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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 12:24:34 GMT
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In article <MARCUS.94Dec10053526@jetsam.cs.pdx.edu>,
Marcus Daniels <marcus@ee.pdx.edu> wrote:
>>>>>> "Neil" == Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> writes:
>In article <3cac8n$4j5@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>Neil> In <3ca2ji$og4@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu> marcus@ee.pdx.edu (Marcus
>Neil> Daniels) writes:
>>> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>>> I thought we had agreed to disagree about our conflicting
>>>> definitions of "free will".
>
>>> I agree that subjective free will is a valid construct so long as
>>> actual free will can't be denied.  Denial of free will is not
>>> reasonable to talk about until the cosmology is fixed.  In this
>>> case it is,
---------------------------------------
You cannot presuppose any kind of free will. This is the flaw in your
discussion! There is nothing to demonstrate that free will is necessary
except your whine that it is somehow "obvious", which is insipid!!
Any process of awareness can be understood entirely without any
introduction of so nebulous and self-contradictory a postulate as "free
will"! That every occurence is determined in no way limits occurences to
being "unconscious", as consciousness is only a process, like any other,
only a describable algorithm, as describable as anything else! It doesn't
matter what cosmology you discuss, because ITS nature will NEVER be
available for your inspection all at once!!! You must start with what your
senses tell you. Your culture and ideation are programmed by your culture,
which can lie as easily as simply stringing words together into a string
that says nothing but in which you believe, like church liturgy! You can
imagine the fiction of "free will", but you will never be able to
demonstrate it in action in a way that does not describe a determined
process, and not any kind of "FREE" will at all! Yes, there is "will", but
to imagine that determined will is any different from the will acting in
the case of the fiction of "free will" is ludicrous! By Occam's razor, no
other will is needed to sufficiently explain all human sensation and
behavior and awareness than a simple algorithmic process! And that violates
the idiotic notion of any kind of will that is "FREE" to think whatever it
thinks on a "whim", for which I see no evidence exists either!
-Steve

>Neil> Nonsense.  Perhaps you think the cosmology is fixed.  But at
>Neil> present there are many apparent contradictions.  For example,
>Neil> the cosmos as a whole appears to be substantially younger than
>Neil> the oldest stars in that cosmos.  One should keep an open mind.
>
>"Nonsense" seems to be bound to Neil's F9 key.
---------------------
Unuseful, unresponsive, in any debate!
-Steve

>I should have learned.  "Marcus remember to re-cite everything for 
>Neil, or he will convieniently `forget' the constraints of the discussion."
----------------------------
And what you keep forgetting is that no one but you has agreed to those
restraints!
-Steve

>The constraint was: a deterministic process running on a computer,
>which (we have taken the leap of faith), and are pretending it can learn.
>We are also pretending it is good enough learner to create its own subjective
>view of the world, and is no longer limited to reflecting its authors'
>free will.
----------------------------------
There already ARE, (And without any "leap of faith" of yours!), learning
determinstic processes, and they can be shown to have a "view" of "their"
world. Any animal has that! Whether this can achieve a human level or
higher is only a matter of degree. You really should keep you eyes on the
latest in robotics!! Honestly!!! As to whether it is limited to reflecting
its author's influence, (Not "free will", nit-wit!), it is up for
discussion as to whether YOU simply are reflecting your "author's" will,
namely your family and teachers and religious leaders in your culture!!!
Things do NOT pull themselves "up by their bootstraps", but are caused!
Whether you conceive opposition to your programming or follow it to the
letter, or anything in between, what you do emerges from the order in which
your mind assimilated your life experiences in the precise order and way
that it did!! The difference between you and your culture and forbears is
only that you received their programming afresh and were able to see any
flaws that this order of instruction implied, and by those your approach to
their attempts to effect you was "your own", but THAT's not FREE will!!!
If you had such a ludicrous thing as "FREE will" you might decide
absolutely ANYTHING about the world or a situation, and you are NOT able to
DO that!!! You can no more change your religion or philosophy on demand than
you can refrain from this idiotic train of thought of yours yet! That you
might in future is why *I* am wasting my time on you!!! You likely imagine
the same thing of the both of US!
-Steve

>>> It would be vacuous accusation to say to this learning computer
>>> "you shouldn't have done that."
----------------------------------
You're saying that there are not robots which can be told that a certain
connection they make is incorrect? I can show you one!!! Or more! Learning
algorithms have been around for a long time!
-Steve

>Neil> If it is vacuous, then you don't really have a learning
>Neil> computer.  A true learning computer should be able to take the
>Neil> accusation as experience, and learn from it.
>
>You're right.  Here is what I was trying to emphasize:
>
>It would be a vacuous accusation to say to this learning computer
>"you were equipped to avoid doing what you did.  I will now punish you."
--------------------------------------------
That's true even of humans!! Ever notice that the prison system does not
"correct"????!!! Ever talk to a child psychologist about the real effects,
as opposed to the popularly held "effects" of corporal punishment, or any
other kind, for that matter?? They simply do not achieve the desired
effect!
-Steve

>This intelligent computer would probably laugh in your face when you
>said it too.  When enough humans said it, they'd probably
>decide to address `the dishonest punishment problem' directly.
-----------------------------------------
Only a very experienced and well developed computer intelligence could tell
you to take a flying fuck. You could well cause an intelligent computer to
become homocidal or psychopathic if you "electronically" "flogged" it,
unless it had experience dealing with insane humans! There are some
excellent models that have worked out very nicely for predicting
personality anomalies from abuse of a teaching procedure with robots!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

