HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Date: 14 Apr 92 06:43:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: bronze.1992Apr14.064323.16366
Organization: Indiana University

In article <1992Apr2.155348.19580@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:

>I am not arguing for Putnam's thesis that everything implements everything,
>but I am arguing for the thesis that functionalism is trivially different
>from behaviorism. The single-state machine can be made functionally equivalent
>to the 5-colour-map-checker by adding a clock (so that no two consecutive
>states are the same).

If you're going to make claims like that, you have to give an argument.
So far, I haven't seen any constructions that work.  Every attempt has
depended on some invalid trick such as using material conditionals
instead of strong conditionals, or not mapping inputs to inputs.
A clock will simply not serve to distinguish states on different
potential pathways (a list of inputs might, as I said before, but
that's a different matter).

>I think it is mistake to treat all transitions inside the brain as
>input transitions, since most transitions are not affected by external
>influences. That is the reason why I separated the input transitions from
>the internal transitions.

The transitions in a FSA aren't just "input transitions"; they're
overall transitions in the state of the system, part of which change
is due to input.  You might want to argue that the part of the
transition that's due to input should be separated from the part
that's independent, but that would best be handled by separating
states themselves into two or more components, hence by moving
from the monadic FSA formalism to a formalism involving FSAs
with combinatorially structured states.

>Anyway, you haven't answered the question about whether a brain
>without connections to ears, eyes, muscles, etc. is functionally
>equivalent to a rock (or a clock). In that case, there are no inputs
>and no outputs, and there are only silent transitions, and it seems like
>to me that any system with only silent transitions is functionally equivalent
>to any other (with the right number of states).

As I've said a number of times, the brain can handle inputs, even if
it might not be receiving actual inputs at a given time (or only null
inputs).  It's sensitive in complex ways to all kinds of stimulations
at its surface, and in virtue of this sensitivity implements a complex
FSA structure that the rock does not.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Categories: bounded or graded?
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 15:09:01 GMT

In article <1992Apr15.010721.17700@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.143822.10246@psych.toronto.edu> 
>christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>
>>From: Stevan Harnad
>>
>>We disagree even more on categories. I think the Roschian view you
>>describe is all wrong, and that the "classical" view -- that categories
>>have invariant features that allow us to categorize in the all-or-none
>>way we clearly do -- is completely correct. Introspections about how
>>we categorize are irrelevant (did we expect introspection to do
>>our theoretical work for us, as cognitive theorists?), as are
>>reaction times and typicality judgments. The performance capacity
>>at issue is our capacity to learn to sort and label things as we do, not
>>how fast we do it, not how typical we find the members we can
>>correctly sort and label, not the cases we CANNOT sort and label,
>>not the metaphysical status of the "correctness" (just its relation
>>to the Skinnerian consequences of MIScategorization), and certainly
>>not how we happen to think we do it. And the categories of interest
>>are all-or-none categories like "bird," not graded ones like "big."
>
>  With Wittgenstein in mind, I ask:  what are the invariant features
>that characterize a "game"?
>
>  Wittgenstein, of course, argued that there are none.  His view,
>and an increasing popular view among linguists (see, for example,
>Lakoff's "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things") is that natural
>categories are not defined by invariant features, but rather
>by radiation from prototypes.  (Thus a bird is anything that is
>sufficiently similar to the prototypical bird, which is something
>like a sparrow.)  I don't want to sound like Mikhail Zeleny, but
>I will go so far as to say that the idea that categories are
>defined by invariant features is no longer really defensible.
>
   The problem both with Wittgenstein and Lakoff is the same; basing a
definition on invariant features or on similarities to prototypes have
the same bug when the categories depend on the intentions of the
person who is trying to make the definition.  Consequently, what we
usually need is something that sandwiches the definition between the
two aspects: structural (that is, of the examples) and functional
(that is, of the intended purpose or usage of the category).  More
details start in section 12.4 of The Society of Mind.  Perhaps some of
you will see this as a way to resolve some of the problems that
frustrated Wittgenstein.

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 07:00:41 GMT

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.

On the face of it, this evidence points to the opposite conclusion.
Penrose is an excellent physicist but has no credentials as a
philosopher or cognitive scientist, so he does dreadful philosophy and
cognitive science.  Edelman is a good immunologist and neuroscientist
but no philosopher, so he does dreadful philosophy.

Which leaves Searle, who is something of a special case.  Searle is
certainly a good philosopher (perhaps more so in the philosophy of
language than of mind).  I wouldn't call his Chinese-room work bad;
it's wrong, but stimulatingly so.  Taking in itself, the work is
an interesting contribution to the literature.  One can't really
blame Searle for the fact that the argument has been so influential
and therefore so infuriating.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 01:29:31 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.204735.21732@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.215800.18021@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>[comments about floating point computations]

>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.

 You can look at it two ways.

 Either (a) floating point computations are precise, completely inconsistent
	    between hardware platforms, and devoid of any apparent meaning
	    or use

or      (b) Approximate (i.em imprecise), highly consistent between hardware
	    platforms, and very useful.

  I prefer interpretation (b).  That you insist on interpretation (a) is
your loss.

