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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 13:51:02 GMT
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References: <3agf03$qi5@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3blakl$k0r@mp.cs.niu.edu> <D08sLs.I1x@armory.com> <1994Dec8.015959.12040@threetek.dialix.oz.au>
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In article <1994Dec8.015959.12040@threetek.dialix.oz.au>,
Telford Tendys <telford@threetek.dialix.oz.au> wrote:
>> >That is just the point I was trying to make.  Roughly
>> >speaking if you deny that you have free will, you implicitly deny
>> >that you have the ability to acquire the knowledge to support your
>> >denial of free will.
>
>> If a chatty-Cathy doll said, "I am fully sentient and aware
>> with free will!", does this mean she therefore, by your example, prove that
>> she DOES have free will??? NO! And if she denies that she has free-will?
>> Same thing.
>> -Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com
>
>Hmmm, s`pose chatty-Cathy says to you,
>"I'm not really fully sentient.
>I'm a bit of an air head -- that's why I got this job.
>But you can't go discriminating against me for being stupid!
>After all, I AM aware and I DO have free will."
>
>Now you must find an experiment that could prove her wrong.
>BTW: Cathy doesn't like internal examination
>so any opening her up is against the rules;
>your experiment must consider her as a whole entity.
>
>	- Tel
-----------------------------------------
The Turing test. If she says the same thing everytime, then she's out of
the running. That is clear. If she doesn't respond to questioning, then
she's in la-la land, again, no dice. If she can carry on a complex
conversation with me, and beg not to be turned off, or some moral
equivalent, whatever, then I would defend her life, and I would treat it as
such. She is then sentient, aware, and intelligent. I know PEOPLE I'm not
sure about in those respects! Even so, it doesn't mean that either one of
us has free will, even if she insists that she does! What doesn't make
logical sense still doesn't make logical sense, even if the thing saying it
is an aware being! "Free will" will always be nonsensical. It is like
pretending that choices have no causes! Things which are not 100% caused do
not happen! Cause is not a random number machine in human choice. Humans
are programmed to believe they are not programmed! They are trained to
treat the proposition with discomfort, as if their sense of being were
suddenly being strangled. It is a mere phobia based on religious
programming throughout all of European culture.
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

