Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,comp.ai,sci.cognitive,sci.psychology.theory
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!news.psc.edu!hudson.lm.com!godot.cc.duq.edu!news.duke.edu!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!in1.uu.net!allegra!alice!rhh
From: rhh@research.att.com (Ron Hardin <9289-11216> 0112110)
Subject: Re: Does AI make philosophy obsolete?
Message-ID: <DEJBJL.5DL@research.att.com>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
References: <4159is$l0u@Mars.mcs.com> <41fqic$fvu@Mars.mcs.com> <41gnj4$sl9@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> <41ndlq$fmi@venus.mcs.com> <41uvkr$gt5@Venus.mcs.com> <424mnt$ils@news.internet.com.mx> <424pr8$j9b@netnews.upenn.edu> <42a891$i80@news.internet.com.mx> <42ak <42ggeu$3no@netnews.upenn.edu> <JMC.95Sep7002545@Steam.stanford.edu>
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 12:18:57 GMT
Lines: 46
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:33194 sci.cognitive:9454 sci.psychology.theory:581

John McCarthy writes:
>occupy as many philosopher months as the above topics.  Mathematical
>logic completely undermined previous philosophical logic, reducing it
>to footnotes on the ancient.  This happened in the early part of this

Precision is a concept in ordinary language.  You could say
mathematical logic gives precision a certain shape;  ``Get me
a nice red apple from that field'' gives it another.  It is
not _less_ precise.  (Cavell)

>2. Thinking about what beliefs we need to put into robots and what
>should cause them to get more replaces the question of "What is a
>belief?" by the question "What are the properties of the enormous
>variety of mathematical belief structures that are available and which
>of them are useful?"

``When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed it would bear me.
I had no thought of its possibly collapsing.''  (Wittgenstein PI 575)

>3. How should we make a robot think about its own free will?  This
>shows that entirely deterministic systems can have a structure of
>freedom of choice that has to be studied concretely.

  "If freedom has wings," taught Reb Idrash, "it also has eyes, a forehead,
  genitals. Each time it takes wing, it transfigures a bit of both the
  world and man in the excitement of its flowering."

  And Reb Lima: "In the beginning, freedom was ten times engraved on the
  tables of the Law. But we so little deserved it that the Prophet
  broke them in his anger."

  "Any coercion is a ferment of freedom," Reb Idrash taught further.
  "How can you hope to be free if you are not bound with all our blood
  to your God and to man?"

  And Reb Lima: "Freedom awakens gradually as we become conscious of
  our ties, like the sleeper of his senses. Then, finally, our actions
  have a name."

  A teaching which Reb Zale translated into this image: "You think it is
  the bird which is free. Wrong: it is the flower."

  And Reb Elat into this motto: "Love your ties to their last splendor,
  and you will be free."

(Jabes)
