brian@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brian Holtz) (05/26/88)
will" and to discuss "what the consequences of adopting one of them would be for morality." I'd like to do some of both. It seems to me that determinists and anti-determinists have been arguing about different things when they argue about free will, namely: 1. determinist "free will": the ability to make at least some choices that are neither uncaused nor completely determined by physical forces 2. anti-determinist "free will": the ability to make at least some choices that are neither uncaused nor completely determined by external physical forces (By an "uncaused choice" I mean a choice whose outcome depends on physical events that are in principle unpredictable. I think this is what some people have meant when they call certain choices "random", and mention quantum effects.) If you accept definition (1) (as I do), then the only alternative to determinism is dualism, which I don't see too many people defending. If you accept definition (2) (as T. William Wells' posting suggested), then you run into the difficulty of distinguishing "external" and "internal" forces. As Cliff Joslyn said in response to Mr. Wells, we must say that reflexes, dreams, delusions, compulsions, etc., are all *OUTSIDE* of "me". As the earlier lively conversation on whether thoughts can be controlled shows, we can carry this distinction- making on, narrowing the scope of the "willing agent" in the mind to a singularity (my Will), about which we cannot gather evidence about causal processes, nor make meaningful theories as to necessary and/or sufficient conditions. I don't think this difficulty is insurmountable, and if psychologically principled distinctions can be made between the "willing agent" and the rest of "me", then here I think is consolation for those who do not wish to define "free will" out of existence. They can just draw a line around some part of their minds, and declare that part free of external determination. The internal determination that would would remain could be embraced as *self*-determination. Thus I will take definition (2) as a definition not of free will, but self-determination. I think we can preserve all the desirable moral consequences of free will if we replace "free will" in our ethics with a modified version of self-determination, which I will call volition. The key to volition is that it should be operationally indistinguishable from free will. 3. volition: the ability to identify significant sets of options and to predict one's future choices among them, in the absence of any evidence that any other agent is able to predict those choices. There are a lot of implications to replacing free will with my notion of volition, but I will just mention three. - If my operationalization is a truly transparent one, then it is easy to see that volition (and now-dethroned free will) is incompatible with an omniscient god. Also, anyone who could not predict his behavior as well as someone else could predict it would no longer be considered to have volition. - The ethical problem of responsibility can still be managed if it is no longer seen to derive from a truly free will, but is rather assigned or claimed (as suggested by Kevin Brown's posting). - Metaphysical arguments about the possible free will of machines would no longer be relevant. If a machine can predict its behavior better than anyone/thing else, it has volition; otherwise, it does not.
ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) (05/26/88)
In article <894@maize.engin.umich.edu>, brian@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brian Holtz) writes: > 3. volition: the ability to identify significant sets of options and to > predict one's future choices among them, in the absence of any evidence > that any other agent is able to predict those choices. > > There are a lot of implications to replacing free will with my notion of > volition, but I will just mention three. > > - If my operationalization is a truly transparent one, then it is easy > to see that volition (and now-dethroned free will) is incompatible with > an omniscient god. Also, anyone who could not predict his behavior as > well as someone else could predict it would no longer be considered to > have volition. Why does the other predictor have to be an AGENT? "easy to see that ...?" Nope. You have to show that volition is imcompatible with perfect PAST knowledge first... "no longer considered to have volition ..." I've just been reading a book called "Predictable Pairing" (sorry, I've forgotten the author's) name, and if he's right it seems to me that a great many people do not have volition in this sense. If we met Hoyle's "Black Cloud", and it with its enormous computational capacity were to predict our actions better than we did, would that mean that we didn't have volition any longer, or that we had never had it? What has free will to do with prediction? Presumably a dog is not self conscious or engaged in predicting its activities, but does that mean that a dog cannot have free will? One thing I thought AI people were taught was "beware of the homunculus". As soon as we start identifying parts of our mental activity as external to "ourselves" we're getting into homunculus territory. For me, "to have free will" means something like "to act in accord with my own nature". If I'm a garrulous twit, people will be able to predict pretty confidently that I'll act like a garrulous twit (even though I may not realise this), but since I will then be behaving as I wish I will correctly claim free will.
jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) (05/29/88)
In article <894@maize.engin.umich.edu> brian@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brian Holtz) writes: >If you accept definition (1) (as I do), then the only alternative to >determinism is dualism, which I don't see too many people defending. Dualism wouldn't necessarily give free will: it would just transfer the question to the spiritual. Perhaps that is just as deterministic as the material.
brian@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brian Holtz) (05/31/88)
In article <1020@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>, ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: > In article <894@maize.engin.umich.edu>, brian@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brian > Holtz) writes: > > 3. volition: the ability to identify significant sets of options and to > > predict one's future choices among them, in the absence of any evidence > > that any other agent is able to predict those choices. > > > > There are a lot of implications to replacing free will with my notion of > > volition, but I will just mention three. > > > > - If my operationalization is a truly transparent one, then it is easy > > to see that volition (and now-dethroned free will) is incompatible with > > an omniscient god. Also, anyone who could not predict his behavior as > > well as someone else could predict it would no longer be considered to > > have volition. [proceeding excerpts not in any particular order] > For me, "to have free will" means something like "to act in accord with > my own nature". If I'm a garrulous twit, people will be able to predict > pretty confidently that I'll act like a garrulous twit (even though I > may not realise this), but since I will then be behaving as I wish I > will correctly claim free will. Recall that my definition of free will ("the ability to make at least some choices that are neither uncaused nor completely determined by physical forces") left little room for it to exist. Your definition (though I doubt you will appreciate being held to it this strictly) leaves too much room: doesn't a falling rock, or the average computer program, "act in accord with [its] own nature"? > One thing I thought AI people were taught was "beware of the homunculus". > As soon as we start identifying parts of our mental activity as external > to "ourselves" we're getting into homunculus territory. I agree that homunculi are to be avoided; that is why I relegated "the ability to make at least some choices that are neither uncaused nor completely determined by *external* physical forces" to being a definition not of free will, but of "self-determination". The free will that you are angling for sounds a lot like what I call self-determination, and I would welcome any efforts to sharpen the definition so as to avoid the externality/internality trap. So until someone comes up with a definition of free will that is better than yours and mine, I think the best course is to define free will out of existence and take my "volition" as the operationalized designated hitter for free will in our ethics. > What has free will to do with prediction? Presumably a dog is not > self conscious or engaged in predicting its activities, but does that > mean that a dog cannot have free will? Free will has nothing to do with prediction; volition does. The question of whether a dog has free will is a simple one with either your definition *or* mine. By my definition, nothing has free will; by yours, it seems to me that everything does. (Again, feel free to refine your definition if I've misconstrued it.) A dog would seem to have self-determination as I've defined it, but you and I agree that my definition's reliance on ex/in-ternality makes it a suspect categorization. A dog would clearly not have volition, since it can't make predictions about itself. And since volition is what I propose as the predicate we should use in ethics, we are happily exempt from extending ethical personhood to dogs. > "no longer considered to have volition ..." I've just been reading a > book called "Predictable Pairing" (sorry, I've forgotten the author's) > name, and if he's right it seems to me that a great many people do > not have volition in this sense. If we met Hoyle's "Black Cloud", and > it with its enormous computational capacity were to predict our actions > better than we did, would that mean that we didn't have volition any > longer, or that we had never had it? A very good question. It would mean that we no longer had volition, but that we had had it before. My notion of volition is contingent, because it depends on "the absence of any evidence that any other agent is able to predict" our choices. What is attractive to me about volition is that it would be very useful in answering ethical questions about the "free will" (in the generic ethical sense) of arbitrary candidates for personhood: if your AI system could demonstrate volition as defined, then your system would have met one of the necessary conditions for personhood. What is unnerving to me about my notion of volition is how contingent it is: if Hoyle's "Black Cloud" or some prescient god could foresee my behavior better than I could, I would reluctantly conclude that I do not even have an operational semblence of free will. My conclusion would be familiar to anyone who asserts (as I do) that the religious doctrine of predestination is inconsistent with believing in free will. I won't lose any sleep over this, though; Hoyle's "Black Cloud" would most likely need to use analytical techniques so invasive as to leave little of me left to rue my loss of volition.