HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Date: 8 Apr 92 21:58:00 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University

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.

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

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 14:09:08 GMT

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.

Edelman discusses in one chapter, and in an appendix, some of the
issues from this newsgroup. I looked forward to his contributions to
the AI debate because he is someone who actually knows a lot about how
the brain really works. Unfortunately, he doesn't bring any special
insight into his discussion of AI, and merely repeats Searle's
arguments about semantics and syntax. He also pooh-pooh's the notion
(due to the old Putnam) that the brain can be viewed as a Turing
machine, saying that there is nothing in the brain that corresponds to
a Turing machine tape.

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.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 01:31:23 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.204735.21732@psych.toronto.edu> 
	michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:

>Heck, if everyone decided to interpret *your*
>bank's computer as playing chess instead, how would you prove them wrong?

	This echoes a point of Searle's, one I have disputed with
Jeff Dalton and a host of others.  Although our discussion never reached
a clearcut resolution (do they ever?), I'll just go on record again as
saying that I don't think it is possible to consistently interpret Neil's
bank computer as playing chess.  It is only possible if one has a very
loose sense of "interpretion," one which permits lots of symbol manipulations
to be mapped to idle time-marking meaninglessnesses (so to speak).
From: tomh.bbs@cybernet.cse.fau.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Robert Rosen & Physical form of Church's Thesis
Date: 9 Apr 92 21:39:40 GMT
Organization: Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Robert Rosen has a new book out, called "Life Itself" which
addresses many of the issues that have been discussed here.
It is similar in spirit to Penrose's book, but Rosen argues
the points much more effectively, I think.  I heartily
recommend it to anyone who reads this group.

Rosen claims that the physical form of Church's Thesis is false.
This means there are physically realizable processes that are
not effectively calculable.  He also claims that life and probably
'intelligence' are such processes.
 
One candidate is a turbulent flow, which (mathematically) is
aperiodic.  Clearly, any simulation on a digital computer is
going to be periodic, by the finiteness of the number of states
of the computer.  Therefore a digital computer cannot simulate an
aperiodic process perfectly.
 
Issues this raises are:
1) Is a physical turbulent flow really aperiodic?  If not then brains
   are computers and we can all go home.
2) Is a turbulent flow an effective form of computation?  That is,
   does a turbulent flow comprise an algorithm for computing something?
3) What happens if we use an analog computer instead of a digital one?
   The analog computer still has the 'initial condition' problem.
 
Perhaps the most important issue:
 
If I write a computer program that simulates the Lorenz system, or any
turbulent (chaotic) system, then that program will NOT perfectly
track the flow in an analog implementation (or indeed, in some other
digital implementation).  The question is: does this matter?  The two
are qualitatively the same - both produce trajectories lying on the
Lorenz attractor (or arbitrarily close to it).
 
Another way to say this is that two simulations of a brain (with even the
tiniest difference in input) will diverge from each other, as well as
the brain they simulate (no matter what).  But the trajectories will
all be on the "attractor of the brain," if that in fact exists.  I
suspect it does, but this remains an open issue as well.
 
Note that "being on the attractor of the brain" means that the behavior
of the systems are qualitatively, functionally, the same.  So would
the simulation be intelligent?        I think so.

Here's the reference:

Life Itself
Robert Rosen
Columbia University Press, NY, 1992
Complexity in Ecological Systems Series

The book covers a lot of ground, syntax/semantics, Goedel, etc.
He uses Category theory to formalize it all.  I may post a
summary later, but I wanted to get these questions posted first.

Tom Holroyd
Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
tomh@bambi.ccs.fau.edu
From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: 11 Apr 92 06:08:17 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

In article <1992Apr9.201157.16607@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.081207.1027@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr7.203327.516@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>[in response to "SHRDLU has a *little* mind..."]
>
>>>OK, so what are the moral consequences of this belief?  
>>>
>
>>Moral consequences??? What is being talked about here?
>>Are you telling me that you don't step on ants? You
>>don't eat meat and plants? (hundreds of other examples
>
>Well, Antun, that won't wash with me.  I'm vegetarian.

Well, that is not enough! You eat plants, you step on
bugs, come on admit it - you have been the cause of
at least one little animals premature death. What
about all the people you associate with that aren't
vegetarians? You support those people - yes?
Just how far can one strech morality? Morality is
like the proper driving side of the road - it's
different everywhere, so which morality are we
talking about?
>
>>Please make this clear, why do we attribute a moral
>>agency to things with minds? My belief as to why we
>>do this is because things with minds can be influenced
>>in behaviour (NOT BECAUSE THEY INFLUENCE!), Thus a moral
>>agent is a being that fits your mental model of that
>>being. Thus a human is a moral agent, a animal is
>>less so, and a rock is practically a non-agent.
>
>This is nonsense.  Why wouldn't HAL fit your "mental model"
>of a moral agent?

I am not quite sure which HAL we are talking about, but
if you mean the one from the movie 2001, then YES it does
fit as a moral agent, it has the capability to understand
your mental model of itself. As for when it killed, then
I would argue that it has lost it's sense (model) of
morality, just like people go insane.
>
>>	To be a little more explicit, the human being
>>attempts to match his behaviour to what he thinks you
>>expect. The animal does this to a degree less, and the
>>rock does not attempt to change its behaviour in any
>>way to match your mental model of itself.
>>
>>To be a moral agent, it comes down to being capable
>>of being such.
>
>Now if this ain't circular, I don't know what is...

Sorry to hear that you don't know what circular is :-)
But my argument is not circular, recursive would be
more of a proper term in this instance. