Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!hplabs!otter!cwp
From: cwp@otter.hple.hp.com (Chris Preist)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness
Message-ID: <2070015@otter.hple.hp.com>
Date: 6 May 88 09:20:18 GMT
References: <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Lines: 40


 
R. O'Keefe replies to me...

> > Did my value system exist before my conception? I doubt it.
>This is rather like asking whether some specific number existed before
>anyone calculated.  Numbers and value systems are symbolic/abstract
>things, not material objects.  I have often wondered what philosophy
>would have been like if it had arisen in a Polynesian community rather
>than an Indo-European one (in Polynesian languages, numbers are _verbs_).
>----------

Oh no! Looks like my intuitionist sympathies are creeping out!!!

Seriously though, there IS a big difference between numbers and value
systems - Empirical evidence for this is given by the fact that (most of)
society agrees on a number system, but the debate about which value system
is 'correct' leads to factionism, terrorism, war, etc etc. Value systems
are unique to each individual, a product of his/her nature and nurture.
While they may be able to be expressed abstractly, this does not mean
they 'exist' in abstraction (Intuitionist aside: The same could be said of
numbers). They are obviously not material objects, but this does not mean
they have Platonic Ideal existance. We are not imbued with them at birth,
but aquire them. This aquisition is perfectly compatible with determinism.


So what does this mean for AI?  Earlier, in my reply to O.S., I was arguing
that our SUBJECTIVE experience of freedom is perfectly compatible with our
existance within a deterministic system, hence AI is not necessarily 
fruitless. You have drawn me out on another metaphysical point - I believe
that our intelligence (rather than our capacity for intelligence), our 
value systems, and also our 'semantics' stem from our existance within the
world, rather than our essential nature. Sensation and experience are
primary. The brain is a product of the spinal chord, rather than vice-versa.
For this reason, I believe that the goals of strong AI can only be 
accomplished by techniques which accept the importance of sensation. 
Connectionism is the only such technique I know of at the moment. 


Chris Preist