HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: paul@colosus.convergent.com (Paul Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
Date: 15 Oct 92 21:26:54 GMT
Reply-To: paul@colosus.convergent.com
Organization: UNISYS Unix Systems Group, San Jose, Ca.

In article <1258@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:

| In article <11609@risky.Convergent.COM> paul@colosus.convergent.com writes:

|> The only way in which it can be shown that the execution of an algorithm
|> of some particular sort cannot _fly_like_a_bird_ is to show that some
|> critical portion of the process used by _birds_in_flight_ is not
|> representable as some algorithm.
|>
|> I expect to have my PC flying around my living room any day now, as soon as I
|> come up with the right algorithm. ;^)
|
| This has been gone over before.  That argument is only equivalent to mine
| *if* thought is primarily a physical, rather than a cybernetic, process.
|
| Since this is cerainly not obvious - it requires demonstration.

Well, I think it is only prudent to assume that consciousness is a physical
process that occurs in brains, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.
To argue that it is some property that arises out of the computation of an
algorithm smacks of mysticism to me.

My point was that the mere fact that some phenomenon is computable does not
mean that the phenomenon _is_ a computation, which is what you seem to be
saying.

| At the current state of technology it is more *useful* to continue to do
| research on the tentative assumption that thining is primarily cybernetic.
| If, in the future, evidence to the contrary shows up, we will have lost
| little.  If the assumtion is true, then we will have made major progress
| towards AI.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that AI reasearch is not useful -
just that it is unlikely to result in the creation of a conscious entity.

| -- 
| sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
|   or
| Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

-- 
Paul Zimmerman                   |     "I toast, therefore I am."
paul@colosus.convergent.com      |       - AI toaster from _Red Dwarf_
From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Date: 14 Oct 92 03:32:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: meteor.1992Oct14.033233.14444
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

>>>>>> On 12 Oct 92 22:40:08 GMT, minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) said:

>> In other words, does Searle suggest any reason why the mind-stuff is
>> secreted by the hydrocarbons -- rather than the equally plausible
>> (and more widely believed) hypothesis that the breath of life comes
>> directly from the Good Lord?

No, nor does anyone propose any reason why subjective experience "emerges"
by some wierd coincidence from algorithmic processing, independent of
the nature of the platform, although this bizarre hypothesis has its
adherents as well. Unfortunately, none of these hypotheses is testable,
and all have equal standing in science, that is, virtually nil. Or should
have equal standing, anyway.

In article <1992Oct14.023633.14791@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:

>I'm still having trouble.  This seems to say that a computer could
>think, with the right program, but not _solely_ by virtue of being a
>computer with the right sort of program? So there must be another
>secret ingredient, e.g., the virtue of sentience or, let's say, a
>soul.  I see no reason to consider this more seriously than any other
>religious or vitalistic bit of dogma.  Do you disagree?  Why can't I
>insist that a Boojum is necessary as well.

Um, but I have no need to postulate a Boojum; I AM a Boojum. There is
no reasonable level of abstraction from objective phenomena to subjective
ones. Hence, there is a consistent phenomenon inaccessible to objective
science, and objective science is necessarily an incomplete model of the
universe.

>On second thought, I think I better postulate two Boojums.  Otherwise
>what would we say if Searle declares that thinking cannot occur
>_solely_ by virtue of a single Boojum?

:-) Gee, I wish you people weren't all so clever and charming. I mean
this quite without sarcasm. It would be easier to oppose you tooth and
nail if I didn't actually like you and suspect you had Boojums.

mt
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
From: 9211116j@levels.unisa.edu.au
Date: 14 Oct 92 09:52:59 +0930
 <1992Oct8.174224.20547@meteor.wisc.edu> <1992Oct8.202536.4796@u.washington.edu>
Organization: University of South Australia

Gary Forbis writes:
 
> I suspect that for consciousness to arise, there must be some synchronization
> between the entity being conscious and the thing about which the entity is
> conscious.  That is to say, it seems unlikely to me that an entity will be
> conscious of events which cannot be presented to it within the natural time
> scale of its recognition.  Events may be so short that the entity only
> perceives spurious events of no consequence.  Events may be so long that the
> entity only perceives stability.

