From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Psionics
Date: 30 Jul 92 05:59:12 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

cassidy@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu (John J Cassidy) writes:

> If you prefer to regard your views and arguments as NOTHING but secretions of
> your brain, then I waste my time speaking to you. :)

Oh no, not just "secretions of my brain".  What my brain is composed of (or
secretes) isn't terribly important; it's the structure and the state of that
structure that is "me".  Reconstruct that state in an artificial neural network
(with all the equivalents of hormone modifiers and leakage currents, etc) and
it would probably be just as much "me" as I am.  :)
>  Now we get to a topic that *I* think is "handwaving", Artificial
> Intelligence.  How could we, after programming a machine to be as sentient as
> we can make it, judge its degree of sentience?

Is it necessary to determine its degree of sentience?  We interact with other
humans without requiring a definitive measure of their level of sentience.  We
could likewise accept an AI psychiatrist or truck driver if they could handle
the job adequately.  If I could have interesting discussions about the latest
news with Bob, my friendly usenet interface, I'd treat it as it deserved, at
whatever level of sentience that might be.

> Isn't it possible that a failure in designing actual intelligence could end
> up with a system that APPEARS so?

Maybe that would be a failure of the definition of intelligence.  There's a
thread in sci.space (Re: Whales and SETI) about denying that whales are
intelligent merely because they don't act like humans.
>  And to your point: can you come up with conclusive evidence by the
> scientific community that proves that ghosts don't exist?  No, you can't.
> You can only show me "disconfirming instances" of such existence, i.e.
> debunking reports.  Therefore disconfirming instances of AI are all that is
> required to believe that biological sentience may indeed be special.

AI is supported by a fair number of plausible theories and logical projections.
Ghosts have zilch supporting their existence.  There's no plausible theory to
disprove, only unsupported claims of observation.  To discount AI, with its
plausible theories, you need to discount the theories.  To discount ghosts, you
only need to discount the observations.

> Disconfirming points: Have you ever seen a logic-ciruit that did not require
> the advanced planning, and tons of labor to bring it into the world?

I haven't actually seen slug neural networks with my own eyes, but the reports
I've read claim that they do form logical circuits.  The trouble is stopping
those %$^#@ logic circuits from forming in my garden.  :)

> Have you ever seen an operating system that works without the programmer
> having to put all the problem resolutions into the computer's "head".  How
> would we design a operating system that allowed itself to be modified beyond
> those processes?  Yes, we can concieve that such logic can be developed in
> the future.  But do we know along what lines it will develop?

Not knowing what lines it _will_ develop on does not discount its plausibility.
Yes, I think I could write an OS right now that would be self-modifying to
improve its efficiency for each user.  In fact, I can think of several
approaches, just on the spur of the moment.  I don't have the software or
hardware expertise to design a system that would "invent" new techniques to
improve efficiency, but I could probably come up with several plausible
approaches that would do that.

> Ideas that a computer is a complex instrument capable of near anything are
> 20th century superstition.  In reality a computer is a designed tool,
> designed to do what it does.  Even programs with limited AI/problem-solving
> require much of human-inputted knowledge to run, and they all run to handle
> the problem at the user's bequest.  We have NO imperical evidence that such
> concepts are feasible.

Empirical evidence will have to wait for the hardware technology to arrive.  AI
researchers can think of ways to create an AI as smart as an ant, but they
don't have the hardware to do it in a reasonable amount of time.  Neural
network theory is quite new, but it is not hard to draw plausible projections
of its abilities.  I expect that in a few years there will be AI's equivalent
to insects, and within a few decades, AI's equivalent to small animals.  How
long to a sentient AI?  I don't know; the projections aren't capable of showing
that...yet.

BTW, why are you limiting yourself to simple logical computers and "limited AI"
(I assume expert systems and the like)?  That's like saying "computers can't
search a million characters because a 6800 can only address 65Kb directly."
Your claim is valid, but only for that limited scope.

> Going on what we have now, empirically, we must regard sentience as special,
> or -- at least excuse yourself when you burp.

What do you mean to infer with the term "special"?  If you have in mind a
special link with an unknown basic force, than I believe we aren't special.  If
you mean that we've developed a different mode of neural operation--whether
it's the ability to think ahead in time, or a freedom from primal instinct, or
whatever--then I agree we are "special"...compared to cows, for example.  By
the same token, I would consider a CPU with microcode that can be modified in
the middle of operation to be "special" compared to a 6800, though I would not
claim it can appreciate music or communicate telepathically.  :)

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca