HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:13:45 GMT

In article <BtA916.9EI@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
>rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>> 
>> I guess we have different concepts of "rapid learning".  Learning over
>> a lifetime seems anything but rapid.  Most learning of culture is quite
>> slow.  Dealing with crisis and emergency situations, on the other hand,
>> requires rapid learning.
>
>That's true, but also an extreme case, if I understand your meaning. 
>I think learning over a lifetime is quite rapid when compared with the
>general rate of genetic `learning'.  And if you subscribe to the

Agreed, any learning is rapid compared with evolutionary changes.  But
we were discussing consciousness.  Gradual learning over an extended
period - say your lifetime - appears to be largely unconscious.  Learning
which involves consciousness is much more rapid.

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rudis+@cs.cmu.edu (Rujith S DeSilva)
Subject: Freewill, chaos and digital systems
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 16:00:32 GMT

(1) Does freewill arise solely through the mechanism of chaos?
(2) Can digital systems exhibit chaos (as opposed to simulating it to a
    limited extent)?
(3) What if a digital system is coupled to a chaotic system, e.g., some sort
    of unstable oscillator that can be sampled to give one bit of information?

Just some random thoughts that popped into my head ... comments solicited.

Rujith de Silva.
Carnegie-Mellon University.

// Ivy: What Roman golfers shouted //
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: danny@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Danny Faught)
Subject: Re: Basic definitions
Organization: University of North Texas, Denton
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 20:32:35 GMT

In article <1992Aug10.211239.17308@access.usask.ca> choy@skorpio.usask.ca writes
>  . information
>
>    In the physical universe, there may be no such thing as information.   
...
>    At the lowest levels information is an abstraction.                    
>
How about this theory: Information exists only as the links between the
structures of the brain.  There is no neuron in your brain with a little
sticky note that says "Dog" on it.  Instead, that neuron is connected
with the other neurons that collectively define what a dog is, e.g., 
four legged, hairy, use to have one named Fido, etc.  These neurons
are in turn defined only by what they are connected to.

This definition may seem to have no ground case; to have no foundation.
How about this - The only thing the brain communicates with externally
is the central nervous system(*), and in turn, senses of what is going on
both internal and external to the body.  All information in the brain
is built around past experiences with the connections to the nervous
system.

(*) I guess I should acknowledge that there are other channels 
of communication as well, but that shouldn't change the argument.

You could argue that some of the information in the brain is pre-
fabricated, and that is how we have our instincts when we are 
born, and that is what everything else is built on.  But I won't
get into that.

Just my $0.01 (probably not worth $0.02)

>Henry Choy
>choy@cs.usask.ca
>



-- 
Danny Faught    danny@ponder.csci.unt.edu
Save this sig - I'll be famous someday
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: marky@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young)
Subject: Re: Defining intelligence
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 04:43:25 GMT

%r bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
>marky@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) writes:
>
>   >   > That is, [something is more intelligent than me if] it does
>   >   > things the way I would if I'd had more time to think about
>   >   > them, or that I would do given its example. 
>
>How about the following:  Adolph Hitler was pretty intelligent, I
>think, maybe more intelligent than me, but I hope that I would never
>do things the way he did, regardless of how much time I had to think
>about them.  (If Hitler seems like a dubious example, substitute
>Satan.)
>
This is a good point.  My defence is that it says "does things the 
way I would", which -- to me at least -- indicates that we are only
talking about the things that we both do.  The things that you or I
would not do are thus not relevent to how intelligent we judge the
other to be (unless of course we're talking about things we wouldn't
do because they're abysmally stupid -- things like the Three Stooges
would do).

I want to say again that I am not offering the above as a definition
of intelligence, but only as a rule of thumb that people use to tell
whether someone else is intelligent.  Like any rule of thumb, there
are caveats all over the place.  The rule only applies to things
that people believe are related to intelligence (putting on socks and
shoes is not related -- Archie Bunker notwithstanding).  The rule is
inapplicable if one or the other of you is incapable of doing something
the way the other did.  Et cetera, et cetera.

>Even better, consider Isaac Newton, who was, no question, far more
>intelligent than me, yet devoted a major part of his life to what I
>think of as theological nonsense.
>
Well that was pretty stupid of him, wasn't it.... :-)

>	-- Bill

...mark young
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT AI Laboratory
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 02:45:27 GMT

In article <BILL.92Aug12122254@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>marky@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) writes:
>>We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes
>> the part of A in this game?"  Will the interrogator decide wrongly
>> as often when the game is played like this as he does when the
>> game is played between a man and a woman?  These questions
> >replace  our original, "Can machines think?"
>
>Okay, I was wrong.  It was me who was confused.  But it's hard for me
>to believe that Turing actually realized what he was saying when he
>wrote this.  Suppose it turned out that interrogators could
>distinguish between men and women 100% of the time, and they could
>also distinguish between men and computers 100% of the time.  Would
>this imply that computers think as much like men as women do?
>Obviously not.
>
>... I might be right, or I might be wrong, but it doesn't seem
reasonable
>that the question whether I'm right or wrong has anything to do with
>the question whether machines can think.
 
