HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:20:09 GMT
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging

In article <1992Apr7.223711.18902@psych.toronto.edu> 
michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>As I have tried to demonstrate repeatedly
>(but evidently to no avail) in this forum, the Chinese Room is merely
>a *demonstration* of the formal *claim* that syntax doesn't yield semantics.
>We can argue whether or not is it a good demonstration or not, but, as far
>as I interpret it, that is the role it plays in Searle's argument.

  If that were the whole story, I would have no problem with it; but
it isn't.

  As far as I can see, "syntax" is an aspect of "form", and "semantics"
is an aspect of "function".  So, "Syntax does not imply semantics" is
a special case of "Form does not imply function."  I agree with
this completely, at least in principle.  (Practically speaking,
form often says a great deal about function.)  I even agree
with Searle's claim that instantiating a set of syntactic rules
is not sufficient for semantics.  Semantics implies some sort of
connection with the real world, and syntactic rules alone cannot
force such a connection to exist.

  I disagree, though, that these arguments pose any kind of problem
for AI.  It is clear to me that the Chinese Room, and computer
programs in general, *do* have semantics.  The semantics are not
conferred by the formal structure alone; they are conferred by
the way the program is instantiated and interacts with the world.

	-- Bill
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: ai
Keywords: ai,realism,Goedel,platonism
Date: 6 Apr 92 18:54:01 GMT
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine

In article <1992Apr3.200218.26197@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
|This is an argument which is frequently used.  The problem with it is
|that there is absolutely nothing to indicate that mathematics or logic
|has anything to do with "the anatomy of a class of minds".  There is
|no neurological basis for 17 being prime!  The "inherited common
|architecture of the human brain" is irrelevant to the issue.  There
|are excellent reasons to believe that the sensory capabilities of
|other intelligent beings (if any) would be profoundly different from
|ours, and so would their emotional make-up or "temperament" (emotions
|they might lack entirely).

Whoa there!  If you are talking about biological, rather than constructed,
intelligences, then you are going too far.  There are only a few possible
sensory modalities, and we have most of them.  Our vision is tuned to the
composition of the atmosphere, with sensitivity centered on one of the
transparency windows. Smell & taste are just specializations of the a basic
chemo-receptor system.  Pressure and temperature sensation are necessary
to basic survival in a complex world, and will be universal.  The only
attested senses we do not have are rather esoteric: the electrical sense
by which some fish (for instance the electric eel) detect other living things
in the water, and the infra-red sense of some snakes are the only two I
can think of.  (And both of these are of limited distribution, sight, 'touch',
smell/taste, and even hearing are widespread amoung various animal groups,
and all have evolved more than once, independently (hearing in insects is
independent of hearing in land verterbrates).

And I seriously doubt that the basic 'feelings' would be much different;
most of our basic feelings are survival oriented, and will thus have direct
analogs in any comparably complex organism.


[Now the rest of what you have to say I tend to agree with though].
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 19:35:09 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.140908.29033@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>There is a new book on the brain and the mind written by Gerald
>Edelman, a Nobel prize-winner in medicine for his work on the brain.
>Edelman gives his theory of the origin of the mind in the physical
>properties of the brain.

Prize was for work in immunology.  I was unable to extract any post
1950s ideas from what I could understand of his earlier books about
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: shrdlu@willow.sdd.trw.com (Lynda L. True)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 92 20:23:30 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>>Kristoffer Eriksson:
>>>Surely, no-one has suggested that SHRDLU is advanced enough to have
>>>a mind?

What? Of course I have a mind.

>>Christopher Green:
>>>Under strong AI, one would be committed to such a view. Surely, if
>>>McCarthy believes is thermostat has beliefs, he believes that
>>>SHRDLU does. Same goes for any other thorough-going functionalists.
>>>Right Dave...? 

>>  I think I'm a backer of strong AI, but I don't believe that
>>mind is an all-or-nothing concept.  Minds come in varying degrees
>>of sophistication.

