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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Cc: rickert@cs.niu.edu,dnor01@cs.aukuni.ac.nz
Organization: The Armory
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 08:27:58 GMT
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In article <3bbs7u$4u2@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <Czyn0L.3Cv@armory.com> rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>>In article <3ba3mo$g0f@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>>>In <3b910n$oef@net.auckland.ac.nz> dnor01@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (David Hikaru  Norman) writes:
>>>>rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>>>>I would prefer to say that a person's free will is the ability to act
>>>>>in accordance with the set of values and objectives that the person
>>>>>has.
>
>>>>Why not the inability to act otherwise?
>
>>>You would only choose such a description if you were in the grip of
>>>an ideology.
>
>>Both are quite true, nevermind his OR YOUR ideology, but, Neill, yours
>>sounds intensely flawed and prejudiced like a frightened mouse wimpering
>>in terror in the corner!
>
>Perhaps you missed my point.  I was not claiming that one statement
>was true and the other false.  I am saying that one statement has a
>positive tone, and the other has a negative tone.
--------------------------------------------------
I see them as two sides of the same coin, and neither negative or postive
each one! I don't get your bit about positivity/negativity.
-Steve Walz

>My comment about ideology referred to the choice of the negative
>version.  That version makes it sound bad to act in accordance with
>ones values and objectives, and thereby hints that it would be better
>to act against ones values and objectives.
--------------------------------------------
One acts as one acts, presumably often holding to an idea that it will be
beneficial. Sometimes just acting confused and thrashing about wildly or
even being self-destructive. When one acts, sometimes it looks like one
holds to "values" and sometimes it doesn't at all! Someone will want what
they think they want, and get whatever that REALLY gets them instead!
-Steve

>>Once a person acts, it is clear that they MUST have done what they were
>>compelled by their nature to do, or else they'd have done something else! 
>
>That is only the case if you have a confused idea as to the meaning
>of MUST.
----------------------------------------
I don't mean that they are compelled by anything they can recognize or
define here, Neill. Just that it MUST happen, or else something else MUST
happen, whichever, after it occurs it is the irrevocable past, and was
always going to be, by definition. By MUST I guess I mean simply that they
will invariably do whatever winds up getting done! That's causation,
classical or quantum, or flip of the coin, or whatnot.
-Steve Walz

>>Yours, Neill, sounds a bit pubescent and religiously based on some imagined
>>heaven and hell to which a "good" Gawd can be forgiven for casting
>
>I suggest that you stop trying to read my mind and determine my
>religious beliefs.  You are not very good at it.  For that matter,
>you are not very good at guessing my age.
-----------------------------------------
An older man doesn't usually take the word "pubescent" when applied to
ideas, as a slur on his old gray hair or fallen arches, Neill. If you're a
young'in, that wasn't what I intended to convey, nor was it of import to
me. Myself, I'm 44, but you can be any age you want for all I care. It's
not pertinent to this discussion.
-Steve Walz

>>"intentionally Nasty souls" into, and without that, one has very little
>>need to concern onself with precisely how events or actions are "really"
>>caused, as it doesn't change the way they *feel* to you in any case!!! 
>
>>>>Does a cash register calculate? No, it just grinds its gears. But does
>>>>it actually grind its gears? No, it just blindly follows the laws of 
>>>>physics.
>
>>>Obvious nonsense.  All three descriptions cannot possibly hold true,
>>>for they are mutually contradictory.  The three descriptions:
>>>	the cash register calculates;
>>>	the cash register grinds it gears;
>>>	the cash register blindly follows the laws of physics;
>>>may hold true.  But in the form you presented them, the descriptions
>>>contain 'no' clauses which deny the truth of the other descriptions.
>>>Thus, as you stated them, they cannot all hold true.
>
>>NO! Just the reverse!!! BECAUSE they do not question each other, they are
>
>Sorry, but they DO question each other.  In the original form, each
>assertion after the first begins with a *no*, which is an explicit
>denial of the previous assertion.
-----------------------------------
Trick of language, Neill. Good presentation on his part, amusing. Whether
he is using the word no or not, the different ways of describing the cash
register and its function are not at odds! He was using the Saturday Night
Live "But NOoooooooooooooh!" affected humorous denial. All three statements
can be made about the cash register without "getting in each other's way"
unless you believe in something like "one truth per item" or something!!
-Steve Walz 