Turing DID realize what he was saying, but most people seemed to have
missed his point.
 
Yes, the question has very little to do with "whether machines can
think".  That's because Turing considered that sinmply to be too
ill-defined a question to be worthy of attention.  And that's
precisely why he proposed to *replace* -- rather than answer the
question "Can machines think?"  So, the Turing Test is *not* to
determine whether machines can think, but simply to see just what it
might take in order to get people to believe that a machine can think.
And he proposes only a sufficient condition for this, not a necessary
condition.
 
By the way, this group was productive until it caught this disease of
trying to define intelligence.  Turing wrote his paper precisely
because he considered this an unproductive activity.
From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Basic definitions
Date: 14 Aug 92 03:39:03 GMT
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

Allen Renear writes:

   > I feel quite sure of things of this sort...
   > -- I believe I have a hand
   >   [ . . . ]
   >
   > I'm not nearly so sure of things of this sort (although I believe
   > them true)... 
   > -- I have a hand
   > [ . . . ]

Yes, this is exactly how Descartes reasoned in his *Meditations*; it
leads inevitably to dualism.

The best counter I have seen is Raymond Smullyan's essay "An
Epistemological Nightmare", which is reprinted in *The Mind's I*
(edited by Hofstadter and Dennett).  Dennett's chapter on qualia in
*Consciousness Explained* explores the issue in greater depth.

	-- Bill
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Freewill, chaos and digital systems
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 01:43:31 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.223414.26094@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>
>Perhaps the question is whether the decision-making process we feel we go
>through has any meaning or effect?  My own opinion is that it does--
>in fact, that part of the whole purpose of consciousness is this
>process of mental simulation and choice.  However, I also think we're not
>set up for very insightful analysis of our own cognition, and that we're
>not as free as we think we are.  We can see the unfreedom in *other* people's
>decision-making; there we call it "prejudice"!

I do agree that the array of choices we see is real, but that we are
much more constrained than we are willing to believe in the choices we
can actually make.  Our culture, our upbringing, etc, are very effective
in conditioning our choices.  We are much more subject to "brain washing"
than we would like to believe.  Education does change behavior and not
just convey factual information.  The media are very influential on our
behavior, although most of us would say that we ourselves are immune
but we can see the effects on most other people.  [And, of course, in
this electioneering season, let us not forget that political speeches
are designed not to inform, but to change our voting behavior.]

I guess that paragraph above sounds terribly cynical, although it was
not so intended.

>Or perhaps we're asking if our decision-making process is externally 
>predictable?  Here I think there are good physical reasons to say no:
>not only does quantum unpredictability affect our brain, but the
>impossibility of ascertaining or replicating the initial conditions
>derails our simulation device.

I suspect you don't even need quantum effects for this.  The complexity
is so high, that a prediction is computationally infeasible.  And, in
a Heisenberg-like manner, the attempt to gain the information to do the
computation will very likely cause enough disturbance to significantly
change the outcome.

Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:5778 sci.cognitive:314
From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.cognitive
Subject: Heuristic Dynamic Programming
Keywords: dynamic programming
Date: 12 Aug 92 12:50:58 GMT
Followup-To: sci.cognitive
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

Just a short note concerning Paul Werbos' heuristic dynamic programming
(HDP). HDP is actually a link between two disparent areas of artificial
intelligence: neural networks and AI planners. This is because a heuristic
dynamic program is actually a plan consisting of a set of local goals and
linkages that if followed will lead to a long-term strategic goal. I am
willing to speculate that the function of the cerebellar cortex is to
store these plans, indexed by strategic goal, and replay them on command.
I'm also willing to speculate that there is a chaotic process that runs in
the cerebral cortex that is used to generate candidate plans for
optimization and later storage in the cerebellar cortex.

Cheers,
-- 
Harry Erwin
Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com

Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:5843 sci.cognitive:350
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Date: 18 Aug 92 16:11:51 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <Bt6K1u.Iyr@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
>
>This reminds me of a theory of culture I learned in anthropology as an
>undergrad.  One explanation of the function of culture is that it
>allows for adaptation to environment on a more rapid basis than
>genetic change.