This surely applies to animals with "processing" capabilities much
short of consciousness. An animal which doesn't quite make the grade
gets eaten :-).

Q. Would we recognise a conscious entity that was operating at a
different "processing" rate than ours as conscious?

Mike Sunners
From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Human intelligence vs. Machine intelligence
Date: 8 Oct 92 10:00:18 GMT

Chris Malcolm writes:
 > In article <BvM75v.AEF@eis.calstate.edu> wstein@eis.calstate.edu (William K. Stein) writes:
 > >rob@apache.dtcc.edu (Rob Jarman) writes:
 > 
 > >> I'm looking for information or references on human intelligence vs.
 > >> machine intelligence for a research paper. Could any of you help?
 > 
 > >  Read Penrose's,  "The Emporer's New Mind".  All the rest is nonesense.
 > 
 > In "The Mind's I" by Hofstadter and Dennet you will find many
 > interesting essays on this topic, including Turing's famous "Computing
 > Machinery and Intelligence" paper, one of the first, and still one of
 > the best, ever written on this topic. You will find a number of papers
 > written by both experts in artificial intelligence, and serious
 > critics of aritificla intelligence, in "Mind Design" by John
 > Haugeland.
 > 
 > Penrose, although a famous physicist, can't be counted as an expert in
 > this field.
 > [....]

(Roger) Penose trained in projective geometry (pure mathematics). He
applied his ideas into the field of applied mathematics (theoretical
physics) and invented twistor theory for application in General
Relativity.

When I spoke to him a few years ago (after he gave a talk on "TENM"),
he was *not* aware of non-deterministic methods lilke simulated
annealing and genetic algorithms.

I am sure that his aware of these now.

Gordon.
____

Gordon Joly      Phone  +44 71 387 7050 ext 3703      FAX  +44 71 387 1397
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk        UUCP: ...!{uunet,uknet}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT
From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: cheap thoughts from a human
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:03:54 GMT

GE0QC@CUNYVM.BITNET writes:
 > Probably this has been gone over in this group, but I'll mention it anyway.
 >   One of the first things that occured to me when I got into AL was that
 > the major difference (evolutionary step) between a human brain and a computer
 > brain, is that a computer brain will be able to self-evolve.
 >   If a computer entity is convinced that a change in its   algorithmwould
 > enhance it's capabilities all it has to do is change its algrorithm.
 > Depending on what one believes a change to be, we can do it through
 > meditation, drugs, shrinks, whatever. But alas none of us can easily upgrade
 > our brains.
 > Well, to skip a lot of mombo jombo (sp?).
 > I believe computers will be a future descendant speciesof humanity.
 > That will be able to:
 >      a)live forever
 >      b)self-evolve
 >      c)travel at the speed of light to established points (kinda cool)
 >      d)have no permanent need for a sun
 >      e)carry sex to a level beyond my imagination
 >      f)and more
 > 
 > comments, replys, harangues, please.
 > 
 > Levi
 > ge0qc@cunyvm


>>>>>>>>>>>>>   e)carry sex to a level beyond my imagination

No need for a computer to that....

