X wrote:
>> Kooter wrote:
>> > > of course, 'AI' 'motivation' can be tailored, but in doing so, it ceases
> > to
> > > be 'AI' and is just another mechanism lacking Free Will.
> >
> > Humans don't have 'free will'. We are severly constrained by social
> > requirements. Does that mean that we are also 'just another mechanism
> > lacking free will'?
>> Definition of terms again: what is free will? Well, "will" translates loosely
> to a combination of intent and desire. You imply here that it means "free
> action".
>
How about LESS DETERMINED in the sense that we are a species which is beginning
to show signs of having some SERIOUS RESERVATIONS about blindly and obediently
caring out a number of nature's emotional mandates:
Lower Emotion
or
On What Its Like To Be A Bat
or
On Giving Homuncular Functionalists What They Say They Want
Presumably, mother nature has gone to a lot of trouble to evolve
our capacity for reflective thought precisely because it makes it
possible for us to have a fairly good idea of what will be in our
overall best interest. But if this is so, why then are there
motivational states, such as fear, anger, and sexual arousal,
which continually urge us to engage in episodes of strategic
stupidity on those innumerable occasions when, at some later
point in time, we end up having to ask ourselves, "Now why did I
do that?" I mean, if prudence is such hot stuff from an
evolutionary standpoint, why isn't mother making it easier for us
to exercise it more prudently?
The answer, I believe, is precisely what you might expect.
The reason the lower emotions seem so out of context with our
more reflective concerns is precisely because they are remnants
of a pre-reflective survivalist heritage -- vestigial remains of
ancient stimulus response mechanisms which, prior to the advent
of prudential insight, were chiefly responsible for perpetuating
ourselves and our genetic blueprints. And their lack of
continuity with our more reflective concerns is because, at some
point in our dark and distant past, survival was not the result
of any overall intention or "will" to survive, but simply the
non-intentional cumulative effect of a number of independent
intentions or "wills" to exhibit stereotyped responses to certain
immediate stimuli, but which were probably undertaken with little
if any understanding of the overall objective they were designed
to achieve.
But isn't this exactly what you would expect? After all,
the real mind blower in Darwin's hypothesis has always been the
realization that it isn't necessary to postulate the presence of
a conscious intention in the mind of a supreme being or what have
you in order to account for the existence of phenomenally complex
living organisms. And if you don't have to postulate a conscious
intention at the level of abstraction that Darwin was working at,
then you certainly don't have to postulate it at the level of the
individual organism. Simply put, that which best persists
persists and, as a simple law of mechanics, that applies
irrespective of whether or not anything is intending to do so.
In other words, the reason the lower emotions so often urge
us to engage in random acts of stupidity is because, in a manner
of speaking, they don't quite know what they are doing. Their
strategic incoherence is due to the fact that the id is not so
much an evil monster as a bunch of bungling idiots (Larry, Curly
and Moe come to mind) and in which case Freud's mistake was not
in positing homunculi (the id, ego and superego), as Ryle has
contended, as in not positing enough of them.
The Evolution of Prudence
If, as I have suggested, Darwin and the
incoherence of the lower emotions constitute evidence and
argumentation against the likelihood of a conscious intention to
survive in our pre-reflective ancestors, just where did the one
we have come from anyway?
Simple. As with moral concerns, prudence is not something
we are endowed with by nature, at least not directly. Instead,
it has to be drummed into us by our parents and others who have
preceded us into consciousness (e.g., cooling it with the candy).
As such, its obviously not so much the product of physical
evolution as the product of cultural evolution. Or, more
interestingly for present concerns, it can be construed as the
product of the evolution of rationality itself facilitated, no
doubt, by a combination of nature's constant tinkering with the
neural architecture and the eventual ability to transfer what, in
the beginning, at least, were probably simple conditioned
cognitions (memes, a la Dawkins) from one generation to the next.
What is most interesting here, if indeed we are talking
about the evolution of rationality and its bearing on the
determinism issue, is that it entails, not merely the transfer of
knowledge, but of values as well. For example, there would be
little point in coming to possess the knowledge of the long term
detriments of eating too much candy if you weren't also able to
eventually adopt the practice of overriding the internal mini-
program directing you to eat it which, one might speculate, could
be accomplished in one of two ways:
1. By simply following the rules handed down to you, based
on their having been related to you in terms of one of the mini-
programs of the old survival system (you'll get a spanking), and
in which case there has been a transfer of benefits if not a
transfer of values and insights. The moral analogue of this
might be obeying the ten commandments so you don't end up with an
eternal spanking.
2. By yourself becoming endowed with the insights which have
led to the practice including:
a. Some appreciation for the rationale of the practice,
perhaps based on past experience and your resultant ability to
empathize with your future self and the position he will be in
(rotten teeth) if you don't override the old survival system's
mini-program. This would result in an increase in the value
attached to those mere representations of distant concerns. The
moral analogue for this would be loving others more than the
natural ideal (not at all) based on the ability to empathize with
the mere represented concerns of others.
b. Some appreciation of the fact that one "ought" to be
prudent, based in part on the insight that rational creatures
operate from a more global perspective which is, for some
abstruse reason, superior (the ego) to that of creatures whose
thought and behavior is totally determined by the mini-programs
of the old survival system (the id). However, coming up with an
explanation for the origin of this insight is a little tougher
and would result in straying a little further afield than I care
to at this juncture. The moral analogue would be some
appreciation for the fact that one "ought" to love others more
than the natural ideal (not at all) based in part on the insight
that rational creatures operate from a more global perspective
which is, for some abstruse reason, superior (the super ego) to
that of creatures totally determined by the prudence program (the
ego, i.e., self-concern).
c. Finally, it seems to me that before you could override
any of the mini-programs of the old survival system you would
need one final ingredient. You would need to devalue the
necessity of completing the mini-program, that is to say, re-
evaluate its necessity relative to other values (e.g.,
represented future concerns) rather than in the absolute manner
of a determined entity. But, before you can do that, it seems
likely that you would have to be able to "see" the mini-program
from "outside the system", that is to say, from a more objective
viewpoint, perhaps as a component in a larger more valued
program. Only then might you invoke the option to no longer be
determined by it if and when it was, as we say, prudent. And
since we are often prudent, or at least some of us are, that must
be precisely what has happened in homo sapiens.
-- Implied References --
1. What Is It Like To Be A Bat, Thomas Nagel
2. On Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want, D. C. Dennett
--
Phil Roberts, Jr.
The Mechanics of Genetic Indeterminism
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/
Feelings of Worthlessness from the Perspective of
So-Called Cognitive Science
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5476