>What does this have to do with consciousness?  Consciousness seems
>necessary to make culture work.  (In some sense, culture and genetics

While I agree with this assessment of culture, I would hesitate to say
that it can be used as an explanation of consciousness.  Certainly you
need consciousness for culture to work.  But in my view, consciousness
of some degree exists in many other animals (perhaps all mammals, for
example), and culture has little significance to most of these.  It
stretches credulity to suggest that the blind mechanisms of evolution
had so much forsight as to create something for purposes that would
eventually show up with the appearance of homo sapiens.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: don@syscon.rn.com (Don McLane)
Subject: Re: Freewill, chaos and digital systems
Organization: Syscon Corporate Headquarters - South Bend, IN USA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 14:42:40 GMT

erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:

>rudis+@cs.cmu.edu (Rujith S DeSilva) writes:

>>(1) Does freewill arise solely through the mechanism of chaos?

>All the answers you'll get on this one will be speculative. I suspect
>chaos is part of it, but not all.

I was just thinking about this, so here's my speculation: I think the
feeling of freewill may arise from our disconnectedness with the
past.  The past doesn't seem to determine us; we feel like
autonomous agents.  But, if the world is chaotic, our present
mental state is the result of uncountable insignificant details.
We can't trace the causal chain backwards, so we feel free.

So, I say yes, the feeling (illusion?) of freewill arises solely
through the mechanism of chaos.

		   ---Don
From: leao@buphy0.bu.edu (Joao Leao)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Loebner Prize Competition Transcripts 1991 #0
Keywords: Turing Test
Date: 18 Aug 92 22:18:51 GMT


Encouraged by the number of people who showed interest in the
transcripts of the 1991 Loebner Prize competition thanks to Gail Jenes,
Liz Armbuster and Steve Snow of the Boston Computer Museum.

For those who don't know the Loebner Prize is awarded yearly to the
program/machine which fools the largest number of judges into believing
it is another human being. The context of dialogue is what the steering
committee (consisting of several AI-all-stars including Dan Dennett, Joe
Weizenbaum (a.k.a Feigenbaum), of Eliza fame, and Willard vanOrman
Quine(!) ) calls the "Restricted Turing Test". This means that the
subject of the conversation is established a-priori and the human judge
is not allowed to steer very obviously from it. Referees were placed
beside the judges to enforce this rulling. 

You should know that the judges (10 of them) were selected from the
pool of people who answered an add placed in a Boston paper asking
for people with particular lack of knowledge of computers. The same
was required of the "Confederates", the human placebos who were 
supposed to keep a pretty straighforward "normal" conversation.

The judges were told that there were at least 2 Programs and at
least 2 Confederates behind the 10 terminals. Two of the conversations
never started due to techical problems. 

The judges were required to move to a new terminal after about 18
minutes of conversation and the changes were draw at random. The
transcripts have the judges numbers indicated and the changes.

Lineups for the 1991 Loebner Prize competition:

Terminal 1      "Women's Clothing"             


Terminal 2      "Small Talk"                   
                                               

Terminal 3      "Second Grade School Topics"   
                                               

Terminal 4      "Shakespeare's Plays"          


Terminal 5      "Whimsical Conversation"       
                                               

Terminal 6      Out Of Service                 


Terminal 7      "Problems in Romantic          
                Relationships"                 

Terminal 8      "Burgundy Wines"               
                                               

Terminal 9      Out Of Service                 


Terminal 10     "Martinis"                     
                                               

I will post the identification of the terminals after the last
post. I do not have the final results of the Judges votes but
will try to get them from the Institute for Behavioural Studies
who sponsored the event.




-- 
Joao Pedro Leao (Artificial Iconoclast and Director of Computer Resources
Artificial Physics Lab * Boston University - Physics Dept. Boston MA 02215)
 	leao@buphy.bu.edu | leao@buphyc.bitnet | BUPHYC::LEAO 
"Well I am sitting here in Tahiti/ I am laying in the sun and sipping a...
...chartreuse tropical drink!/ and I say: I know those Bermuda shorts!..."
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 04:58:34 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.230220.23021@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>
>Well, yes.  It seems to me that we use the word "intelligence" in
>regard to mental performances that we admire.

  As long as we view intelligence this way, our investigation of
intelligence will be about as scientific as if we used ouija boards or
tarot cards.  Physics started to make strides only after Galileo questioned
common assumptions.  Astronomy took of after Copernicus questioned the
obvious beliefs.  Likewise chemistry, biology, and probably many other
fields.

>  ....                                         -- and this means that
>the "definition" is relative to someone's values and goals.

 Right.  And this means that there is no objectivity to the study of
intelligence.  It will not deserve being called a science until these
subjective views are rejected.