____

Gordon Joly      Phone  +44 71 387 7050 ext 3703      FAX  +44 71 387 1397
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk        UUCP: ...!{uunet,uknet}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT
From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
Organization: UTCS Public Access
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:46:27 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.040228.2117@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
...........
>of birth and death. My claim is not that consciousness is independent of
>brain function. It is only that brain function is insufficient to produce
                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>consciousness by virtue of any known or plausible objectively verifiable
>physical phenomenon. Similarly, your examples of the fascinating qualia
>that result from various brain injuries miss the point. Clearly the brain
>has something to do with it. My point is that we are still utterly
>mystified as to what that might be.
>
This is a very strong and totally unsupported statement. Yes, we have no
idea how known physical phenomena may give rise to consciousness, but there
is a long way from there to stating that they are insufficient. Our ignorance
does not make them insufficient. It is more plausible to assume our ignorance
of how known physical laws combine in such a complex system (there is plenty
of evidence of similiar situations in other fields, even less complex) then 
invent mysterious, ethereal phenomena for which there is NO evidence.
>
>mt

Andrzej Pindor
-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 17:22:08 GMT

In article <26609@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <BARRY.92Oct6151915@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu> barry@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu (Barry Kort) writes:
>
>>Daniel Dennett ... saw no reason
>>why intelligence and consciousness could not reside in a sufficiently
>>powerful computer processor.
>
>I'm sure he intended the processor to be running suitable software :-)
>Given that rider, this is hardly controversial. Contrary to popular
>opinion, even Searle of Chinese Roon fame agrees with that, as he made
                                                       ^^^^
>plain in the Jan 1990 edition of Scientific American.

It seems to me that Dennett and Searle are in irreconcilable opposition 
over this issue, as Dennett made clear in "Consciousness Explained" [p.439].  
Perhaps therefore you could make the referent of "that" above more clear:  
what do Dennett and Searle agree on?
From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:06:04 GMT
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor Northwest, Beaverton Oregon

In article <1992Oct14.033233.14444@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>>>>>>> On 12 Oct 92 22:40:08 GMT, minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) said:
>No, nor does anyone propose any reason why subjective experience "emerges"
>by some wierd coincidence from algorithmic processing, independent of
>the nature of the platform, although this bizarre hypothesis has its
>adherents as well. Unfortunately, none of these hypotheses is testable,
>and all have equal standing in science, that is, virtually nil. Or should
>have equal standing, anyway.

Here is why: You have already told us that your hypothesis (consciousness
impossible to explore via scientific techniques) has only one consequence,
namely, itself: no theory of consciousness is possible. Operational
consequence: no exploration made.

If you, or any scientist decides to explore anyway, by that very act
you are operationally assuming that it _is_ possible to come up with
a theory of consciousness, and potentially possible to create one.

Which working hypothesis is likelier to teach us anything? The latter.
The former goes nowhere at all.

Unless you can come up with something better than "I find the idea
disturbing..." or "you haven't come up with anything yet..." your
argument is a total nonstarter.

BTW: Trying to patch up Searle's argument by saying that you find it
"improbable" that it is the interaction between the cpu and the
rules that has the understanding (rather than the human cpu) is to try
to patch up the argument by adding the conclusion as an assumption.

Still waiting for a response to that.


>mt

Max
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:03:54 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.152444.21325@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu 
(Michael Tobis) writes:
>Note that it was Thingumbob, not the Snark, who vanished. I think it
>very plausible that Carroll really was talking about the hunt for the
>ineffable among the effed. Note this typical AI argument at the beginning
>of the epic:
>
>	"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
>		That alone should encourage the crew.
>	Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
>		What I tell you three times is true."

If anyone has been attempting arguments by assertion here, Michael, it's
you.  I don't recall your providing a single argument in favor of your
dualistic idea of mind.  (Distaste for materialism is not an argument.)
At the same time none of your interlocutors, so far as I can see, is guilty
of the notions you attribute to them, such as the idea that the nature of
consciousness is already explicated, or that consciousness can emerge from 
a system without being designed in.  Your positions are not made 
more attractive by misrepresenting those of your opponents.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini)
Subject: Re: lifw
Organization: Unocal Corporation
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:46:28 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.223200.29547@nwnexus.WA.COM> stemp@halcyon.com (Kevin Stemp) writes:
>does life begin at the instant the sperm penetrates the egg, or when the
>two pronucleoi fuse, when meiosis stops, after the egg implants, in the
>3rd week, or after the child is born, or hell, maybe after 1 year????

A.I. stands for Artificial Intelligence, not Artificial Insemination (the 
ag-school term).
From: dab@ism.isc.com (Dave Butterfield)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: "Mama"
Date: 9 Oct 1992 17:32:00 GMT
Organization: x
NNTP-Posting-Host: change

shrdlu@willow.sdd.trw.com (Lynda L. True) writes:
>Not every culture uses the
>phoneme "ma" in the word for mother. There are some languages in which
>the infant sound for mother has no recognizable "m" or "a" sound at
>all.

I don't think we disagree here.
The original point on this thread was that the assignment of the
word "mama" to the concept of one's mother was not completely
arbitrary.  There are reasons why that particular word is more
likely to denote that meaning than a word chosen at random.  This
was presented as a notable exception to a statement that generally
the assignment of words to meaning is arbitrary.  This is much
weaker than saying that that assignment would necessarily appear
in every language.

>Babies would call their mothers "ooooo" if anything; I've been
>there, and the mouth is just not shaped in any way that would
>cause the sound "ma" to come out.

Here I must disagree; my son is two months old.  His first "talking"
sound was "ahhh".  When I take him through the five basic vowels he
does "ahhh" the easiest, though "ooooo" ("u") was easy to teach him.
He can get "ohhhh" ("o") if he works at it.  "Eeeee" ("i") I have a
hard time getting him to imitate very well, and I haven't heard him
say h"ey" ("e") yet.  To get "ahhh" just requires dropping the mouth
open ("open your mouth and say 'Ahhhh'"); to say "ooooo" requires
shaping the mouth and lips, which is harder.  To get from "ahhh"
to "ma" simply requires starting the vocal chords with mouth closed
and then dropping the mouth open.  It's hard to imagine a simpler
syllable to voice than "ma".

I suspect this horse is dead; I'll try to stop beating it now.

Dave
-- 
	Truth is an evaluation of a statement within a context.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: lbkruij@cs.vu.nl (Kruijswijk LB)
Subject: Re: Human intelligence vs. Machine intelligence
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 11:47:48 GMT

In article <geddis.719107637@Xenon.Stanford.EDU> Geddis@CS.Stanford.Edu writes:
>That's why Turing Machines and Godel arguments show up:  they all relate
>to notions of what computers are ultimately capable of achieving.  Searle
>and Penrose believe that such arguments prove that computers are incapable
>in principle of becoming intelligent.
I don't think so. I think that completeness is not the same as intelligence.
If the human intelligence would be complete, we would know that the human can
solve any mathematical problem as long there is enough time. I see no reason
why this should be true.

I think that something is intelligent as long as its stupidity is not yet
proven.

If a formal system can be proofed to be correct, its stupidity can be proofed
with a Godel sentence, because it is impossible that the system can answer the
senctence while we can.

However, when the system can not be proofed to be correct (but it can be
correct), its stupidity can not be proofed anymore. Of course the Godel
sentence can be used; however, this is not fair. We can't solve the Godel
sentence either, because we should first proof the correctness for this.

This means that a intelligent machine can not be proofed to be correct.

This also means that every current machine is not intelligent.

Just some thoughts, any comments?

Greetings,

Lucas B. Kruijswijk					lbkruij@cs.vu.nl
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
Date: 12 Oct 92 16:59:31 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Cc: minsky

In article <1aqirgINN5u9@smaug.West.Sun.COM> dab@ism.isc.com (Dave Butterfield) writes:
>mhf4421@usl.edu (Flynn Matthew H) writes:
>>Derrida and De Sausare (sp.?) argue rather convincingly that language is
>>arbitrary, and there is no real reason why any particular word, letter, or    
>>phoneme need mean what we accept it to mean.
>
>The origin of the word "mama" (and its close relatives in other languages)
>appears to contradict that statement.  "Ma" is one of the easiest syllables
>to utter, and is one of the first spoken by infants.  The first entity that
>an infant wants to refer to is his mother.  The association of that word to
>that concept was not arbitrary.  Reference the OED for more detail.

On pp310-313 of The Society of Mind is a theory of how some infantile
"social groundings" might be built into brain hardware. But so far as I
can tell, no one has ever read that far into the book.  Comments would
be welcome.

.
From: stemp@halcyon.com (Kevin Stemp)
Subject: lifw
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service +1 206 382 MAIL (382-6245)
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:32:00 GMT

does life begin at the instant the sperm penetrates the egg, or when the
two pronucleoi fuse, when meiosis stops, after the egg implants, in the
3rd week, or after the child is born, or hell, maybe after 1 year????

-- 
--
Kevin Stemp                  po box 88163
"Casey Stemp"                seattle, wa 98105
stemp@halcyon.com            u.s.a.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rudis+@cs.cmu.edu (Rujith S DeSilva)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: lifw
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:50:12 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <1992Oct7.223200.29547@nwnexus.WA.COM> stemp@halcyon.com (Kevin
Stemp) writes:
>does life begin at the instant the sperm penetrates the egg, or when the two
>pronucleoi fuse, when meiosis stops, after the egg implants, in the 3rd week,
>or after the child is born, or hell, maybe after 1 year????

Does a program become intelligent when the program is written, or when it is
released, or when the program is invoked, or when it is paged in from disk, or
hell, maybe after 10 milli-seconds? :-)

Assuming that you have indeed got the wrong newsgroup, what did you think
computers could have had with the philosophy of artificial insemination?

Rujith de Silva.
Carnegie-Mellon.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis)
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 07:44:37 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.165931.9154@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>
>On pp310-313 of The Society of Mind is a theory of how some infantile
>"social groundings" might be built into brain hardware. But so far as I
>can tell, no one has ever read that far into the book.  Comments would
>be welcome.

The theory (if I read it right) is that there are built in recognizers
for "time trajectories."  These are grouped into gestrure recognizing
agencies which are then connected to "proto-specialists" that are
innate mini-programs or dispositions.  This is all either genetically
coded or resulting from "predestined learning."  This theory would
explain how certain "sentic forms" are universally abstracted across
cultures and sensory modalities.

This seems very plausible for many things, but would have radical
consequences for others.  Much of emotion is caused by things such as
the achievement of a goal, the fustration of a plan, etc.  Linguists
are finding striking regularities in "argument structure" -- the
ordering of the arguments of a verb in a sentence.  For example, it
seems that in certain syntactic contexts, the agent of the verb will
always precede the patient which will always precede the goal, etc.
Similar conditions obtain in many noun phrases whose heads are
nominalized verbs.  Roger Schank, in his book titled "Dynamic Memory",
gives good reasons to believe that something like "Thematic
Organizational Packets" are involved in memory.  There are cetain
brain injuries that make it very difficult for people to order the
objects of a verb appropriately.  (Does anyone know if people with a
severed corpus collosum (or other brain damage, for that matter) can
do things like pat their heads and rub their stomaches (or play
Chopin!) more easily than normal people?)

Thus, along with sentic forms, there seem to be "planning forms", and
"thematic forms."  The planning forms seem to be always there, while
the thematic forms seem to be partially in place as soon as verbs
begin to take objects in language acquisition.  Thus, if the proposed
mechanism for "social grounding" is extended to cover these other
phenomena, innate facilities for planning and argument structure would
be posited.

My hunch is that instead of being the result of a specific wiring, the
sentic and planning forms are results of more global properties of
brain function, which are innate or predestined to be learned.  The
would have something to do with how attention is switched during
certain processes and the "stack" needed to go along with such
switching.  The properties of argument structure could be the result
of using the planning in forming utterences.

-Nick