>> 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?

 Come on, Michael, surely you know better than that.  Do you really think
that the bank vaults hold anything close to the amount of green paper
that would be needed if we dispensed with electronic money management.
What exactly is an IMF 'SDR' (special drawing rights) other than syntax.
For that matter, why is the green paper intrinsically different from
syntax.  Money reduced to nothing but syntax when the gold standard was
dropped.

>Grab a wad of greenbacks out of its RAM?

 If you are implying that the disk drives, magnetic tape, links to
communication networks, etc, are not part of the computer system, then your
view of computers is far too narrow.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Categories: bounded or graded?
Date: 15 Apr 92 01:07:21 GMT
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging

In article <1992Apr14.143822.10246@psych.toronto.edu> 
christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>
>From: Stevan Harnad
>
>We disagree even more on categories. I think the Roschian view you
>describe is all wrong, and that the "classical" view -- that categories
>have invariant features that allow us to categorize in the all-or-none
>way we clearly do -- is completely correct. Introspections about how
>we categorize are irrelevant (did we expect introspection to do
>our theoretical work for us, as cognitive theorists?), as are
>reaction times and typicality judgments. The performance capacity
>at issue is our capacity to learn to sort and label things as we do, not
>how fast we do it, not how typical we find the members we can
>correctly sort and label, not the cases we CANNOT sort and label,
>not the metaphysical status of the "correctness" (just its relation
>to the Skinnerian consequences of MIScategorization), and certainly
>not how we happen to think we do it. And the categories of interest
>are all-or-none categories like "bird," not graded ones like "big."

  With Wittgenstein in mind, I ask:  what are the invariant features
that characterize a "game"?

  Wittgenstein, of course, argued that there are none.  His view,
and an increasing popular view among linguists (see, for example,
Lakoff's "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things") is that natural
categories are not defined by invariant features, but rather
by radiation from prototypes.  (Thus a bird is anything that is
sufficiently similar to the prototypical bird, which is something
like a sparrow.)  I don't want to sound like Mikhail Zeleny, but
I will go so far as to say that the idea that categories are
defined by invariant features is no longer really defensible.

  In my opinion the belief that natural categories are defined
by invariant features leads to all kinds of nasty problems.  When
we are talking about mind, it leads us to try to discover the
invariant features necessary for something to have a mind.  This
inevitably plunges us into squabbles and contradictions, because
there just aren't any.  There is only the prototypical mind, which
is the human mind.  Anything sufficiently similar to the human
mind is a mind; but, as Chris Green pointed out, "sufficiently"
is a vague word, and in fact the line gets drawn whereever it is
most convenient for us to draw it.

	-- Bill
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: cpshelle@logos.waterloo.edu (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 13:52:36 GMT

minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
> I mean that a computer is a machine, in practice finite state.  Its
> behavior can be described in many ways, formal and informal.  And of
> course one could use, in particular, various kinds of monogenic
> production rules.  But my point was simply to object to using terms
> like "syntactic" and "formal" -- along, I fear, with their various and
> curious implications -- as though these were substitutes for simpler
> and less ambiguous terms like "finite-state" or "deterministic
> machine".  To be sure, if you yourself don't subscribe to those hidden
> assumptions, then no harm is done.  However, there appear to be those
> who are convinced that "syntactic" means "devoid of semantic" --
> without substantial justification for the implication that
> finite-state (or, in Penrose's view, "algorithmic") machines cannot
> have any degree of meaning, understanding, consciousness, etc.  What
> do you mean when you say a machine is "syntactic"?

This is an interesting point.  Having recently re-read Searle's
account of the chinese room problem, in which he discusses syntax and
semantics, I was impressed with the strength of his rhetoric.  Searle
himself is a past-master at using structure, syntax included, to carry
a point.  I think if you pay careful attention to his choice of
wording, and how he connects concepts by apposition and repetition,
you will understand some of the significance of what he deprecates as
"merely syntax". 

For example, the term "symbol manipulation" is presented so that it is
clear that "manipulation" is meant in its devious sense, as in "crass
manipulation".  His choice of terms regarding those who agree and
disagree with him is interesting too.  The association of formal
syntax and semantics, with the procedural behaviour of same on an
actual machine, and with natural language syntax and semantics is also
interesting.  

It is ironic that someone who, as I've learned, is so good at rhetoric
dismisses it so abjectly.

				Cam
--
      Cameron Shelley        | "Proof, n.  Evidence having a shade more of
cpshelle@logos.waterloo.edu  |  plausibility than of unlikelyhood.  The
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     |  testimony of two credible witnesses as
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  |	opposed to that of one."    Ambrose Bierce
From: ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Chinese Room (or Number Five's Alive)
Date: 10 Apr 92 19:32:25 GMT
Organization: Peridot Konsult i Mellansverige AB, Oerebro, Sweden

In article <1992Apr7.203725.1344@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>In article <1992Apr06.164725.3908@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
 >>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?

Every program does not pass the Turing Test.