Absolutely. You are all just a pack of blocks.

>Varying degrees of sophistication have no bearing on the question of
>presence or absense.  A small mind is still a mind, just as a small ball
>is still a ball.

That's right. My mind may be small, but it's adequate for the purposes
of playing with my blocks.

>>The essential ingredients are a picture of
>>the world, the ability to use it to accomplish goals, and some
>>ability to communicate.  

[Interesting argument concerning an unnamed robot deleted.}

>>SHRDLU has all of these things (though
>>its picture is actually of an "imagined" world), so I see no
>>reason not to grant it a mind, albeit a primitive one.

Thank you.

>And for the reasons I give above (in part) I deny it a mind.

I think (about small things, but nonetheless, I think), therefore I
post.

Shrdlu
-- 
shrdlu@rowan.sdd.trw.com (Lynda L. True)
Work Phone - (310) 812-1660 or (310) 812-1570
TRW, One Space Park Drive, R2/2062, Redondo Beach, CA
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:28:15 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.152136.9857@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott) writes:
>  In article <1992Apr2.181357.25444@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>  >Come on, Drew, isn't this a bit, well, petulant?   
>
>Referring to this paragraph of mine:
>
>  >>Anyway, what I plan to do is post the following message in the future
>  >>when the Room comes up:
>  >>
>  >>From the FAQ file (that is, of Fruitlessly Argued Quagmires):
>  >>
>  >>Searle's Chinese Room argument appears to be less an argument than an
>  >>opportunity for people to disagree about understanding and semantics.
>  >>At least in this newsgroup, there are few people who are willing to
>  >>defend the Chinese Room argument as such, although there are many who
>  >>think that those who attack the argument are trivializing important
>  >>questions.  The consensus seems to be that it is better to discuss
>  >>those questions directly than to put them in the context of the
>  >>Chinese Room.  I have come to this conclusion because no one was
>  >>willing to accept the following
>  >>
>  >>                    ** CHALLENGE **
>
>  >[original challenge deleted]
>
>I crafted this paragraph to avoid petulance.  I would welcome
>suggestions on how to edit.  I am sincere in wanting to have a message
>we can post to quickly acquaint newcomers to the newsgroup with the
>state of play on the Chinese Room.
>

My apologies for the word choice, Drew.  It was, upon reflection, inappropriate.
However, what I was taking exception to was the claim that "...no one was
willing to accept the...challenge".  I *am* willing to work on it, and I
imagine I could convince Chris Green to do so as well.  I should note again,
though, that I am probably not the best person to defend the Chinese Room,
since I am no longer convinced that is satisfactorally meets the Systems Reply
(here Chris would be a much better candidate).  I didn't see my honesty as
being evasive - heck, I thought those who care about these things would be
pleased!

- michael
From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: ai in the media
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:16:46 GMT

Last year, I was aghast when PBS broadcast (on some science series
or other) a summary of Searle's Chinese Room argument, and loudly
proclaimed that it was now settled that machines can't possibly
ever really understand anything, without ever mentioning that
not quite everybody is convinced by this "proof".

Now I'm even MORE aghast, since I've seen last night's episode
of "The Machine that Changed the World", in which it was stated
(with a straight face, no less) that Turing had established that
anything a human could do, a computer could do.

Ah well.  At least the people who know me are used to my
screaming "AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!" in the middle of media presentations
relating to computers, whether print, broadcast, or whatnot.

Sigh.  (Sorry about the only marginal relevance.  I feel better now.)

