Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness Message-ID: <1115@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Date: 9 May 88 08:50:08 GMT References: <4134@super.upenn.edu> <3200014@uiucdcsm> <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1029@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <912@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <5404@venera.isi.edu> Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland Lines: 34 In art. <5404@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) writes >a rule-based or other mechanical account of cognition and decision making >is at odds with the doctrine of free will which underpins most Western morality >Cockton should either prepare a brief substantiation or relegate it to the >cellar of outrageous vacuities crafted solely to attract attention! Hey, that vacuity's sparked off a really interesting debate, from which I'm learning a lot. Don't put it in the cellar yet. Apologies to anyone who doesn't like polemic, but I've always found it a great way of getting the ball rolling - I would use extreme statements as a classroom teacher to get discussion going, hope no-one's bothered by the transfer of this behaviour to the adult USENET. Anyway, the simplified, and thus inadeqaute argument is: machine intelligence => determinism determinism => lack of responsibility lack of responsibility => no moral blame no moral blame => do whatever your rulebase says. Now we could view morality as just another rulebase applied to output 1 of the decision-process, a pruning operator as it were. Unfortunately, all attempts to date to present a moral rule-base have failed, so the chances of morality being rule-based are slim. Note that in the study of humanity, we have few better tools now than we had in Classical times, so there are no good reasons for expecting major advances in our understanding of ourselves. Hence Skinner's dismay that while Physics had advanced much since classical times, Psychology has hardly advanced at all. Skinner accordingly stocked his lab with high-tech rats and pidgeons in an attempt to push back the frontiers of learning theory. At least you don't have to clean out the computer's cage :-)