Multiple Ways to Think and Free Will
The human and advanced robots have different "Ways to Think" as defined by Marvin Minsky
in The Emotion Machine. Each Way to Think derives from the use of some combination of the
resources we find in the human or robot brain. Each specific Way to Think uses a specific "set
of resources".
According to Ray Kurzweil, the human mind consists of several hundred modules. The
various combinations of these modules in varying degrees could be thought of as equivalent to
the "sets of resources" referred to by Marvin Minsky.
Once this view of the mind is understood, it is easier to understand how the same person may
have a different opinion on the same subject. Let us take a human who grew up in a relatively
free society and who has been taught and also believes that she has "free will". With
evolutionary psychology being a driving force, it is quite understandable that people with
minds capable of feeling that they have free will and are therefore responsible for their own
actions are more likely to survive than a society consisting of people who will not take
responsibility for their own actions. To reinforce this notion, it may also be helpful for a
society to have a religion which teaches the individuals that they have free will and will be
rewarded in the afterlife for "doing the right things" and punished in the afterlife for "doing the
wrong things".
Another way to think is to believe in determinism and that determinism means that humans
and robots only do what they are born to do. Just like a watch, a robot's or human's actions
are a result of mechanistic determinism. Some causes are from within and some are from
without (hence advertising exists). Even if you add randomness to robots and humans, they
still cannot logically have anything close to "free will", simply because they are machines or,
in the case of humans, meat machines.
Next
The human and advanced robots have different "Ways to Think" as defined by Marvin Minsky
in The Emotion Machine. Each Way to Think derives from the use of some combination of the
resources we find in the human or robot brain. Each specific Way to Think uses a specific "set
of resources".
According to Ray Kurzweil, the human mind consists of several hundred modules. The
various combinations of these modules in varying degrees could be thought of as equivalent to
the "sets of resources" referred to by Marvin Minsky.
Once this view of the mind is understood, it is easier to understand how the same person may
have a different opinion on the same subject. Let us take a human who grew up in a relatively
free society and who has been taught and also believes that she has "free will". With
evolutionary psychology being a driving force, it is quite understandable that people with
minds capable of feeling that they have free will and are therefore responsible for their own
actions are more likely to survive than a society consisting of people who will not take
responsibility for their own actions. To reinforce this notion, it may also be helpful for a
society to have a religion which teaches the individuals that they have free will and will be
rewarded in the afterlife for "doing the right things" and punished in the afterlife for "doing the
wrong things".
Another way to think is to believe in determinism and that determinism means that humans
and robots only do what they are born to do. Just like a watch, a robot's or human's actions
are a result of mechanistic determinism. Some causes are from within and some are from
without (hence advertising exists). Even if you add randomness to robots and humans, they
still cannot logically have anything close to "free will", simply because they are machines or,
in the case of humans, meat machines.
Next
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