Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!ncsuvx!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Robots & free will (was Re: The limitations of logic) Keywords: Choosing thoughts. Message-ID: <2173@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Date: 29 Dec 88 12:18:57 GMT References: <3328@sdsu.UUCP> <43228@linus.UUCP> <539@uceng.UC.EDU> Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland Lines: 24 In article <539@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes: >My personal, absurdly oversimplified hunch is that warfare is a >societal manifestation of the aggression that results from the action >of male sex hormones on the steroid receptors in the brain. (Try to >imagine a militaristic society consisting entirely of women and >eunuchs. I don't think socialization accounts for everything.) 1) some behaviour has a physiological determinant (i.e. most mood disorders) 2) aggression MAY be one of them, but it's not as well established as say depression. 3) gender differences in physiologically determined behaviour are even dodgier ground 4) I used to teach in a mixed school, where the girls could fight just as viciously as the boys (true also of the Bigg Market in Newcastle upon Tyne in England :-)). Finally, Margaret Thatcher sent the UK fleet to the Falklands, Golda Meier could send in the boys too, and Nancy Reagan ordered the troops into Grenada :-) On the real topic at hand, usual AI brave new world, machines more rational than people solving all our problems, yawn yawn, yawn. What a narrow view of human activity these kids must have. -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs !ukc!glasgow!gilbert