>>                              You are in a pseudo-dilemma brought about by
>>fear of certain words and phrases, when the semantics is NOT really at all
>>problematic here!!!
>
>Please stop trying to read my intentional states.  You are not very
>good about that either.
------------------------------------
Well that's what people DO when they discuss! AND I'm doing stand-up for
the rest of the newsgroups as well, some of which DO hold such fallacies!
But don't worry if I sound condescending, because I do it to everyone and
always have actually. It's nothing personal! Ask anybody around here or on
the net!
-Steve Walz

>>                    Both are true; the assertion of "blame" or sufficient
>>"responsibility" for an action, and the recognition that a person is both a
>>product of their experiences and upbringing and are, in many ways, as much
>>a victim of their own actions as any other victims!
>
>I have no disagreement with that.
>
>>                                                    I can't help it that
>>your stupidity, possibly, or your guilty greed, would demand that people
>>who can't fend for themselves be allowed to starve, just because you
>>imagine that everyone has "control" over their lives and that the poor
>>should simply "eat cake" if they have no bread!!!
>
>Please stop trying to read my mind and determine my politics.  You
>are not even very good at that.  As for my alleged stupidity -- at
>least I am not so stupid as to try to use what you have written to
>determine your age, your religion, your state of fear, or your
>politics.
----------------------------------------------------
44 years, Buddhist Techno-Pagan, morbid, violent socialist. Saved ya the
trouble!
-Steve Walz

>Really, if you cannot keep to the issues, and do not have enough self
>restraint to avoid making unfounded personal attacks based on no
>relevant information, you might be better of not participating in the
>discussion at all.
-----------------------------------
Oh heavens! What have I *DONE*!!!!! ;)
-Steve Walz

>>                                                  You see, this is *WHY*
>>this discussion is actually most important, because if you can successfully
>>deny to yourself that in future androids or computers can be imbued with
>>true awareness and "worth" equal to that of humans, as aware entities, then
>>...
>
>I am rather surprised that you would try to read my mind so as
>to determine my views about the possibility of AI.  Not only
>are you terrible at it, but if you had read some of my other
>posts to comp.ai.philosophy, you should have realized how far
>off is your guess.
--------------------------------------------
Sorry, I don't get over there. Our system has to limit its newsfeed till we
get more $$$ for harddisks. But I'd LOVE to hear your positions if I'm off
the mark, very much so! Basically, though I was just trying to point out
where such thought leads, IMNSHO.
-Steve Walz 

>>                       the circumstances of your birth and advantages, and
>>advantage you were "bound" to acquire with those gifts, which in reality,
>>...
>
>Your lack of research into the circumstances and advantages of my
>childhood is clearly evidenced.  Your crystal ball is broken.
--------------------------------------------
Okey-dokey. Idiocy can be shared from rich to poor, and probably back
again. Announce your poison. Don't hide in the dark!
-Steve Walz

>>       But someday, and you KNOW it will come about; your lunacy may very
>>well be outvoted by a population of kindly robots, who take far more pity
>>on you are your slow mind, than you would now like to imagine so you can
>>cheer the execution of a molested child and call it judicial progress,
>
>You repeat your mistake of misattributing a political view.
>I can only wish that the future kindly robots will not be too harsh
>on your act of having a public temper tantrum on usenet.
---------------------------------------
Oooooh! A temper tantrum. I'll HAVE to write that down in my file of quick
come-backs. Come'on, Neill, simply be plain about your agenda. We all have
one, and often for good reasons! I enjoy hearing WHY people believe as they
do. If you say nothing, I will simply have to keep taking pot-shots hoping
to hit a nerve! Really! I may be emphatic, but as long as someone will
express themselves and reciprocate by listening, there's no bad blood or
something!
-Steve Walz

>>The model of a being "controlling itself" has some use in description, but
>>so do countless references to unavoidability in daily life! You are
>>purposely ignoring those and trying to label them "unserious", when we say
>>things like, "he couldn't help himself", or "she simply couldn't see
>>anything else to do"!!
>
>It is interesting that you accuse me of acting purposely, for in so
>doing you appear to contradict your own denial of free will.  But I
>could not possibly be ignoring these, purposely or otherwise, since
>such statements have not even been part of this debate.
----------------------------------
I'm just doing what I must, Neill. Recursion, Neill. Chicken and egg time!
-Steve Walz

>>                       And we say this stuff CONSTANTLY, as often as we
>>assert pompously and provably wrongly, that *WE* are "IN CONTROL"! You
>>cannot get away with stating that we say these deterministic things only on
>>a "background" of the assertion of self-control, as the statements of
>>control are the most likely to show themselves as being incorrect.
>
>Again, the issue of self-control has not been part of the debate.  It
>is spurious to introduce it.  In any case, one cannot debate the
>assertion "we are in control", until we have come to agreement on
>what constitutes "we".
---------------------------------------
Okay. Now I feel like I'm waiting for you to tell ME. You seem to leave
these pregnant pauses without completing your thought. I'd really like to
hear your thoughts behind what you've said so far!
-Steve Walz