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 20:47:35 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.215800.18021@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <92098.170625JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>In article <1992Apr4.061244.767@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil
>>Rickert) says:
>>> Would that Searle were that precise in his use of "syntactic".  But he
>>>also says that every thing a computer can do is syntactic, and this
>>>therefore includes computing averages and correlations of very imprecise
>>>floating point information.
>>>
>>    Are you suggesting that such computations are _not_ syntactic?  In what
>>manner would they not be?  From what I understand, whatever the computer does
>>_is_ "formal" and "precise", although we may interpret its output as
>>_meaning_ something imprecise.
>
> It is of course possible to view floating point arithmetic as formal and
>precise.  If you view it that way the floating point numbers satisfy some
>very strange and quite complex algebraic properties.  Moreover the
>algebra of floating point numbers as implemented on one machine is quite
>different from the algebra as implemented on a different machine.  All in
>all, when viewed this way floating point numbers are useless curiosities.
>However if view as approximations to real numbers then we have a much
>simpler algebra (the algebra of real numbers), we have consistency between
>different machines, but the numbers are no longer precise, since they are
>approximations.

This is *not* the issue.  The computation *is* formal, and *is* precise.  The
fact that the result you get does not always jibe from machine to machine
is *not* to say that the computations themselves are not precise and formal.


> By all means consider everything done by a computer as formal manipulations
>with no semantic content.  That is your loss, not mine. 

Um...this isn't an argument...

> And by the way,
>I suggest that you ask your bank to transfer all of your accounts to me.  They
>are clearly useless to you, since they are mere formal manipulations of a
>computer without semantic content.  But once transferred to me I suspect I
>can squeeze enough semantics out of them to buy myself a few good meals.

Come on, Neil, surely you know better than this!  Money is not intrisically
"in" the bank's program.  Heck, if everyone decided to interpret *your*
bank's computer as playing chess instead, how would you prove them wrong?
Grab a wad of greenbacks out of its RAM?

As always, the instantiated program can be *interpreted* as having meaning.
Whether that meaning is intrinsic to the program, however, is the question.

- michael
From: hlokhors@cs.ruu.nl (Henk Lokhorst)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: HELP, need a JTMS
Keywords: TMS, Doyle, Goodwin
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:17:29 GMT
Organization: Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science


** EDIT HERE **

Hello,

I'm looking for information about implementations of JTMS's,
if you know anything about any JTMS, please email me,
every information is welcome,

thanks in advance,

Henk Lokhorst
email:hlokhors@cs.ruu.nl
Xref: sparky comp.ai.edu:258 comp.ai:2033
From: frerk@informatik.uni-kl.de (Frerk Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.edu,comp.ai
Subject: Conceptual Structures Implementation?
Keywords: knowledge representation, knowledge aquisition, semantic nets
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:47:00 GMT
Reply-To: frerk@informatik.uni-kl.de (Frerk Meyer)
Followup-To: comp.ai.edu
Organization: AG Telematik

I refer to the Book 'Conceptual Structures' from J.F.Sowa.

Who knows an implementation in any programming language, and where could
I get it (ftp or e-mail). I'm searching structures for knowledge representation,
and I need a starting point for my implementation in Smalltalk (Lisp source will do).

In the Proc. of the 5th Annual Conceptual Strutures Workshop is a
bibliography from Sowa himself. but it would take me too long to get it.

---
Dipl-Inform. Frerk Meyer, Uni Kaiserslautern, FB Informatik, AG Telematik
Email: frerk@informatik.uni-kl.de   Phone: [49|0] (631) 205 3426
Geb. 12/409, Erwin-Schroedinger-Str., W-6750 Kaiserslautern, BRD/Germany
From: rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.edu
Subject: Computer Science position at SUNY Buffalo
Date: 6 Apr 92 16:48:49 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci


             STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO

                 Department of Computer Science
                   Temporary Faculty Position

We anticipate an opening for a one-year visiting faculty position
for  the  coming  year at a competitive salary for a new Ph.D. or
for a more senior person who wants  to  supplement  a  sabbatical
salary.  The successful candidate will teach one course or gradu-
ate seminar each semester. I would welcome you bringing  this  to
the  attention  of your finishing doctoral students or colleagues
who might be interested.  Please ask anyone interested to  submit
a curriculum vitae, and to arrange to have four letters of refer-
ence  sent  directly  from  their  referees,  to  me  by   e-mail
(selman@cs.buffalo.edu) or by mail to

