HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: The Chinese Room (or Number Five's Alive)
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:37:25 GMT

In article <1992Apr06.164725.3908@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992Apr5.210553.11966@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>In article <6737@pkmab.se> ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson) writes:
>>>
>>>Surely, no-one has suggested that SHRDLU is advanced enough to have a mind?
>>>
>>Under strong AI, one would be committed to such a view. 
>
>This is an absurd claim.  Strong AI claims that minds can be created by
>implementing an appropriate program.  It does not claim that minds are
>created by implementing *any* program.  (Maybe some people think that,
>but it is not a consequence of Strong AI.)

What counts as an "appropriate" program?  And does this mean you are willing to
jettison the Turing Test, since it makes no stipulation as to the 
type of program implemented?

- michael
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:51:38 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Apr7.153156.10030@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott) writes:
>  >> but of course if Searle knew anything about computation we
>  >>wouldn't be discussing the Chinese Room in the first place.
>  >
>  >"But if the Strong-AI crowd knew anything about syntax and semantics, we
>  >wouldn't be discussing computer minds in the first place."  Insults can
>  >cut both ways, and rarely advance discussion.   
>
>That's true.  Let me try to state the point noninsultingly: I have a
>lot of respect for Searle, when he sticks to his home turf of the
>"logic of introspection" (a phrase I just made up).  But it's obvious
>that he has never taken a course on operating systems, and that his
>style of rebutting arguments against computationalists would be quite
>different if he had.

Despite Zeleny's reply to this, I think McDermott is right: Searle's
style of rebuttal probably would be different.  Whether his conclusions
would be different is a another matter (and I think it's actually
the issue of consclusions Zeleny was addressing). 

I'm even somewhat sympathetic to the claim that's sometimes made that
Searle doesn't understand the systems reply; but I think we need to be
cautious.  For instance, some people seemed to think that Searle
didn't understand that there could be emergent properties, but if
you look at the first Reith lecture I think it will be clear that
it isn't so.

However, I do not agree with McDermott's earlier and stronger claim
that if Searle knew anything about computation we wouldn't be discussing
the CR in the first place.  Well, it's at least logically possible
that if _Searle_ knew anything about computation ... But it's certainly
not the case that everyone who knows about computation finds the Room
argument worthless.

-- jd
From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
Date: 13 Apr 92 00:31:39 GMT
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging

In article <1992Apr9.140908.29033@oracorp.com> 
daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>
>This is an area where credentials don't seem to mean much, since the
>best scientists and philosophers (Searle, Penrose, Edelman) don't seem
>to have any more insight than the interested layman.
>
  Well, I agree that credentials don't mean very much, but you're
picking the wrong scientists and philosophers.  I would have listed
Dennett, Hofstadter, and Francis Crick -- all of them seem to
me to have a good bit more insight than the interested layman.

  I don't agree that detailed knowledge of the brain is useless
in this area.  (Of course, as a neuroscientist, you wouldn't
expect me to :-). )  One of the main reasons I am convinced
of the possibility of strong AI is that I have seen so many
ways to make the brain (and mind) act like a machine; and
if the brain acts like a machine, there is no reason why a
machine cannot act like a brain.

	-- Bill
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 21:16:54 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.002306.9823@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>In article <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>>
>>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.
>
>And a small giant is still a giant, etc.  Is a small large X still an
>X?  Yes, I suppose, if all X's are Y's (for all X and Y), which
>appears to be the thesis here.
>
I'm not sure what bearing your use of contrary relational terms has on
this discussion. Are you attempting to cast doubt on the (analytic,
as far as I can tell) assertion that a small ball is still a ball. The
problem with analogizing "mind" to terms like "giant" and "big" is that 
"mind" has no such obvious relational connotations. If you think it
does (i.e., if you think there was a point to your apparent non-sequiter)
please make them explicit.

>


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 15:57:19 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.231721.2684@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>>
>>What you "like to think" has little bearing on the question. Surely
>>whether SHRDLU, thermostats, and rocks have minds is an empirical
>>question.
>
>  A precise, complete and unambiguous definition of "mind" please.  You
>obviously have such a definition, since you declare the question to
>be "empirical".
>
No, you most certainly do not. In fact, if you'll recall your Hempel, 
there would be no need for science at all if we simply defined things
in advance. Do you honestly believe that the question of whether some  
object has a mind is a logical question? That seems to be you primary
alternative. And if you gave a strict a priori definition of mind, as you
seem to want, a logical question is exactly what you'd have. I always thought
that psychology was an empirical science.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 10:02:04 GMT
Organization: Moderan: No Cracks or Sagging

In article <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

>In article <1992Apr6.224129.7406@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:

>>  I believe that all natural concepts are fuzzy at the edges.  For
>>prototypical exemplars presence and absence are clear, but there
>>are always doubtful exemplars where presence or absence is a
>>matter of degree.  

>
>I believe this is a notion borrowed from Rosch, who borrowed it not
>entirely accurately from Wittgenstein.  Moreover, I believe it is
>fundamentally misguided, for reasons that I borrow from Stevan Harnad.
>They go, roughly, like this: the simple fact that we have trouble
>definitively classifying some objects does not imply that they are
>not definitively classifiable. 