>                                                             Also, if
>I know a lot about how you solved a problem, then I regard it as more
>a "skill" than as an intelligent performance.  

 And perhaps when we know how intelligence works, we will decide that
it too is only a skill and not an intelligent performance. :-(  I think
this is what some people are afraid of, and this is why they will refuse
to question conventional subjective views.

>                                       This leads people to worry
>about whether rocks or plants are intelligent, and similar silly
>things.

 I don't really think anybody is particularly worried about whether
rocks or plants are intelligent.  These questions are introduced only
as a way of questioning the conventional views of intelligence, or as
a way of ridiculing those who do try to break from the conventional.

>AS for philosophy, I wish I could agree with Skaggs but, for the past
>century, it seems to me, the methods of philosophy have lagged too far
>behind those of psychology and (more recently) of AI to be taken
>seriously.  Except for Dennett and maybe a couple of other
>professionals.

  The difference with Dennett is that he does dare to question commonly
held assumptions.  He is trying to bring the subject closer to being a
science.
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Freewill, chaos and digital systems
Date: 19 Aug 92 21:02:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: mp.1992Aug19.210204.29868
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <Bt4xt1.MA0.1@cs.cmu.edu> rudis+@cs.cmu.edu (Rujith S DeSilva) writes:
>(1) Does freewill arise solely through the mechanism of chaos?

Here is one way of looking at free will.

PART I

Usually we think of free will as the ability to make a decision, and
have that decision affect what we do in the future.  That is, we make a
choice, and can stick to that choice.

Now keep in mind what it means to "make a choice".  This choice is
something that happens in your thoughts.  Your thoughts are not
something etherial and mystical which happens in some never never land
far away; your thoughts are events that occur in your brain.  Neurons
are activated; electro-chemical actions occur.

So, the question of free will is just the question of whether this
event in your brain - the decision event - can influence future events
in your brain.  Now this, surely, is what determinism is all about.
Free will requires a high degree of deterministic behavior in the
functioning of your brain.  Our sense that we have free will is really
a strong argument for determinism.

PART II

You might now ask about your thoughts.  Perhaps it is correct that
decisions affect future behavior deterministically.  But what about
your decision.  Were you really free to make that decision?  Or does
determinism somehow mean that your decision is determined in advance?
Is free will a sham?  Is life just a charade?

Well, yes, your decision is determined in advance, but no, free will is
not a sham, and life is not a charade.  Consider the following
imaginary conversation:

    "Whom did you vote for in the last election?"

         "I voted for A."

    "Could you have voted for B?"

         "I have free will.  Of course I could have voted for B if I
         wished."

    "That's not quite what I mean.  Think back to the way you felt
    during that election.  Now, could you really have voted for B?"

         "Well, no.  There is no way I could have voted for B.  I have
         very strong principles, and his policies violated those
         principles."

Now think for a moment about what those principles might be.  They are
not something mystical or etherial.  The principles consist of
something which is encoded in your brain.  This physical substance
which represents your principles is part of the universe, and is part
of what determines your action.  So, yes, you decision on how to vote
was indeed predetermined.  But it was not a sham; your reasoning was
not a charade.  The physical conditions which predetermined your vote
was that physical substance in your brain which represents your
principles.  Your reasoning was completely correct.  It was your
principles, or their physical embodiment, which determined your vote.
From: paulh@cs.uq.oz.au (Paul Henman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Parallel Turing Machines
Keywords: Parellel Turing Machines
Date: 21 Aug 92 00:53:06 GMT
Reply-To: paulh@cs.uq.oz.au

I understand that it has been proven that multiple Turing machines in 
parallel is equivalent to a single Turing machine.  Does anyone have
a reference for the proof?

Please post directly to me, not the newsgroup.

Paul Henman  (paulh@cs.uq.oz.au)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 13:15:42 GMT

erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
> This is a summary of recent comments on consciousness.
[...]
> I have a comment on this: The dynamics of cultural and genetic
> transmission differ. In particular, genetic transmission can't track the
> evolution of a chaotic strategy, while cultural transmission can. (This is
> based on some simulation work and an analysis of why a difference was
> apparent in that work.) This is the reason that I believe social group
> behavior and consciousness are connected.

Could you elaborate on this a bit?  I am curious about what you mean
by "genetic transmission can't track the evolution of a chaotic
strategy, while cultural transmission can."

</dev/cam
--
      Cameron Shelley        |"In the beginning, there was nothing.  Then
cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca  | God said `Let there be light', and there
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     | was still nothing, but youse could see it."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  | --Dave Thomas, SCTV:_Sunrise Semester_