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Article 4628 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: smoliar@jit.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals
Message-ID: <1992Mar20.135455.10831@nuscc.nus.sg>
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Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
References: <1992Mar17.110436.9937@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar18.044516.28882@nuscc.nus.sg> <1992Mar18.104311.9986@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1992 13:54:55 GMT

In article <1992Mar18.104311.9986@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu
(Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Mar18.044516.28882@nuscc.nus.sg> 
>smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
>
>>  Just as the question of whether
>>or not an entity A* constitutes a model of another entity A can only be
>>resolved in the context of some postulated observer B, so I would argue
>>that whether or not any entity X is an agent cannot be resolved in terms
>>of necessary and sufficient conditions on the attributes of X.  Rather,
>>one can only address whether or not a given observer Y is attributing agency
>>to X.
>
>Sure it can be so resolved: see any good text on philosophy of action, e.g.
>O'Shaughnessy's "The Will".

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for a precis again, Mikhail.  You seem to
assume that everyone who logs in from a university address has access to a
library of your own standards.  I regret to inform you that philosophy is
not taken very seriously as an academic discipline here, and the library
suffers for that.  I have now begun to supplement my library with a Visa
card and the good graces of book stores that do business by FAX;  but the
turn-around time is a bit slow for discussions such as these.  Please elaborate
your apparently intuitively obvious resolution.

>  Given the existence of viable theories of
>agency that agree with my naive pre-theoretic intuitions thereof, I submit
>that the burden of proof of non-existence of agency lies on the purveyors
>of Dennetian "intentional stance" nonsense.
>
I would hope that your "naive pre-theoretic intuitions" would be willing to
recognize that there are people in the world who do not share those intuitions.
I am glad your powers of reason are so strong as to enable you to convince
yourself on such matters of agency.  For my part, I have always taken a liking
to the following passage from "On Denoting" by Bertrand Russell (whom I have
never regarded as one of the "purveyors of Dennetian 'intentional stance'
nonsense"):

	A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing
	with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about
	logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible,
	since these serve much the same purpose as is served by
	experiments in physical science.

I see no reason why any discussion about agency cannot be furthered by dwelling
on such puzzles, most of which would involved trying to conceive of situations
which may contradict certain assumptions we tend to make about specific
entities, such as clouds, having or lacking agency.
>
>The Hopi mind that remains bound to its irrational tradition *hasn't*
>grasped the concept of agency.

I suppose you can muster no end of resources to justify your use of the word
"irrational" in that sentence.  Nevertheless, the Hopi have been managing on
this earth rather well for quite some time (perhaps longer than some
civilizations who have produced great minds to ponder the question of
rationality).  I take this as evidence that there are more aspects of
the behavior of individuals and societies than are dreamt of in your
philosophy.  This is not to question either the elegance or the power
of that philosophy;  but every now and then, it is good to hold any discipline
at arm's length and remind oneself that it, too, has limitations.  Perhaps
exhibiting behavior that furthers the individual, the species, and the society
may sometimes carry a bit more weight than philosophical rationality.

>  Feel free to join them; I hear a lot of
>good things about the potlatch.

Since you have the better library, Mikhail, I suggest you make better use of it
before you shoot from the hip.  You will find no potlatch among the Hopi.  If
that is what turns your on, you had best head for the Pacific Northwest, as
Franz Boas did.

>  Perhaps they can give you some ideas about
>constructing those NL parsers that, according to your buddy Marv's past
>selves, we should have been enjoying by now.

To bring the discussion back to artificial intelligence, the point I am trying
to make is that building robot individuals that survive, thrive, and even
interact beneficially with humans need not rest upon rationality as a
foundation.  You can attack those who would try to build such rational
robots all you wish, and I applaud those efforts.  However, I still believe
it is possible to build functionally successful autonomous robots without
including your brand of rationality in the specification.

>  In return, you could teach
>them about criteria of agency, like volition and responsibility.
>
Anyone who would deign to teach the Hopi about volition and responsibility
would have to be endowed with arrogance on the scale of hubris;  I suspect
you, Mikhail, would be far better qualified for this task than I.

>  If you wish to claim a Copernican revolution
>in philosophy, you would have to adduce a proof of a better foundation than
>a few regurgitated Dennett--Minsky slogans.

Actually, I am not interested in making any claims in philosophy.  I'm just
interested in autonomous robots which manage as well on this globe as various
animal species (including humans) do.  Nevertheless, I feel that speculating
about such robots often leads to the sorts of puzzles which Russell felt were
so valuable to the study of logical theories.

>  The general case of agency has
>been treated extensively by major philosophers over the past two and a half
>millenia.  Its main problematics are well known, its criteria --- well
>established.  If you wish to challenge this tradition, you have to address
>it squarely, instead of dismissing it with faux naif homiletic appeals to
>Hopi religion, and its "civilized" counterpart, politically correct
>multiculturalism.

It is not so much a question of whether or not I am challenging that tradition
as one of whether it will serve my tool-box in any capacity other than dead
weight.

>  Should you wish to do that, I'll be happy to continue
>this discussion; otherwise any such effort will remain as sterile as your
>robots.  A good common ground for a starting place would be constituted by
>the relevant articles in the Edwards' encyclopedia, a text that is surely
>available in your local libraries.
>
Obviously, I cannot ask you to summarize everything.  However, if you are
talking about a few pages, I shall be happy to provide you (through electronic
mail) with my FAX number.  You can then perform a service far more valuable
than any I can get from my local librarians!

>MZ:
>>>It is still highly questionable to what extent the laws of biology are
>>>reducible to those of physics.  My own suspicion is that they aren't; see
>>>on this Popper and Eccles' "The Self and Its Brain".
>
>SS:
>>I remember seeing this book back in 1981.  Unfortunately, in my current
>>straits
>>(pun sort of intended), I may have a bit of trouble getting myself a copy.
>>Can
>>anyone take the trouble to summarize their basic argument as to why biology
>>cannot be reduced to physics?  (I tend to agree with the conclusion at an
>>intuitive level, but I would like something a bit more solid than my own
>>feeble intuition.  I also wonder whether or not the converse might be the
>>case:  that laws of physics may be reducible to laws of biology.)
>
>Citing Peter Medawar's "A Geometric Model of Reduction and Emergence",
>published in Ayala & Dobzhansky's "Studies in the Philosophy of Biology",
>Popper suggests that the reduction of Ecology/Sociology => Biology =>
>Chemistry => Physics is not one of logical reducibility, but comparable to
>the relation between Metrical (Euclidean) Geometry => Affine Geometry =>
>Projective Geometry => Topology, namely that of enrichment of each higher
>geometrical discipline through a conservative extension of its deductive
>structure; so all theorems of projective geometry are valid in a suitable
>reformulation of metrical geometry in a language capable of employing the
>concepts of the former discipline.

I was kind of hoping that Weemba would pick up on this, since he has a bit
more grounding in biology.  This does not seem to be very much of an argument.
It is more like sidling up to the issue and figuring out the right way to
squint at it.  I once heard Robert Rosen give a talk about running the
reduction in the opposite direction, but I was too snowed to take any
useful notes.  (I do recall references to Rashevsky.)  Has anyone encountered
a more coherent version of his story?
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


