HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kandelin@wam.umd.edu (Dr. Nils A. Kandelin)
Subject: Re: Demon
Keywords: demon
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:43:52 GMT

Drew appears to be correct; John V. Jackson mentions the "Pandemonium Theory 
of Perception" by Oliver Selfridge as using "demons," but no citation is 
provided for the Selfridge work.  Jackson's article is in the SIGART Newsletter,
Number 101, July 1987, pgs. 23 - 26.  

I KNEW those old SIGART Newsletters would come in handy some day!

=Nils=
From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Date: 22 Aug 92 13:02:32 GMT
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:

>erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>> This is a summary of recent comments on consciousness.
>[...]
>> I have a comment on this: The dynamics of cultural and genetic
>> transmission differ. In particular, genetic transmission can't track the
>> evolution of a chaotic strategy, while cultural transmission can. (This is
>> based on some simulation work and an analysis of why a difference was
>> apparent in that work.) This is the reason that I believe social group
>> behavior and consciousness are connected.

>Could you elaborate on this a bit?  I am curious about what you mean
>by "genetic transmission can't track the evolution of a chaotic
>strategy, while cultural transmission can."

Since most random mutations are deleterious, it is selectively
advantageous to have a low mutation rate. When I simulated the evolution
of a population strategy for a chaotic game, the system fixated on a
relatively good strategy at the lowest available mutation rate. There were
a number of side issues, including the effect of a finite population on
the amount of genetic diversity available, the effect of a digital
encoding for a game that would be better played with continuous strategy
variation, and the exact model of reproduction. In any case, though, it
became clear that the disadvantage of _random_ mutation overwhelms the
advantage of being able to change one's strategy, even when the game is
chaotic. Cultural evolution, however, is directed/non-random. This allows
animals with culture to play chaotic games. (BTW, I'm finally getting
around to writing this up. I'm planning to present this material at the
1993 Animal Behavior Workshop in Vienna, AU, if I can find the funding.
I'll probably submit it to JTB for publication.)

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

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: marky@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young)
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 03:56:33 GMT

%r bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
>
>Okay, I was wrong.  It was me who was confused.  But it's hard for me
>to believe that Turing actually realized what he was saying when he
>wrote this.  Suppose it turned out that interrogators could
>distinguish between men and women 100% of the time, and they could
>also distinguish between men and computers 100% of the time.  Would
>this imply that computers think as much like men as women do?
>Obviously not.
>
You're right.  If people could distinguish with 100% accuracy, the
test would be useless.  You have run into the "ceiling effect".
Your test is too easy, so you can't separate the smart from the
dumb (it's like giving a calculus exam with one question: "What is
1+1 equal to?").  In order for the test to be useful you must have
a success rate that is away from the end points of the scale.
To get a useful number you can manipulate the amount of time
allowed for the decision (you might even be able to collect "best
guesses" at various points and make a curve).

>I believe that, given an hour of interrogation, I would have a better
>than 90% probability of distinguishing between a man and a woman.  I
>might be right, or I might be wrong, but it doesn't seem reasonable
>that the question whether I'm right or wrong has anything to do with
>the question whether machines can think.
>
The particular datum of whether _you_ were right or wrong is not
directly related to whether machines can think.  It is only as part
of the aggregate data that it is relevent.

Suppose you had taken a test, and the professor handed it back to
you and you saw that you got an 85 (of 100).  Did you do well?  How
can you tell if you did well?  If the class average was 61, then
you did well.  If the class average was 98, you did very poorly.

The man-woman part of the Turing Test provides the class average
(the base line).  The question of whether _you_ were right when
_you_ played the immitation game corresponds to the question "Did
you get a point for question 37(a)?"

(If we had Klingons and Vulcans and Romulans and the like running
around, we could come up with an even better base-line.  Still, we
have to work with what we've got.)

...mark young
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 12:58:41 GMT

markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
> In article <1992Aug13.025506.2404@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
> >Then what might be the functions and the organs of what we call
> >consciousness?  
[...]
> I would hazard a guess that consciousness allows us to observe and therefore
> change our own behavior; in effect it expands the range of objects we can
> manipulate to include ourselves.

This reminds me of a theory of culture I learned in anthropology as an
undergrad.  One explanation of the function of culture is that it
allows for adaptation to environment on a more rapid basis than
genetic change.  The idea is basically that a group of humans can
respond apropriately to some alteration in their surroundings without
a large die-off.  This would make relatively small groups of people
fairly resiliant to change and would help explain how humans spread
successfully over the whole globe.