>>                                                                   We make
>>a LOT of boo-boos we don't intend to make and which we could NOT control!!
>>Thus we are liars when we say that we control.
>
>You seem to be confused about the meaning of "liar" and of "control".
--------------------------------------
Neill, I don't know if you had cruel teachers as a child, but you will act
like you're getting ready to tell me why you assert something and then stop
like you did just now. I question whether you know what you even meant when
you said, "You seem to be confused about the meaning of "liar" and
"control". I do so because you persist with such efforts at invalidation
and then you have nothing to offer when it's your turn to then tell us all
the definition of "liar" or "control". Actually I have used those words for
many years, and I doubt very much that I am confused. Now do you have a
reason for saying this, or are you going to flunk the Turing test once
again!!!??? Your responses sound canned, Neill.
-Steve Walz

>>>It is not the role of AI to demonstrate that free will does not
>>>exist.  The role of AI should be to determine what the term "free
>>>will" actually means by pointing to the implementation details which
>>>cause people to conclude that they do have free will.
>
>>Anyone in the field would agree that the emulation of the human mentality
>>and quite likely awareness itself requires a sense be generated of being
>>there as a witness and a controller of the body involved. This is nothing
>>new. It does NOT speak to this as being a TRUISM, however, namely that the
>>thing that THINKS it controls really BE in control!!!
>
>What does it mean to "really BE in control", other than to be judged
>by other members of your linguistic community that you really
>are in control?  Do you propose that human language pre-existed humans,
>and that meaning exists apart from that assigned by human users of
>the language?
--------------------------------------
It almost sounds like you are taking my side now Neill. We can't have
THAT!:)  As for meaning before meaning makers, I didn't get that we were
discussing pre-human anything, Neill. Would you clarify?
-Steve Walz

>>>After AI has elucidated the meaning of "free will", people can decide
>>>for themselves whether free will is still a useful concept, or
>>>whether they should drop it in preference for terminology that AI
>>>introduces in its explanation.  Keep in mind that people still find
>>>Ptolemaic terminology such as "sunrise" and "sunset" to be very
>>>useful.
>
>>They are useful, but remember now that virtually everyone means something
>>TOTALLY DIFFERENT NOW when they say those two words than they did in
>>Ptolemy's time!!!
>
>In order to be able to make such a judgement, you would need to
>accurately read the minds of people at Ptolemy's time, and of
>virtually everyone around now.  Given your systematic failure at
>reading my mind, perhaps I may be forgiven for doubting the accuracy
>of your judgement.
--------------------------------------
Oh, Neill. Don't be petulant. It's unbecoming! Any boob you or I know would
venture that same surmise. We CAN discuss a past as an important item for
life now, can we not? And it HAS been shown that the meaning of words and
even the "universe changes" when things are revealed or discovered by
humans. Surely this assumption is simple enough for everyone. I saw another
poster make the same one to your post just today already, without my
promting too! Smart guy!:)
-Steve Walz

>>                         So quit your trite, simplistic, and basically
>>no-nothing-republican-conservative model of whether people are in control
>>of this world, because we aren't,
>
>Well, quite obviously, you are not in charge of this world -- you are
>not even in charge of your own temper.  And now that you are more
>explicit in your determination of my political views, I can be more
>explicit in pointing out that your mind reading abilities are
>seriously broken.
------------------------------------------
Why so cowardly, Neill? Do people know you on here too well for you to lie?
Does the only opportunity for deception lay for you in not revealing how
right I am??? Prove me wrong. I LOVE it when people do that. It's a
learning experience! And I am NOT angry with you, Neill. I am demonstrative
in my writing, not intemperate!
-Steve Walz

>>                                                         This isn't just
>>philosophy, and it isn't just AI, this is social science and politics as
>>well!!!
>
>You are posting in the wrong newsgroups for the discussion of social
>science and politics.
-----------------------------------------
Oh picky picky, just to get out of an argument you can't win because you
don't dare let me know that I have your point of view surrounded!!!! How
cowardly! I really expected more. Perhaps you're a database of canned
responses and a simple expert language system after all, Neill, and NOT
truly aware! ;-)  (Not a bad joke if you pulled it off!)
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

