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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------