What does this have to do with consciousness?  Consciousness seems
necessary to make culture work.  (In some sense, culture and genetics
are both forms of communication, one is simply more flexible.)  It
provides the ability to quickly learn, adapt, and transmit culture. 
However, I would say that consciousness is a certainly a drastic
solution in that it makes people very dependent on their culture to
survive---after all, many people cling tenatiously to their culture
for seemingly `sentimental' reasons.  

Maybe that's why scholastic life is so monastic: novelty requires it!

</dev/cam
--
      Cameron Shelley        |"In the beginning, there was nothing.  Then
cpshelle@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca | God said `Let there be light', and there
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     | was still nothing, but youse could see it."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  | --Dave Thomas, SCTV:_Sunrise Semester_
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rjkaduck@student.business.uwo.ca (Raymon J. Kaduck)
Subject: dog's sense of time
Organization: University of Western Ontario
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 06:33:38 GMT

I'll admit to the same fuzziness but it seems to me that the ordering of 
the dog's sense of being is very different also.  Anthropomorphism may 
suggest a linear time-sense, but the dog, as a pack animal, may 
experience the return of a pack member (human, though he or she may be) 
as a return to a balanced condition.  I have observed, however, that 
cats, realizing that their hamans are about to depart, make the food 
noises even though their dishes are not empty.  This seems to be evidence 
of some anticipation on their parts. The problem may be more complex.

rjkaduck@student.business.uwo.ca (Raymon J. Kaduck)
Western Business School  --  London, Ontario
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: Loebner Prize Competition Transcripts 1991 #0
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 17:01:31 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Keywords: Turing Test

leao@buphy0.bu.edu (Joao Leao) writes:
>committee (consisting of several AI-all-stars including Dan Dennett, Joe
>Weizenbaum (a.k.a Feigenbaum), of Eliza fame, and Willard vanOrman
>Quine(!) ) 

       I don't think Joe Weitzenbaum and Ed Feigenbaum are the same person.

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: schuette@wl.com (Wade Schuette)
Subject: Re: Freewill, chaos and digital systems
Organization: Warner Lambert / Parke-Davis
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 04:52:18 GMT

In article <706@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>Let's see.
>1. There's determined and predictable behavior.
>2. There's determined but unpredictable behavior. (chaos in a general
>sense).
>3. There's random, ergodic behavior. (time average = average over state
>space.)
>4. There's random, non-ergodic behavior. (random behavior, but statistics
v>change with time.)
>5. Then there's free-will. 
>
>How as an observer do I distinguish 5 from 1-4?

It seems to me that the question of free-will has a lot to do with 
whether "I" determine my behavior, or whether "it/they" determine it
for me.  If so, the scope of "I" is an issue, in both space and time.

At the summer conference of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science
in 1986 (or so) we spent a week thrashing around determinism and free will,
without much resolution.

There is a subtle sort of recursion to the problem.  My behavior may be
"determined" by my companions of the past year, but, then again, "I" had
some say in selection of those companions, but then again... 

Also, there is a time factor related to constancy in some sense. 
Suppose I have a car on the salt flats and the steering wheel is 
"almost locked", so I have only 2 degrees (as in 360 degrees in a circle)
of steering play.  Can I "steer" the car?  Well, yes and no. In the
short run, no.  In the long run, if I'm clever, (and mabye conscious and
a fast learner :-) ), sure, I can put that baby wherever I want it.

There's an intrinsic assumption in "determinism" that one can sort out
interactions in a cybernetic loop here.  What determines what?
Do wages drive prices or vice versa? It's not clear to me that
a nested set of overlapping and interacting contexts can be flattened
out meaningfully and a "direction" of determinism determined. 

The sense I get from chaos is that a whole lot MORE of the
world is a whole lot LESS determined externally than we thought.
Another question might be then, what exactly does it mean to say
"It's up to you..."  Kinda means it's determined by a complex function
of recall of the past, perception of the present, and mental model of
the future by the decision-making agent, along with what they had for
breakfast and whether they made that red light or not on the way to work.

To add to that, a good deal of the perception or model may have to do
with what they THINK that other decision-makers are going to think or
do or say or react to the contemplated actions.  So now I'm determined
by whether he's determined by what SHE is going to do... 
 
All cereal makers target kids, cause Mom or Dad will most likely buy
whatever junior rushes to get and says he's REALLY honestly going to
eat.

Which raises one more question:  can a COLLECTIVE of agents have 
free-will, even if no single one alone has, even remotely, free-will?
This is more relevant to the 10*10 neurons you call a brain, or the
ant-hill or bee colony or State of Massachusetts.

