Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <948@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 9 May 88 02:36:41 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <1182@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 56
Keywords: randomness responsibility

In article <1182@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes:
> Again, we're talking at different levels (probably a
> subjective/objective problem).  Let's try this: if you are free, that
> means it is possible for you to make a choice.  That is, you are free to
> scrap your value system.  At each choice you make, there is a small
> chance that you will do something different, something unpredictible
> given your past behavior/current value system.  If, on the other hand,
> you *always* adhere to that value system, then from my perspective, that
> value system (as an *external cause*) is determining your behavior, and
> you are not free.

I'm not sure that there is any point in continuing this, our basic
presuppositions seem to be so alien.

Orthodox Christianity holds that
    - God is able to do anything that is doable
    - God is not constrained by anything other than His own nature
    - it is impossible for God to sin
From my perspective, such a God is maximally free.
From Chris Joslyn's perspective, such a God is minimally free.

I think the problem lies in my disagreement with Joslyn's definition
quoted above.  He defines freedom as the ability to make choices, and
seems to regard unmotivated (random) ``choices'' as the freest kind.
I also take exception with his view that a value system is an
external cause.  My "value system" is as much a part of me as my
memories.  Or are my memories to be regarded as an external cause too?

Note that behaving consistently according to a particular value system
does not mean that said value system is immune from revision.  There
are some interesting logical problems involved:  in order to move
_rationally_ from one state of your value system to another, you have
to believe that the new state is _better_, which is to say that your
existing value system has to endorse the new one.  I would regard
"scrapping" one's value system as irrational (and it is not clear to
me that it is possible far a human being to do it), and if being able
to do it is freedom, that's not a kind of freedom worth having.

My objection to randomness as a significant component of freedom is
that a random act is not an act that **I** have *willed*.  If I were to
randomly put my fist through this screen, it wouldn't be _my_ act any
more than Chris Joslyn's or J.S.Bach's.  It is sheer good luck if a
random act happens to be in accord with my wishes.  Unfortunately, we
have living proof that randomness as such is not freedom: consider the
people who suffer from Tourette's syndrome.

It might be objected that behaving in a way consistent with one's goals,
beliefs, and wishes is too much like behaving in a way consistent with a
program to be counted as freedom.  It would be, if we were not capable
of revising said goals and beliefs.  To be free, you have to _check_ your
beliefs.

I propose as a tentative definition that a robot can be said to possess
free will provided that its actions are in accord with its own mental
models and provided that it has sufficient learning capacity to be able
to almost wholly replace the mental models it is initially provided with.