SUTHERS@cs.umass.EDU (06/17/88)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 23:37 EDT From: SUTHERS%cs.umass.edu@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Why I hope Aaron HAS disposed of the Free Will issue To: AIList-REQUEST@mc.lcs.mit.edu X-VMS-To: IN%"AIList-REQUEST@mc.lcs.mit.EDU",SUTHERS Just a few years ago, I would have been delighted to be able to participate in a network discussion on free will. Now I skip over these discussions in the AIList. Why does it seem fruitless? Many of the arguments seem endless, perhaps because they are arguments about conclusions rather than assumptions. We disagree about conclusions and argue, while never stating our assumptions. If we did the latter, we'd find we simply disagree, and there would be nothing to argue about. But Aaron Sloman has put his finger on the pragmatic side of why these discussions (though engaging for some), seem to be without progress. Arguments about generic, undefined categories don't impact on *what we do* in AI: the supposed concept does not have an image in the design decisions we must make in building computational models of interesting behaviors. So in the future, if these discussions must continue, I hope that the participants will have the discipline to try to work out how the supposed issues at stake and their positions on them impact on what we actually do, and use examples of the same in their communications as evidence of the relevancy of the discussion. It is otherwise too easy to generate pages of heated discussion which really tell us nothing more than what our own prejudices are (and even that is only implicit). -- Dan Suthers