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Article 4541 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: smoliar@maclane.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals
Message-ID: <1992Mar18.044516.28882@nuscc.nus.sg>
Date: 18 Mar 92 04:45:16 GMT
References: <1992Mar16.003442.9891@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar16.224536.2719@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> <1992Mar17.110436.9937@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1992Mar17.110436.9937@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu
(Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Mar16.224536.2719@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> 
>santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas) writes:
>
>>Relevant things can be said for a cloud: One rain cloud, under
>>certain atmospherical conditions brings rain, otherwise it
>>moves peacefully to another place. 
>
>A cloud is not an agent.
>
Appealing as this assertion is to the intuition, I would like to pursue an
angle for questioning it.  My theme is basically a variation on the approach
to models which Minsky took in "Matter, Mind, and Models" (which I recently
cited and Marvin subsequently developed).  Just as the question of whether
or not an entity A* constitutes a model of another entity A can only be
resolved in the context of some postulated observer B, so I would argue
that whether or not any entity X is an agent cannot be resolved in terms
of necessary and sufficient conditions on the attributes of X.  Rather,
one can only address whether or not a given observer Y is attributing agency
to X.

The case of the cloud is a great example.  As far as anyone who seriously
practices Hopi religion is concerned, a cloud is MOST DEFINITELY an agent;
and much of Hopi ritual and ceremony is based on different aspects of agency
attributed to clouds (particularly those clouds which are disposed to bring
rain).  Since it seems a bit ethnocentric to dismiss the matter simply by
asserting that the Hopi mind cannot grasp the concept of agency (just as
others have misinterpreted Hopi behavior to assert that they could not grasp
the concept of time), the problem seems to reside in whether or not the agency
of a cloud has anything to do with its being a cloud.  Consequently, we can
observe individuals in different social contexts and, on the basis of the
actions they take in those contexts, we may be better off hypothesizing what
each of those individuals chooses to regard as agents.  As we observe more
behavior, we may be obliged to modify our hypotheses;  but changes in the
assertion of agency will reside in observing the behavior of the individuals,
rather than observing the agents and non-agents with which they interact.

Needless to say, one has to be very careful in the use of that word "entity."
There are plenty of people out there who attribute agency to an agency which
has no physical properties and is yet omnipresent and all-knowing.  Indeed,
about the only properties this entity has are its agency and a name (which
usually comes out something like "God" in English).  Since the agency of God
seems critically linked to the behavior of such believers and since God has
no other attributes by which we can decide whether or not it is an agent, then
unless we decide that only atheists can make decisions about agency, it seems
that we shall have to factor in observer behavior.  Then after we think we have
the general case of agency in hand, we can worry about doing the same for
Mikhail's noetic agency.
>
>It is still highly questionable to what extent the laws of biology are
>reducible to those of physics.  My own suspicion is that they aren't; see
>on this Popper and Eccles' "The Self and Its Brain".
>
I remember seeing this book back in 1981.  Unfortunately, in my current straits
(pun sort of intended), I may have a bit of trouble getting myself a copy.  Can
anyone take the trouble to summarize their basic argument as to why biology
cannot be reduced to physics?  (I tend to agree with the conclusion at an
intuitive level, but I would like something a bit more solid than my own
feeble intuition.  I also wonder whether or not the converse might be the
case:  that laws of physics may be reducible to laws of biology.)
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


