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