Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!aiva!tw
From: tw@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Toby Walsh)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will
Message-ID: <412@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 9 May 88 20:27:16 GMT
References: <28437@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Reply-To: tw@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Toby Walsh)
Organization: Dept. of AI, Univ. of Edinburgh, UK
Lines: 27
Keywords: philosophy

Drew McDermott's proposes a "cute" example of a robot R next to a bomb B, 
thinking about (thinking about (thinking about ..... its thinking) ....));
to avoid this infinite regress,  he proposes "free will" = "ability to 
identify one's special status within one's model of the universe".

This example immediately suggests to me the analogy with meta-level 
reasoning; reasoning about reasoning occurs at the meta-level, and
reasoning about this meta-level reasoning at the meta-meta-level, ....
To escape this infite regress of meta-meta-.... levels, we need to
introduce the idea of (self-)reflection, where we reason about the
meta^n-level in the meta^n-level. The notion of identifying one's 
special status within the model then becomes the analogous concept
of naming between object- and meta-levels. 

But does this example/analogy tell us more about the annoying issue of free
will ? No, I believe. It has much to say about consciousness but
doesn't directly address what it is to have goals, desires, what it is
to MAKE a decision when confronted with choice. Nevertheless, meta-level
reasoning is an interesting model within which to formulate these concepts.


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Toby Walsh                      JANET: T.Walsh@uk.ac.edinburgh
Dept of AI                      ARPA:  T.Walsh%uk.ac.edinburgh@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Edinburgh University            Tel:   (=44)-31-225-7774 ext 235
80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN  
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