Are you saying that a correct classification always exists, but some
people don't know it, or that it is possible to _make_ the classifying
concept complete by assigning a classification as needed?

>Nor does it imply that they have some
>sort of graded classification. It simply means that we have trouble
>classifying it.  When we say that we're not sure, e.g., whether a
>preist is a bachelor, we are not saying, a la Rosch, that he is 80%
>bachelor or some such nonsense.

What are we saying then?  That there is One True and Correct
classification, but we just aren't sure what it is, or that if need be
some suitable 'expert' can simply decide one way or another in order
to have the question settled?

With regard to this notion of 'having a mind', do you believe that

1) A gamete has a mind?
2) A human being (call her Jane) who can read and write has a mind?
3) If the answers to 1) and 2) were no and yes, that there is some
   specific point in time in the history of Jane between 1) and 2) 
   at which Jane acquired a mind she didn't used to have?

The answers I would give are 1) no 2) yes 3) no.  Not only do I have
difficulty deciding whether Jane has a mind at every time t, I suspect
that question has no good answer. My difficulty is not just with lack
of any effective means to make a determination in Jane's particular
case, but with the very notion that there can be a well-defined
two-valued function of time.

Would you please walk through this argument from Harnad a little more
carefully?
-- 
Kevin McCarty                   kmc@netcom.COM
                                {amdahl,claris}!netcom!kmc
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: pollack@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack)
Subject: Re: Robert Rosen & Physical form of Church's Thesis
Originator: pollack@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: Ohio State Computer Science
	<1992Apr10.165224.11963@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
	<539@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
	<1992Apr13.005357.154@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
	<541@trwacs.fp.trw.com> <542@trwacs.fp.trw.com> <544@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 15:41:52 GMT


>argue that Churches thesis is false for simulations of chaotic processes...
the implication is that the brain is not equivalent to a Turing Machine...

Of course they are not equivalent, brain is a physical device, while a
Turing machine is an ideal!  While there are very neat and beautiful
lessons to be learned from research in chaos and fractals, it is
simply NOT the lesson that there is some mysterious "super-turing
power" of analog computation implemented by the chemistry and
circuitry of the brain. Certainly natural computation is organized
differently, and we don't understand it fully. Some lessons are
important to AI, however, having to do with the emergence of stable
complex physical states and of unbounded dependencies in dynamical
systems which do not require the interpretation (or even the
existence) of rules.

-- 
Jordan Pollack                            Assistant Professor
CIS Dept/OSU                              Laboratory for AI Research
2036 Neil Ave                             Email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43210                        Phone: (614)292-4890 (then * to fax)
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: What counts as the "Right" functional organization?
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:11:38 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <1992Apr14.142239.7807@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.064526.16723@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

>>No, not necessarily.  A functionalist need only hold that beliefs result
>>from the *right* functional organization, not from any old functional
>>organization.

>Okay, then you'd better start specifying what counts as the "right" functional
>organization lest you slip into a Davidsonian circle.  Actually, snarkiness
>aside, I'm honestly interested in what might count as right and not right.

 I hope we can avoid discussions of "what is the right functional organization
for belief (or understanding, etc)."  A discussion of "what is the right
functional organization" might be ok.  But once you pin it to terms such
as 'belief' or 'understanding' or 'semantics' you run into the problem of
these terms not being sufficiently well defined, and the discussion will
quickly degenerate into arguments about issues that are not really central.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 18:25:33 GMT

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?
>
>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.  

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.

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

This is all very appealing, but all very vague as well. Longuet-Higgens
(or however it's spelled) once built a little toy robot that used a
square of paper to (mechanically) keep track of where it was on a table
top. When it got to the edge of the paper, it would stop moving. This also
happened to be (no counterfactual support here) when it was at thee edge
of the table as well. This seems to satisfy your description. Would you
credit it with a mind? (Try not to say 'no' simply because it can't 
communicate. Stopping might be considered communication that it is at
the edge of the table, just as much a the whining of a dog is.)

>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.

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

Regards,

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------
From: silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Categories
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:16:14 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: orfeo


 The issue of how to define, both operationally and conceptually,
 what "categories" are,  seems to lead to some interesting disjunctions.
 In using neural-nets , for example, to elicit from a computational system
 the invariants which characterize its ability to classify a certain set
 of inputs, one may arrive at a satisfactory model for the
 "categorization" of external objects.  However, there is also the
 problem of the categorization of internal objects.  I assume there
 is a resolution to this problem by appeal to internal communication
 between subsystems.   The practical example case is a human
 eye-brain system.   In response to external visual input, an eye-brain's
 architecture "finds" invariants which correspond to the 
 parameters of some feature-recognition paradigm for classifying
 external objects.  But the eye-brain is also producing
 endogenous , "imaginary" entities which are also classifiable.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: lookup tables again... oops, no, we're back on QM again
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1992 16:40:12 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1992Apr4.173208.16061@math.okstate.edu> gindrup@math.okstate.edu 
(Eric `'d'kidd' G..) writes:
>Well, if one performs the two-slit experiment in such a way that only one
>electron is emitted at a time, it STILL won't end up in one place.  "The"
>electron is smeared out over the screen and all your left with is a 
>distributed electron.  I.e. The electron is observed all over the card where
>its interference amplitudes are real and positive.  Film which is exposed
>in this manner does not get made up of a single point, but instead is made
>up of the expected interference banding - from one electron interfering
>with itself.

