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Article 4503 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals (was re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <1992Mar17.085639.9836@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 17 Mar 92 08:56:39 GMT
References: <1992Mar16.005137.13005@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar16.003442.9891@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar15.233805.3026@hellgate.utah.edu>
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In article <1992Mar15.233805.3026@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
>
>  Lets look at the world as having some things which are considered to
>have volition.  What does this really mean?  It is operating on its own,
>of its own intent. It is operating OUTSIDE THE FRAMEWORK of external
>things, it is operating on its own.

Do you mean that such things do not obey to ANY laws?
That they are not deterministic? That they are random?

>  Now what would be something not operating under volition?  It would be
>something acting purely in the context of external things, not operating
>with any whit of being on its own.
>
>  Something operating on its own has its own volition and is an agent.
>What is the minimal agent one could consider?  A good one to select
>is gene modification, it operates on its own. There is no external power
>dictating the way it will modify.  Specifically, normally a 260nnm photon
>will activate the sugar through a nondetermined event.  The point of
>mutation is outside external events.

This reminds me the stories Aristotles was telling about the planets moving
because of their souls, simply because he did not have in his mind a newtonian
model. Sure the point of mutation cannot be predicted, but this happens 
because of our inability to count and/or calculate some things.
Your example with the photon is one of them. It is very possible
that we will never be able to predict such things, but obviously
a mutation is a mutation and not something else, and it cannot change by 
free will. Notice also that in the speed of light our classical
definition of determinism is not valid and it depends on our position
as observers.

>  An agent is something that can cause an action which is independent of
>external causes.  An agent is specifically...

Better to say: we modell it as being independent. But isn't this
the model of a random event? Isn't it a part of a marcovian sequence?

Philip Santas

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email: santas@inf.ethz.ch				 Philip Santas
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