                  Alan L. Selman
                  Department of Computer Science
                  226 Bell Hall
                  State University of New York at Buffalo
                  Buffalo, NY 14260

The Department currently  has  15  tenure-track  faculty, 12  ad-
ditional    faculty,   and   125   graduate   students.   Primary
research  areas  include:  artificial  intelligence,   complexity
theory,   computer vision, numerical linear algebra, parallel al-
gorithms, programming languages,  systems  and  VLSI.  Department
members   are   actively  engaged  in  interdisciplinary research
programs in the Advanced Scientific  Computing   Graduate  Group,
the  Cognitive Science Center, the Vision Graduate Group, and the
NSF National Center for  Geographic  Information  and   Analysis.
Departmental  computing  facilities include a network of worksta-
tions, hypercubes, Symbolics, an Encore   Multimax   and  several
image processing/graphics systems.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.edu
From: bill@dewey.edsci.wisc.edu (Bill Roth)
Subject: Symbolic Integration Tutor
Organization: Physical Sciences Lab, UW-Madison
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 15:02:30 GMT


I would like to obtain the source code for the Symbolic Integration Tutor that  
was written by Ralph Kimball of Xerox. I'm specifically referring to the  
system that was written about in "Intelligent Tutoring Systems," Edited by D.  
Sleeman and J.S. Brown. Please e-mail me if you have any information as to  
where this might exist.

Bill Roth
bill@dewey.edsci.wisc.edu or roth@cs.wisc.edu
From: fordj@yvax.byu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.edu,comp.ai,comp.ai.shells
Subject: Looking for Published Flowcharts
Date: 9 Apr 92 12:32:18 -0700
Organization: Brigham Young University



I am doing some research comparing various aspects of expert systems
and flow chart forms of the same decision process.  I am looking for some
published flow charts that I could use all or part of to construct some medium-
sized expert systems to train users in the shell that I am using.

Any pointers to published or otherwise well-documented flowcharts,
decision tables or other formalized decision procedures would be most
appreciated.

Thanks,

John M. Ford             BYU Instructional Psychology Program
740 South 50 East        (801) 224-9039
Orem, UT 84058           fordj@yvax.byu.edu
From: clang@huracan.cr (Carlos Lang)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.edu
Subject: Re: AI research institute in Costa Rica (Central American AI Institute??)
Keywords: New institution, AI, Research??
Date: 9 Apr 92 20:23:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: huracan.1992Mar03.133512.4640


In <1992Mar2.152305.53268@cc.usu.edu> shimpi@dim.cs.usu.edu (Anirudha Shimpi) writes:

> Does anyone know of a Central  American institute of Artificial Intelligence?

If there exists such thing, I'd surely want to know !

	Carlos Lang, M.Sc
	Maestria en Ciencias Cognocitivas,
	Universidad de Costa Rica.
From: kevin@milton.u.washington.edu (Kevin Caskey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Genetic Algorithm S/W success on SG Iris?
Date: 16 Apr 92 21:47:29 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle


Kevin at U dub
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: simlau@cc.uow.edu.au (sim kim lau)
Subject: Request for reference to intelligent tutoring system
Organization: University Of Wollongong
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 05:35:49 GMT

I am doing a project in intelligent tutoring system, any pointer to the
reference will be much appreciated

Thanks

simkimlau
From: POLK@CSVAX2.SCS.USNA.NAVY.MIL ("MARY POLK")
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: your mail
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:52:00 GMT

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From:	Jean-Pierre Laurent <jplaure@imag.FR>
Date:	Mon, 6 Apr 1992 08:13:54 -0400
Organization: IMAG Institute, University of Grenoble, France
To:	chy@imag.FR
Subject: IJCAI-93 server
Cc:	jplaure@imag.FR

*****************************************************************
IJCAI-93 : Information is available on a special automatic IJCAI server.
At present you can get from this server the different Calls for Papers,
Videos, Tutorials, Workshops, Panels, as well as the coordinates of all
responsibles and a process to follow in order to be sure to receive the
Conference Brochure in early 93.