You're mistaken.  The single electron is observed in one place only, and
there is no way to predict precisely where it will show up.  What can be
predicted is the probability that it will be observed in any one place.
And this probability does behave as a wave, suffering interference effects.
To make the interference pattern visible on the plate, however, you must
either fire single electrons repeatedly, or fire a mess of electrons all
at once.
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Dethroning logic
Date: 6 Apr 92 19:24:45 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <1992Apr06.173101.38105@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>
>In this light one can find hidden affinities between many of the pro- and
>anti-AI viewpoints expressed in this newsgroup-- namely, in an overemphasis
>on the rational as the hallmark of human intelligence.  Mikhail Zeleny, for
>instance, seems to define the irreproducible core of thought as reference,
>mathematical thought, and the conception of infinity.  On the other side, 

  Mikhail can defend himself.  But I suspect many who emphasize 'reference'
would deny that this is a product of rational behavior.

>the reduction of intelligence to what can be tested through a conversation 
>by teletype (excluding visual processing, intonation, nonverbal behavior,
>interaction with the environment, qualia) reveals, I think, the same
>equation of intelligence with rationality.

  Most proponents of the Turing Test would claim that the test can reveal
evidence of various types of interaction with the environment.  They might
even suggest that an excessive degree of rationality in the responses
would be sufficient evidence to fail the TT respondent machine.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:49:10 GMT
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto

In article <1992Apr8.191233.23785@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In fact your postings imply that there is nothing that would ever persuade
>you that any computer program could ever have a mind.  Thus for you
>it is not an empirical question, but a question of religious dogma.
>
Bla, Bla, Bla. When in doubt, impugn the credibility of the other.


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Robert Rosen & Physical form of Church's Thesis
Date: 11 Apr 92 21:29:14 GMT
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

The question is asked--is a turbulent flow useful as an algorithm for
something?

1. There are enough algorithms that behave like a turbulent flow while
doing their thing, that you have to at least address whether the
turbulence is a problem.

2. Turbulent flows are a good starting point for phase-locking--they
include all periodicities.

3. A controlled system based on a turbulent flow is typically quite
maneuverable. 

4. Some processes need to be turbulent to avoid being too predictable.
Comms routing in some cases needs to be turbulent.

I've published a couple of papers on practical uses of turbulence. If you
want copies, send me a note.

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

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 16:37:14 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>And for the reasons I give above (in part) I deny it a mind.

I hope that the fact that one can completely comprehend SHRDLU's structure
and behavior is NOT one of those other reasons. 

From: reinhard@hpscit.sc.hp.com (Reinhard Seidel)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 02:03:39 GMT
Subject: Looking for Grad. Prog. in Cognitive Science?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy

Hi Everybody,

       I'm looking for a listing of Universities in USA and/or Europe
that offer MS/Ph.D. programs in Cognitive Science. 

I am holding a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering and I am 
currently working as an EE at Hewlett Packard. I am considering a 
switch of fields and I am interested in programs, that combine Philosophy, 
Self Organizing Systems, Cognitive Science and Computer Science. 

If you have information about schools, programs and quality of programs
please let me know.

Thanks,

Reinhard Seidel  (reinhard@hpscdc.scd.hp.com)
From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: on Turing-Church hypothesis
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:43:54 GMT
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

sosic%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Rok Sosic) writes:

>Taking a chaotic process, arbitrary small deviation at the
>beginning will be amplified to great proportions.
The amplification will be exponential, but may not be of great magnitude.
In essence what happens is that the probability distribution of system
states at some future time (in a Bayesian sense) is smeared out over the
space of possible states. If the chaotic process is ergodic, this smearing
out will be independent of the time selected; if non-ergodic or
dissipative, this smearing out will be non-stationary.

>Assuming that space and time are continuous, then, due to its
>finiteness, a Turing machine cannot exactly represent an arbitrary
>dynamical system. 
This is correct, and Bob Rosen has made a similar argument. In particular,
constructable dynamical systems are countable. Yorke and Grebogi have
shown that constructable dynamic trajectories will approximate true
trajectories for arbitrarily long times.

>It follows that most chaotic processes cannot be simulated by 
>a Turing machine.
Most dynamic processes cannot be simulated by a Turing machine. Not just
most chaotic processes. Broewer and Bishop addressed these issues.

>The strong interpretation of the Turing-Church hypothesis is that 
>any physically realizable dynamical system can be simulated by a 
>Turing machine.
Far too strong a statement. 

>The hypothesis seems to be false for chaotic processes.

>Where is an error? 
Physically realizable is not computable.

>Thanks a lot

>Rok

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