Or, a massively parallel whatever.













--
From: lady@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Lee Lady)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Summary: Humans are the only animal with a real sense of time.
Keywords: cognition free-will
Date: 23 Aug 92 01:49:00 GMT
Followup-To: sci.cognitive
Distribution: sci
Organization: University of Hawaii (Mathematics Dept)

In article <705@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>This is a summary of recent comments on consciousness.
>
>Mark Shanks: "Without getting into a behaviorist/free will discussion, I
>don't see any reason to invoke chaos as an influence on the perception of
>free will...."
>
>Comment: free will probably depends on being able to trace the causal
>chain backwards.
>
>Neil Rickert: "Usually we think of free will as the ability to make a
>decision, and have that decision affect what we do in the future.... Our
>sense that we have free will is really a strong argument for determinism."
>
>Comment: Rickert seems to be arguing that consciousness is a memory of
>previous decisions and outcomes. In my terminology, plans and payoffs.

It seems to me that one of the things that distinquishes humans from
other animals is that humans (at least in most cultures) have a real
sense of time, a sense of the past and future.  While certainly other
animals have memory in some sense, I don't think they have a real sense
of the past.  When a dog's owner comes back from being away at college,
for instance, and the dog seems totally overjoyed, I think it is only our
anthropomorphism that interprets this as meaning that the dog has been
aware that the owner was gone a very long time.  I realize that this is
pretty fuzzy speculation on my part, but there it is, for what it's worth. 

The point I really want to make is that human thought and culture depends
on having a consciousness of the future.  So that only humans are capable
of doing things today in the the anticipation of results days or
weeks or even years in the future.  Birds flying south for the winter or
building a nest in the spring don't seem to have this same sort of
conscious intentionality, although we anthropomorphically attribute it to
them.  Do beavers building a dam have some sort of awareness that it will
be nice to have a dam, or do they just enjoy dam building as an
activity?  I guess one could figure out experiments to test this.  

The awareness that humans have of the past also enables them to learn on
more than simply a Skinnerian reinforcement basis.  A human can think on
a basis of "I took such and such an action in the past and didn't get the
results I wanted, so how can I try things differently next time?"

Presumably this ability to consider hypothetical scenarios is one of the
main things that enables humans to develop culture and create progress. 
  
--

Imagination is greater than knowledge.  -- Einstein 

lady@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu         lady@uhunix.bitnet
From: abreu@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Abreu)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Date: 14 Aug 92 10:26:43 GMT
	<1992Aug13.024527.2079@news.media.mit.edu> 
	<BILL.92Aug13130725@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> 
	<1992Aug13.230220.23021@news.media.mit.edu>
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London

In <BILL.92Aug13201500@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill 
Skaggs) writes:

 > minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky, who ought to get some new
 > News-posting software) writes:
 [...]

 >    > It seems to me that we use the word "intelligence" in regard to
 >    > mental performances that we admire.

 > This is the first definition I've seen that I can't easily refute (and
 > I'll admit that it didn't occur to me).  Very elegant.  But it
 > naturally leads to the next question: What kind of mental performances
 > do we admire?  (And related questions, such as, do different cultures
 > tend to admire different kinds of mental performances?)

I like this. Too general though, far too much.

Variations occur between cultures and also between individuals.
In general, we tend to admire that which we cannot do (or which
we cannot do as "easily" as the next guy). Different people have
different abilities, so in a way or another we'll all admire
different things.
 
Hamilton Abreu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 13:02:38 GMT

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> In article <BtA916.9EI@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> cpshelle@logos.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
> >That's true, but also an extreme case, if I understand your meaning. 
> >I think learning over a lifetime is quite rapid when compared with the
> >general rate of genetic `learning'.  And if you subscribe to the
> 
> Agreed, any learning is rapid compared with evolutionary changes.  But
> we were discussing consciousness.  Gradual learning over an extended
> period - say your lifetime - appears to be largely unconscious.  Learning
> which involves consciousness is much more rapid.

This leaves me rather unsure about the distinction between conscious
learning and unconscious learning that you're referring to.  Do you
also make a distinction between unconscious learning and innate
learning (such as imprinting, say)?  It would indeed be interesting to
look at what consciousness is by looking at what conscious learning
does in contrast to what unconscious learning does.  Could you give a
couple of examples that show this? 

(In any case, perhaps I misrepresented myself.  I did not mean to imply
that I think culture is the only use humans get out of consciousness,
but that I do think that learning culture requires a great deal of
conscious activity.)

