Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!oddjob!ncar!ames!oliveb!felix!dhw68k!feedme!doug From: doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness Message-ID: <31@feedme.UUCP> Date: 8 May 88 20:19:03 GMT References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <10942@sunybcs.UUCP> <4543@super.upenn.edu> <1179@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> Reply-To: doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot) Distribution: comp Organization: Feedme Microsystems, Orange County, CA Lines: 24 Keywords: randomness responsibility In article <1179@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> Cliff Joslyn writes: >In article <4543@super.upenn.edu> Lloyd Greenwald writes: >>This is a good point. It seems that some people are associating free will >>closely with randomness. > >Yes, I do so. I think this is a necessary definition. > >[good points about QM vs Classical vs Ignorance as views of Freedom deleted] I don't believe randomness (in the quantum mechanical sense) is important to a sense of free will. The illusion of free will is what's important, and when dealing with a computing machine (the brain) which makes state changes on the time order of milliseconds, it is simply impossible for that machine, self-aware or not, to view its state changes as deterministic when its state changes are based on finer-grained state changes that occur at or near the speed of light. It seems to me that it would be straight-forward to give a computer program with the ability to monitor its *behavior* without giving it the ability to find causal relations between its holistic state and its behavior. -- Doug Salot || doug@feedme.UUCP || {trwrb,hplabs}!felix!dhw68k!feedme!doug Feedme Microsystems:Inventors of the Snarf->Grok->Munge Development Cycle