And my work, in a sense, can be viewed as unraveling the exact form of that strange abstract knowledge we can possess; whereby, not knowing the actions, we can justifiably know the consequence.
You need to learn control theory. There is nothing strange about the situation you describe: this is a characteristic of all control systems, and hence of pretty much any prediction you try to make about living organisms (or AIs).
If I set the room thermostat to 20°C, I can predict what the temperature will be in the room for the indefinite future. I will not be able to predict when it will turn the heating on and off (or in hotter places, the air conditioning), because that will depend on the weather outside, which I cannot predict, and the number of people or other power sources in the room, about which I may know nothing. I can do no better than a very mushy prediction that the heating will be turned on for a greater proportion of the night than the day, and less during a LAN party. Not knowing the actions, we can justifiably know the consequence. This is an entirely unmysterious fact about control systems—it is what they do.
It is also isomorphic to the situations of predicting that Kasparov will beat Mr. G and that the driver will arrive at the airport. People act so as to achieve goals. The actions will depend on the ongoing circumstances: each action will be whatever is effective at that moment in reaching the goal. In all three examples, the circumstances cannot be predicted, therefore the actions cannot be predicted. Not knowing the actions, we can justifiably know the consequence.
We can justifiably know the consequence because the result is not merely a consequence of the actions: the actions were chosen to produce the result. That is why we need not know of the actions. We only need know that there is a system in place that is able to choose such actions. Even when it is a black box, we can tell that there is a control system inside by observing the very fact that the result is consistent while the actions vary.
For the thermostat, we know exactly how it chooses its actions. For the driver’s task, we almost know enough to duplicate the feat, if not the actual mechanism in the driver. For Kasparov, we know almost nothing about how he wins at chess. But this is merely ignorance, not mysteriousness. His track record demonstrates that he can defeat all ordinary masters of the game. Knowing that he can, we can predict that he will.
You need to learn control theory. There is nothing strange about the situation you describe: this is a characteristic of all control systems, and hence of pretty much any prediction you try to make about living organisms (or AIs).
If I set the room thermostat to 20°C, I can predict what the temperature will be in the room for the indefinite future. I will not be able to predict when it will turn the heating on and off (or in hotter places, the air conditioning), because that will depend on the weather outside, which I cannot predict, and the number of people or other power sources in the room, about which I may know nothing. I can do no better than a very mushy prediction that the heating will be turned on for a greater proportion of the night than the day, and less during a LAN party. Not knowing the actions, we can justifiably know the consequence. This is an entirely unmysterious fact about control systems—it is what they do.
It is also isomorphic to the situations of predicting that Kasparov will beat Mr. G and that the driver will arrive at the airport. People act so as to achieve goals. The actions will depend on the ongoing circumstances: each action will be whatever is effective at that moment in reaching the goal. In all three examples, the circumstances cannot be predicted, therefore the actions cannot be predicted. Not knowing the actions, we can justifiably know the consequence.
We can justifiably know the consequence because the result is not merely a consequence of the actions: the actions were chosen to produce the result. That is why we need not know of the actions. We only need know that there is a system in place that is able to choose such actions. Even when it is a black box, we can tell that there is a control system inside by observing the very fact that the result is consistent while the actions vary.
For the thermostat, we know exactly how it chooses its actions. For the driver’s task, we almost know enough to duplicate the feat, if not the actual mechanism in the driver. For Kasparov, we know almost nothing about how he wins at chess. But this is merely ignorance, not mysteriousness. His track record demonstrates that he can defeat all ordinary masters of the game. Knowing that he can, we can predict that he will.