Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!AI.AI.MIT.EDU!NICK
From: NICK@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Nick Papadakis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: [LEVITT@Score.Stanford.EDU: Free Will]
Message-ID: <19880606032002.3.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 6 Jun 88 03:20:00 GMT
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Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu

Date: Sun, 5 Jun 88 00:44 EDT
From: Raymond E. Levitt 
Subject: Free Will
To: ailist@AI.AI.MIT.EDU

Raymond E. Levitt
Associate Professor
Center for Integrated Facility Engineering
Departments of Civil Engineering and Computer Science
Stanford University
==============================================================

Several colleagues and I would like to request that the free will debate -
which seems endless - be set up on a different list with one of the more
active contributors as a coordinator.  

The value of the AILIST as a source of current AI research issues, conferences,
software queries and evaluations, etc., is diminished for us by having to 
plough through the philosophical dialectic in issue after issue of the AILIST.

Perhaps you could run this message and take a poll of LIST readers to help
decide this in a democratic way.

Thanks for taking on the task of coordinating the AILIST.  It is a great
service to the community.

Ray Levitt
-------


   [Editor's Note:
   
   	Thank you, Mr. Levitt, and many thanks to all those who have
   written expressing interest or comments regarding AIList.  I regret that
   I have not had time to respond to many of you individually, as I have
   lately been more concerned with the simple mechanics of generating
   digests and dealing with the average of sixty bounce messages per day
   than with the more substantive issues of moderation.
   
   	However, a new COMSAT mail-delivery program is now orbiting, and
   we may perhaps be able to move away from the days of lost messages,
   week-long delays, and 50K digests ...  My heartfelt apologies to all.
   
   	Being rather new at this job, I have hesitated to express my
   opinion with respect to the free-will debate, preferring to retain the
   status quo and hoping that the problem would fix itself.   But since Mr.
   Levitt is only the latest of several people who have complained about
   this particular issue, I feel I must take some action.
   
   	Clearly this discussion is interesting and valuable to many of
   the participants, but equally clearly it is less so for many others.  I
   have tried as far as possible to group the free-will discussions in
   digests apart from other matters, so people uninterested in the topic
   could simply 'delete' the offending digests unread.  (There are many
   readers who only have access to the undigested stream and cannot do
   this.)
   
	Several people have suggested moving the discussion to a USENET
   list called 'tallk.philosophy'.  The difficulty here is that AIList
   crosses USENET, INTERNET and BITNET, and not all readers would be able
   to contribute.  In V7#6, John McCarthy  said:
   
   > I am not sure that the discussion should progress further, but if
   > it does, I have a suggestion.  Some neutral referee, e.g. the moderator,
   > should nominate principal discussants.  Each principal discussant should
   > nominate issues and references.  The referee should prune the list
   > of issues and references to a size that the discussants are willing
   > to deal with.  They can accuse each other of ignorance if they
   > don't take into account the references, however perfunctorily.
   > Each discussant writes a general statement and a point-by-point
   > discussion of the issues at a length limited by the referee in
   > advance.  Maybe the total length should be 20,000 words,
   > although 60,000 would make a book.  After that's done we have another
   > free-for-all.  I suggest four as the number of principal discussants
   > and volunteer to be one, but I believe that up to eight could
   > be accomodated without making the whole thing too unwieldy.
   > The principal discussants might like help from their allies.
   > 
   > The proposed topic is "AI and free will".
   
   	I would be more than willing to coordinate this effort, but I
   have, as yet, received no responses expressing an opinion one way or the
   other.  I invite the readers of AIList who have found the free-will
   discussion interesting (as opposed to those who have not) to send me net
   mail at AILIST-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU concerning the future of this
   discussion.  Please send me a separate message, and do not intersperse
   your comments with other contributions, whether to the free-will debate
   or other matters.
   
   	In the meantime, I will continue to send out digests covering
   the free-will topic, although separate from other material.
   
   		- nick  ]