Colloque

Belnap and McCall on Action Theory

Storrs Mccall

Membre a labase

Storrs Mccall

Résumé de la communication

Like Belnap, I base my conception of acting upon branching space-time, with the difference that the resulting indeterministic structure throws light not only on human action, but also on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The probability of a future event E is represented by the proportion of future branches on which E occurs. But if E is the action of an agent A, how is it that A can deliberately choose to perform E if E is an objectively probabilistic, undetermined event? Like many actions, e.g. walking down a crowded street, playing tennis, etc., deliberating and deciding to do E is a controlled indeterministic process. It is indeterministic because the eventual outcome is not determined from the start, and controlled because the different action-alternatives are weighted and weighed by A during deliberation, often very rapidly. Weighting and weighing are conscious events, and consequently if it seems to us that we weight E1 more heavily than E2, then we really do weight E1 more heavily, and if we seem to choose to do E1, then we do so choose. Although the neural functioning of the brain must be indeterministic if action-alternatives are to be kept open during deliberation, mental causation operates at the conscious level. What we do is determined by our choices, even though the motor neuron firings that lead to actions may be unpredictable in principle by neurological science.

Résumé du colloque

Cette activité de discussion théorique interdisciplinaire sur langage, pensée et action servira aussi de lancement au Québec du livre collectif de Daniel Vanderveken LOGIC, THOUGHT & ACTION paru dans la collection Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science de Springer en 2005. Les directeurs de la collection, John Symons (de l’université du Texas) et Shahid Rahman (de l’université de Lille) seront présents. Des conférenciers de marque étrangers et canadiens y participeront.