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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 13:32:50 GMT
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In article <3bvlbv$ate@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <D0CA3E.9yD@armory.com> rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>>In article <3bmj57$59f@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu>,
>>Marcus Daniels <marcus@ee.pdx.edu> wrote:
>>>rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>>One other question: if this free will thing is essentially tied to utility, 
>>>what if purely determinstic computers/robots start to produce more utility
>>>than humans do?  Free will, whatever one's definition, becomes a rather
>>>uninteresting notion, does it not?  Sorta subjective, you might say. :-)
>
>>Exactly the point. There are good reasons to believe that "free will" is
>>only that, and needn't be more than subjective, that is, it is generated by
>>any system that observes its own function and claims credit for that
>>function; "possession", if you will!
>
>I have tried to be clear throughout this thread that I am use "free will"
>in a subjective sense.
>
>>                                     It does NOT even NEED to mean that
>>such a thing as "free will" exists except as this delusion on the part of
>>one function of the device which interacts with the decision making process
>>to some slight degree but which is as determined as a digital watch!
>
>I will agree that there is a delusion involved.  But where is that
>delusion?  If most people are able use the term "free will" in their
>conversation, and are able to convey useful information in their use
>of that term, then they are talking about something, whether
>subjective or not.  If a relatively smaller group of people insist on
-----------------------------
Simply do one thing then. Use the phrase "free-will" and convey something
in the way of useful information with it. I see a thousand ways in which it
cannot be done, and I can think of none in which it can!!! It is a cypher!
A zero, a place-holder for superstition. Nothing more! It bespeaks what we
are, and yet lies and says nothing!
-Steve

>defining "free will" so that it is self contradictory, I claim it is
>that smaller group of people who are deluded.  The are deluded as to
>the meaning of "free will".  Language works because we agree to share
>the meanings of our terms.
-----------------------------
If we share delusion, then we share delusion. But in that case, what,
precisely, do we share??
-Steve

>>                                                           Being determined
>>does not preclude being of the opinion that you exist as an entity and that
>>what you do is what you feel you "decided" to do, even if it was the only
>>way things could turn out in this situation. The two supposed opposites, or
>>antagonists, "free-will" and "determinism" are, in their correct places,
>>really only different referential explanations for the same thing, and are
>>NOT true opposites, as they can both exist without contradiction.
>
>This is just about what I have been saying all along.
-------------------------------------------
Yes, but even more is available about them which still denies "free-will"
because that is all that reason can do with the thing! As for determinism,
it makes sense, and is the foundation of reason! But "free-will" denies
reason, and reason, if it IS reason, will be bright enough to deny the
delusion, even if it persists to the degree it does. We can be fooled into
thinking we are individuals with ultimate independence of choice at some
level, AS LONG AS WE ARE ALWAYS AWARE THAT IT IS ILLUSION!!!! Without that
knowledge, love becomes hate, and good becomes evil! It can persist as a
trap that can never be closed. But it must be KNOWN to be that trap and
nothing else, or else we are lost! They both exist, and are not opposites,
but one is reasonable and the other, STILL, IS NOT!! "Free-will" is simply
not reasonable.
-Steve

