Machine wanting.

dc.contributor.author

McShea, Daniel W

dc.date.accessioned

2024-01-01T14:43:03Z

dc.date.available

2024-01-01T14:43:03Z

dc.date.issued

2013-12

dc.description.abstract

Wants, preferences, and cares are physical things or events, not ideas or propositions, and therefore no chain of pure logic can conclude with a want, preference, or care. It follows that no pure-logic machine will ever want, prefer, or care. And its behavior will never be driven in the way that deliberate human behavior is driven, in other words, it will not be motivated or goal directed. Therefore, if we want to simulate human-style interactions with the world, we will need to first understand the physical structure of goal-directed systems. I argue that all such systems share a common nested structure, consisting of a smaller entity that moves within and is driven by a larger field that contains it. In such systems, the smaller contained entity is directed by the field, but also moves to some degree independently of it, allowing the entity to deviate and return, to show the plasticity and persistence that is characteristic of goal direction. If all this is right, then human want-driven behavior probably involves a behavior-generating mechanism that is contained within a neural field of some kind. In principle, for goal directedness generally, the containment can be virtual, raising the possibility that want-driven behavior could be simulated in standard computational systems. But there are also reasons to believe that goal-direction works better when containment is also physical, suggesting that a new kind of hardware may be necessary.

dc.identifier

S1369-8486(13)00083-6

dc.identifier.issn

1369-8486

dc.identifier.issn

1879-2499

dc.identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/29573

dc.language

eng

dc.publisher

Elsevier BV

dc.relation.ispartof

Studies in history and philosophy of biological and biomedical sciences

dc.relation.isversionof

10.1016/j.shpsc.2013.05.015

dc.rights.uri

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0

dc.subject

Humans

dc.subject

Personal Satisfaction

dc.subject

Motivation

dc.subject

Goals

dc.subject

Logic

dc.subject

Artificial Intelligence

dc.subject

Computer Simulation

dc.subject

Synthetic Biology

dc.title

Machine wanting.

dc.type

Journal article

duke.contributor.orcid

McShea, Daniel W|0000-0001-9398-0025

pubs.begin-page

679

pubs.end-page

687

pubs.issue

4 Pt B

pubs.organisational-group

Duke

pubs.organisational-group

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

pubs.organisational-group

Biology

pubs.organisational-group

Philosophy

pubs.organisational-group

Institutes and Provost's Academic Units

pubs.organisational-group

Initiatives

pubs.organisational-group

Duke Science & Society

pubs.publication-status

Published

pubs.volume

44

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