</dev/cam
--
      Cameron Shelley        |"In the beginning, there was nothing.  Then
cpshelle@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca | God said `Let there be light', and there
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     | was still nothing, but youse could see it."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  | --Dave Thomas, SCTV:_Sunrise Semester_
From: zazen@hwperform.austin.ibm.com (East Coker)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Date: 15 Aug 92 01:04:55 GMT
Organization: Is God a Taoist?

In article <1992Aug14.045834.23492@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.230220.23021@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:

>>                                                             Also, if
>>I know a lot about how you solved a problem, then I regard it as more
>>a "skill" than as an intelligent performance.  
 
> And perhaps when we know how intelligence works, we will decide that
>it too is only a skill and not an intelligent performance. :-(  I think
>this is what some people are afraid of, and this is why they will refuse
>to question conventional subjective views.

Yes, the exalted condition of being human, as though we are seperate
from the universe that is the well spring from which we flow.
-- 
East Coker
"In my beginning is my end .... In my end is my beginning" --- T S Eliot
(my opinions alone)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: zack@ncs.dnd.ca (Zachary Jacobson)
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Organization: DND, Ottawa, CANADA
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 20:26:14 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Loebner Prize Transc. Terminal 5
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 16:17:44 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Keywords: Turing Test

Thank you, Joao Leao, for posting these transcripts.  I don't think there's
any doubt who the humans are.  But this judge...

>00:56:58  Judge 7
>All of the above
>
>Wonderful.
>
>Wonderful
>
>Wonderful
>
>Interesting
>
>Fail to comprehend
>
>Go for it
>
>Awesome
>
>Interesting
>
>amazing
[and so on]

...for me, definitely fails the Turing Test!
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:22:54 GMT
	<BILL.92Aug11105853@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
	<1992Aug12.063425.13479@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

marky@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) writes:

   > No confusion on my part, I assure you.  I quote:
   >
   >	We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes
   >	the part of A in this game?"  Will the interrogator decide wrongly
   >	as often when the game is played like this as he does when the
   >	game is played between a man and a woman?  These questions replace
   >	our original, "Can machines think?"

Okay, I was wrong.  It was me who was confused.  But it's hard for me
to believe that Turing actually realized what he was saying when he
wrote this.  Suppose it turned out that interrogators could
distinguish between men and women 100% of the time, and they could
also distinguish between men and computers 100% of the time.  Would
this imply that computers think as much like men as women do?
Obviously not.

I believe that, given an hour of interrogation, I would have a better
than 90% probability of distinguishing between a man and a woman.  I
might be right, or I might be wrong, but it doesn't seem reasonable
that the question whether I'm right or wrong has anything to do with
the question whether machines can think.

	-- Bill
From: forbis@carson.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis)
Subject: Re: Basic definitions
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 09:16:14 GMT

In article <BILL.92Aug13203903@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>Allen Renear writes:
>
>   > I feel quite sure of things of this sort...
>   > -- I believe I have a hand
>   >   [ . . . ]
>   >
>   > I'm not nearly so sure of things of this sort (although I believe
>   > them true)... 
>   > -- I have a hand
>   > [ . . . ]
>
>Yes, this is exactly how Descartes reasoned in his *Meditations*; it
>leads inevitably to dualism.

I'm not sure I believe things are that bad.  Certainly I can believe I
act in ways consistent with having a hand without having a hand.  I understand
that much of flight systems software is exercised on simulators.  I don't
think such testing leads inevitably to any mystical philosophy.

I think it is enough to accept that the "I" who has the beliefs survives
in spit of any differences between beliefs and actualities.

--gary forbis@u.washington.edu
From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test Myths
Date: 18 Aug 92 07:10:50 GMT
	<BILL.92Aug17114642@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
	<1992Aug17.191457.8645@spss.com>
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:

   > > For a male imitating a female, I would begin by asking for an
   > > explanation of the system of women's clothing sizes.  (Junior, Misses,
   > > etc.)  Then I would ask for an explanation of "her" philosophy for
   > > using makeup.  And so on.
   >
   > Would *you* be able to detect "wrong" answers to these questions?  
   > If so, then you know enough about women to pass your own test.
   > If not, then males could certainly imitate women well enough to
   > pass the test with you.

Not so.  It is often possible to detect a lie (because of internal
inconsistency) without knowing the truth.

Anyway, try to imagine how *you* (a man) would respond if asked
questions like these.  I know that *I* would be completely befuddled,
and anybody with any sense would quickly realize that I didn't know
what I was talking about.

	-- Bill