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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Free Will
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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 06:31:46 GMT
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In article <4du5gq$tj@ixnews8.ix.netcom.com> elabonte@ix.netcom.com(Edward LaBonte ) writes:

>Free will is not necessary for ethics so long as you see it for what it
>really is. Ethical rules are methods of behavioral control. They
>originate partially (I believe) within human nature but they are in
>large part imposed on the individual by the group. It's a way for
>society to protect itself from the irresponsible, totally
>self-interested behavior of the individual. 
>
>All that is required is that people are responsive to ethical rules,
>freedom has nothing to do with it.

I like this analysis--including the paragraph that followed it.  The
difficulty is that the "myth" of free will has been the core of almost
all successful ways that societies have managed to produce the
responsiveness that Edward LaBonte sees as required.  I discussed this
in The Society of Mind:

-----

30.07\
THE MYTH OF THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE|

To save our belief in the freedom of will from the fateful grasps of
Cause and Chance, people simply postulate an empty, third alternative.
We imagine that somewhere in each person's mind, there lies a Spirit,
Will, or Soul, so well concealed that it can elude the reach of any
law Qor lawless accident.  (see 30.07)

I've drawn the box for Will so small because we're always taking
things out of itQand scarcely ever putting things in! This is because
whenever we find some scrap of order in the world, we have to
attribute it to CauseQand whenever things seem to obey no laws at all,
we attribute that to Chance. This means that the dominion controlled
by Will can only hold what, up to now, we don't yet understand. In
ancient times, that realm was huge, when every planet had its god, and
every storm or animal did manifest some spirit's wish. But now for
many centuries, we've had to watch that empire shrink.

Does this mean that we must embrace the modern scientific view and put
aside the ancient myth of voluntary choice? No. We can't do that: too
much of what we think and do revolves around those old beliefs.
Consider how our social lives depend upon the notion of responsibility
and how little that idea would mean without our belief that personal
actions are voluntary. Without that belief, no praise or shame could
accrue to actions that were caused by Cause, nor could we assign any
credit or blame to deeds that came about by Chance. What could we make
our children learn if neither they nor we perceived some fault or
virtue anywhere? We also use the idea of freedom of will to justify
our judgments about good and evil. A person can entertain a selfish
impulse, yet turn it aside because it seems wrong, and that must
happen when some self-ideal has intervened to overrule another goal.
We can feel virtuous when we think that we ourselves have chosen to
resist an evil temptation. But if we suspected that such choices were
not made freely, but by the interference of some hidden agency, we
might very well resent that interference. Then we might become
impelled to try to wreck the precious value-schemes that underlie our
personalities or become depressed about the futility of a
predestination tempered only by uncertainty. Such thoughts must be
suppressed.

No matter that the physical world provides no room for freedom of
will: that concept is essential to our models of the mental realm. Too
much of our psychology is based on it for us to ever give it up. We're
virtually forced to maintain that belief, even though we know it's
false Qexcept, of course, when we're inspired to find the flaws in all
our beliefs, whatever may be the consequence to cheerfulness and
mental peace.

--- end quote

So if we want to be more coherent, we'll have to invent a different
myth--one that preserves what we want, while sparing us from the
mind-rotting superstitions that have for so long a time, I think, kept
philosophy from being able to deal with psychology.
