Newsgroups: comp.ai
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!news.mathworks.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!minsky
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Free Will
Message-ID: <1996Jan14.024758.15397@media.mit.edu>
Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <4d3qo1$ko9@hpindda.cup.hp.com> <1996Jan12.031550.20196@media.mit.edu> <h1DHnK3.predictor@delphi.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 02:47:58 GMT
Lines: 48

In article <h1DHnK3.predictor@delphi.com> Will Dwinnell <predictor@delphi.com> writes:
>Marvin Minsky <minsky@media.mit.edu> writes:
> 
>>>: : Where do you think the desire to do something comes from? It doesn't
>>>: : come from the will because I don't will myself to desire.  Therefore no
>>>: : matter where the desire comes from it definitely originates outside the
>>>: : will. I assume that it is caused by my physical state but even if it is
>>>: : not it is the desire that determines the actions of the will. Every
>>>: : willful action is preceded by the desire to act. The will is therefore
>>>: : not free.
>>
>>>: Good point.


That wasn't me, but I agree that we have many instinctive urges that
do not seem very "cognitive'. 

>Actually, I wonder whether this is such a good point.  Assuming we accept
>the line of thought that says that the will and the source of desire are
>distinct, it is not clear to me why we should believe that "it is
>the desire that determines the actions of the will".  Putting the
>will and the source of desire into seperate boxes would seem rather to
>lead to a model where the two conflict, but it is not plain why one
>controls the other.  After all, people often do things which they don't
>want to (which would presumably be the will dominating the desire),
>and resist doing things which they want to (which would seem to be the
>reverse).

Quite so.  Much of the popular support for 'freedom of will' comes
from not questioning the assumption that there is a "single, central
self that makes all one's decisions."  We could put Will's point even
more strongly by saying that "people people often want things which
they don't want, and don't want things that they want.  Surely a
better model is one in which various mechanisms sometimes compete and
sometimes cooperate.

Of course, in real life, decisions have to be made.  Sometimes the
choice does indeed seems to come from a central process--as when you
finally discover "a really good reason" to choose alternative A.
Other times, though, the choice seems to come from a sort of threshold
operation in which the urges for A slightly outweigh those for B.
To be sure, this requires some sort of bifurcation mechanism--which
could be a threshold gate, an unstable trajectory between two
attractors, or a flip-flop amplifier.  In none of those cases,
however, would you want to attribute any sort of freedom of will to
the decisive flip-flop of the moment.

