Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!xanth!mcnc!rutgers!att!whuts!homxb!homxc!marty
From: marty@homxc.UUCP (M.B.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Robots & free will (was Re: The limitations of logic)
Summary: "free will" is programmed via natural selection
Keywords: Choosing thoughts.
Message-ID: <4797@homxc.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jan 89 16:15:38 GMT
References: <3328@sdsu.UUCP> <43228@linus.UUCP> <539@uceng.UC.EDU> <549@uceng.UC.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 61

In article <549@uceng.UC.EDU>, dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:
> In article <2173@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
> > 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 :-)
> 
> I'm not saying women are incapable of aggression and violence. They
> are, but killing on a massive scale has historically been an
> exclusively male domain. Even when a woman happens to be the
> figurehead in authority and giving the orders, she is making decisions
> in the context of male-dominated political structure. After all, she
> is sending in the _boys_....

> ...... I think Occam's razor suggests we begin with the
> male brain in our search for the roots of organized violence.

The notion of programmed responses determined by natural selection
seems to me to explain these observations.  It satisfies Occam's razor,
since no new postulates are required.  We have only to believe that
behavior can be influenced (not necessarily determined) by either
genetic factors, or social factors, or both.

Let us consider first a "primitive" low-tech environment in which
infant mortality is relatively high, and survival of the species or
subspecies depends on making babies and rearing them successfully.  In
such a situation, women may fight non-lethally, but a culture that sent
women into lethal combat would be less likely to reproduce successfully
than another that sent men into lethal combat.  A successful culture
would have either socially evolved rules, or a genetic predisposition,
or both, to send males rather than females into life-threatening
situations such as hunting, defense, fire fighting, law enforcement,
etc.  Of course, in case of immediate danger, we will find that "the
female of the species is more deadly than the male," again determined
by natural selection.

Note that I have not decided whether the predisposing factor is in the
male brain, or male hormones, or in cultural bias.  But if we think in
terms of natural selection, we expect such a predisposition to exist.

Now if we consider a high-tech culture, we find overpopulation rather
than underpopulation.  So we can easily afford to use the child-bearing
sex in life-threatening occupations.  We can talk seriously about
sexual equality, because we do not have a shortage of the unique
services that women can provide and men can not.  But the social or
genetic predispositions established in earlier times are still there.

Any attempt to mimic human behavior (partly or completely) in a machine
must either include such socially or genetically determined patterns of
behavior, or carefully define "intelligence" so as to avoid having to. 
On the other hand, any attempt to use machines to help plan human
behavior must include not only abstract intelligence, but also the
requirements for survival of the species.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201) 949-1858		Home (201) 946-8147
Holmdel, NJ 07733	att!houdi!marty1

Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein are mine unless and until my employer
	    explicitly claims them; then I lose all rights to them.