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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 13:53:45 GMT
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In article <3bvo79$d9h@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <D0CE7y.AC4@armory.com> rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>>In article <3brb1k$10c@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu>,
>>Marcus Daniels <marcus@ee.pdx.edu> wrote:
>>>rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>>>The whole point is that there are different levels of description.
>>>>..
>
>>>The broken thing about this "levels-of-analysis" is that you said
>>>AI free will could be realized using technology not to far removed from
>>>what we have today.
>
>>In defense of Neil, sort of, his speaking of the levels at which we talk is
>>quite correct.
>
>I'm glad to have you on my side for a change.
>
>>          And yet you would not declare, I should hope, that atoms do
>>anything different in people's bodies as they do in a rotting ham sandwich
>>or a stone!
>
>I would certainly not make such a claim.  Atoms behave as atoms, regardless
>of the level of description.
>
>>                                                    Free-will is an
>>experience of asserting ownership of events and choices, and it is an
>>equally good fiction on which to build artificial awareness as biological
>>human awareness.
>
>Free will is not a fiction -- it is the terminology derived from a
>particular way of looking at the world, and one's relation to that
>world.  If a robot is to fully emulate human behavior, it must be
>capable of looking at the world in that manner.  In that case it will
>have free will.
-----------------------------
Do not mistake my point. I use the term fiction, because it is a reference
point which is, of necessity, contrived. I use the word "fiction" clinically,
as Campbell used the word "myth".
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

