on this
and post again later).  I recommend the book to all who have been provoked
by Drew McDermott's comments on "reflexive extracausality" and freedom; it
is short, bold, and a relatively easy read for continental philosophy.
Indeed, several years ago I re-read the book and was lead to formulate
the following loose AI "law":  

 An intelligent organism must have a blind spot for itself.

I'm not entirely sure what this means or how one would argue for it,
but perhaps there is some significance lurking here.
Sartre provides a philosophical grounding for
such ideas, while computability theory may provide a mathematical 
basis (though I'm not sure exactly how). 
McDermott has rephrased the contention in the language of AI systems.


    - Lee Spector
      Computer Science Department
      University of Maryland, College Park
      (spector@cvl.umd.edu)

"You will not find the limits of the soul by going, even if you travel over
every way, so deep is its report."  Heraclitus  (approx. 500 BC)