Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!sun!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence
Message-ID: <840@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 88 06:36:54 GMT
References: <562@metapsy.UUCP> <2732@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <563@metapsy.UUCP> <1841@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <817@quintus.UUCP> <215@edai.ed.ac.uk>
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Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <215@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <817@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>>Er, how do hypnotists demonstrate that?

>I think what Gordon Banks is referring to is the rationalisation of
>post-hypnotic suggestion, where the victim is instructed under hypnosis
>to do something mildly bizarre at a certain time, and also to "forget"
>(have no conscious knowledge of) the instruction. At the appointed time
>the victim will perform the bizarre act, and on being asked why, will
>produce some spurious rationalisation, and insist under questioning
>that this rationalisation is the true, real, sincere motive of an act
>which was performed freely and with intention.

There is a fairly major sort of non-sequitur here, plus a misapprehension
of hypnotism.  The non-sequitur is this:
from:	the act was suggested by the hypnotist
	the act was performed
	the actor produces a "spurious" rationalisation
it does **NOT** follow that the act was not done freely.  The misapprehension
is the hypnotism is not a process whereby the hypnotist controls the will of
the subject, but a voluntary fantasy which is particularly good at implanting
false memories.  For example, it is not the case that all people can be
hypnotised, whereas if a subject can be hypnotised by one mesmerist he or
she can usually be hypnotised by another.  This ought to suggest to us that
just maybe hypnosis might be something that subjects do, rather than something
that hypnotists do.  Let me propose another account of what might be going on.
	Subject agrees to play in hypnotic drama.
	Hypnotist makes suggestion.
	Subject voluntarily agrees to do so, rather than spoil the game.
	However, this doesn't seem like a good enough motive for the act,
	so subject confabulates another reason.  (This is just cognitive
	dissonance at work.)
	Subject comes out of trance believing confabulation.
	Subject performs act.

A key point here is cognitive dissonance.  (Look it up in any good
Psychology library.)  People make up stories to account for their actions
all the time, and believe them too.  But it doesn't follow from that
that their actions are not free.