People must send an email to:  ijcai-serv@imag,fr
subject: anything
content: for first time used type only 'help'

*****************************************************************

Please redistribute the above information on appropriate local blackboards.
Thanks very much in advance.


J.P. LAURENT
University of Chamb{ry
LIA  -  BP 1104
F  -  73011  CHAMBERY

Tel: (+33) 79 96 10 62
Fax: (+33) 79 96 34 75
email: jplaure@imag.fr

-- 
JP Laurent
From: brian@next (Brian Mayoh)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Blackboards?
Keywords: blackboard,conference,workshop
Date: 9 Apr 92 12:11:14 GMT
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark

I have a couple of good students, developing a GBB blackboard system for their 
thesis. Does anyone know of a European workshop,summer school or conference  
they should go to?     Regards    Brian
From: altenbur@plains.NoDak.edu (Karl Altenburg)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Genetic Algorithms with Competing Species
Date: 17 Apr 92 03:54:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.16892
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo

>Does anyone have some good references for genetic algorithms (or anything for
>that matter) where species are competing against one another?  In other

>I am aware of Thomas Ray's work with Tierran but that doesn't quite get at what
>I'm after.  Thanks in advance for the pointers.

>-pete angeline

There are two paper that I have read that seem to fall into that category:

Co-Evolving Parasites Improve Simulated Evolution as an Optimizing 
Procedure, W. Daniel Hillis, Physica D, 42 (1990), pp. 228-234.
(also found in Artificial Life II)

He describes the development of two sets of genetically manipulated 
algorithms; one set for solving a sorting problem and the other for
generating more difficult sets of numbers to be sorted.


Genetic Evolution and Co-evolution of Computer Programs, John R. Koza,
Artificial Life II, edited by Christopher Langton, 1991.


He describes various applications of his 'Genetic Programming Paradigm',
one application being the co-evolution of two competing algorithmic
strategies for playing a mini-max game.

In addition I just read a posting in rec.games.corewar by John Perry,
a student at UCLA, where he developed a method of creating core warriors
using genetic algorithms.  It seems some of these warriors have made it
into the top ten of the Core Wars King of the Hill competitions.  He
has made his paper available by e-mail request at:

	jperry@oahu.cs.ucla.edu

I hope this helps.

-- 
Karl R Altenburg				altenbur@plains.NoDak.edu
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND  58102

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.  SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: brachett@rhrk.uni-kl.de (Klaus Brachetti [MW])
Subject: Looking for Information on Empirical Discovery
Keywords: Machine learning systems
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Distribution: edu
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 14:10:10 GMT

I am concerned with fracture mechanics and I wondered if it is possible
to handle fatigue crack growth with learning machines systems. Therefore
I have some questions:

- What machine learning systems are available on FTP sites?

- Which abilities are implemented  in these systems?

- On which examples they are tested?

- Where can I find further literature on this topic?

Thank You.

Klaus Brachetti                            email: brachett@rhrk.uni-kl.de
Institute of Applied Mechanics
University of Kaiserslautern
Germany
From: sweeney@husc3.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Dictionary of Spellings
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:00:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr16.130046.11164
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

We need a dictionary of spellings to test some linguistic learning 
algorithms. In particular, we are seeking an ASCII file of several 
thousand unique words, with or without affixes. 

Attempts to produce such a file from random documents fails to produce a 
high number of unique words. The DEC PDP-10 (about 10 years ago) used 
such an ASCII file of spellings. Does anyone have an ASCII file of 
words?

If anyone can provide such a file or have any pointers, please contact
me. Thank you for your assistance.

-Latanya Sweeney
email: sweeney@husc3.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai