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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Message-ID: <jqbCzKAEH.G6q@netcom.com>
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References: <39o3e8$o8s@mp.cs.niu.edu> <jqbCyzD83.4sv@netcom.com> <CzEwyF.L84@armory.com> <3aft3f$4st@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 10:27:53 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:25340 comp.robotics:15503 comp.ai.philosophy:22352

In article <3aft3f$4st@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <CzEwyF.L84@armory.com> rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>>>In article <39o3e8$o8s@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>
>>>>All you are really saying, is that if you define "free will" to be
>>>>something logically impossible, then in consequence of your
>>>>definition, free will is logically impossible.
>
>>No, we're saying that "free-will" never HAS had a definition that makes any
>>sense, and sounds a lot like the crap they spew on commercials like
>>incomplete comparisons and meaningless words that everybody makes fun of!
>
>[... long diatribe against free will deleted for brevity]
>
>>>>Stop trying to arbitrarily define free will, and instead try to work
>>>>out what it is that people are talking about when they claim that
>>>>they have free will.
>
>>Check my mega-paragraph above. I JUST DID!!!
>
>Utter nonsense.  You have just denied that there is free will.  In so
>doing you have denied that you yourself have free will.  Without free
>will you have no ability to discover anything.  By your own claims,
>you are just a mindless automaton spewing out meaningless characters
>for no purpose.

Your circularity is showing.  You can't argue that minds have free will from
the assertion that the absence of free will implies mindlessness.  And you've
contradicted your own definition of meaning by calling the characters
meaningless.  And you seem to be exhibiting a very naive teleology.  "No
purpose" indeed.  And what the heck is wrong with being an automaton?
This sort of outburst isn't what I expect from you.  Try a couple of aspirin.

>>Or as I have said so many times: Just because you can put words together in
>>a string does not mean they correctly model reality!
>
>An open admission by you that your diatribe against free will is no more
>than meaningless claptrap.  Your own argument is self refuting.

Talk about a diatribe!  Neil, are you being serious here?  If so, you should
be embarrassed.  You may believe that Richard's statements are meaningless
claptrap, but it certainly doesn't follow from his claim that it is possible
to create meaningless claptrap.  You, on the other hand, seem to push the
notion that, if terms like "free will" and "the purpose of life" are used
then they must have a coherent meaning.  It would follow then that Richard,
having used his phrases, must not be talking meaningless claptrap.



-- 
<J Q B>