-- 
Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Hagagatan 6, S-703 40 Oerebro, Sweden
Phone: +46 19-13 03 60  !  e-mail: ske@pkmab.se
Fax:   +46 19-11 51 03  !  or ...!{uunet,mcsun}!mail.swip.net!kullmar!pkmab!ske
From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Robert Rosen & Physical form of Church's Thesis
Date: 13 Apr 92 13:29:30 GMT
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:

>In article <539@trwacs.fp.trw.com> 
>erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>>The question is asked--is a turbulent flow useful as an algorithm for
>>something?
>>
>  It was me who asked this question, but actually not quite
>this question.  Precisely, I asked whether there is any
>useful computation that can be made using a chaotic process
>(such as a turbulent flow) that cannot also be made by some
>Turing machine.

>  The answers you give are reasonable, but it is not obvious
>that the turbulent flow produces any useful information that cannot
>equally well be produced by a detailed digital simulation of
>the flow.

>  If you could identify such information, you would have a
>counterexample to the Church-Turing thesis.

>	-- Bill

OK, I see what you're driving at. I will try to address your issue by
_assuming_ the postulated equilavence between chaotic flows and turbulent
flows. We know that a detailed digital simulation of a chaotic flow will
diverge exponentially unless the machine has an infinite word length.
Grebogi and Yorke have shown that digital simulation of the flow will
track _a_ nearby true trajectory of the flow for a long time, but Huberman
and Hogg have shown that a simulation of a flow by a finite state machine
with finite word length will eventually fall into a terminal cycle. I'll
have to talk to my wife about this (she's a mathematical logician), but I
may be able to argue that no Church's Thesis is false for simulations of
chaotic processes. And chaotic processes do provide useful information...


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

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Categories: bounded or graded?
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 17:29:04 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <1992Apr15.010721.17700@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU 
(Bill Skaggs) writes:
>  With Wittgenstein in mind, I ask:  what are the invariant features
>that characterize a "game"?
>
>  Wittgenstein, of course, argued that there are none.  His view,
>and an increasing popular view among linguists (see, for example,
>Lakoff's "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things") is that natural
>categories are not defined by invariant features, but rather
>by radiation from prototypes.  (Thus a bird is anything that is
>sufficiently similar to the prototypical bird, which is something
>like a sparrow.)  I don't want to sound like Mikhail Zeleny, but
>I will go so far as to say that the idea that categories are
>defined by invariant features is no longer really defensible.
>
>  In my opinion the belief that natural categories are defined
>by invariant features leads to all kinds of nasty problems.  

I have a lot of sympathy with the idea of prototypes, but I think they
lead to nasty problems too.  

The basic problem is, there needs to be something besides the prototype
standing behind a word.  At the very least you need a radius: how far
from the prototype can an object be and still be an instance of the
category?  The radius must be different for (say) "terrier",
"dog", and "animal."

If you picture the possible referents of a word as a fuzzy cloud surrounding
the prototype, it seems clear (to me, at least) that the cloud is not always
spherical-- it can be quite convoluted.  For instance, a stool looks more
like the prototypical "chair" than many real chairs.  The problem of
defining the boundary of the cloud begins to resemble the traditional one
of defining features.

Purpose is relevant to the meaning of many words.  A "chair" is above all 
something you can sit on, and that's not a direct physical feature of the 
prototypical referent(s).  

Ostensive definitions are useful for some words (e.g. "dog"), but for others
they are simply annoying.  If you ask someone what "opaque" means, and they
point to their shoes and say "This is," that's not very helpful.  If providing
a prototype is not enough, however, then meaning involves more than prototypes.

I do see prototypes as part of cognition; I think they explain some of the
flexibility of language, and also some of the sense of depth there is to
human knowledge-- the sheer mass of information we have about the words
we know.
From: bruce@supr.scm.liv.ac.uk (Bruce Stephens)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: 8 Apr 92 09:32:36 GMT
 organpipe.uug.arizona.edu><1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Centre for Mathematical Software Research, Univ. Liverpool, UK
Nntp-Posting-User: bruce
In-reply-to: christo@psych.toronto.edu's message of 6 Apr 92 18:25:33 GMTLines: 27

>>>>> On 6 Apr 92 18:25:33 GMT, christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) said:
> 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.

Well yes, a small mind is a mind---but it's less of a mind than a
larger mind.  A small non-zero number is still a non-zero number, but
1000 is quantitively different from 1.  The question is surely one of
degree.

Humans develop from things which don't have minds to things that do.
I see no reason to assume that the process isn't a gradual one (though
it might normally be a very quick one).

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

I'm not sure the question `would such a SHRLDU have a mind' can
meaningfully be answered by a yes/no response.

> -- 
> Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
> Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
> University of Toronto
> ---------------------
--
Bruce Stephens.  Centre for Mathematical Software Research, Liverpool Univ.
Internet: bruce@uxb.liv.ac.uk     JANET: bruce@uk.ac.liv.uxb
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:15:54 GMT

In article <29E0B345.48E4@deneva.sdd.trw.com> shrdlu@willow.sdd.trw.com (Lynda L. True) writes:
>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.
>
>>>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

Hmm... does anyone know HAL9000's email address?

- michael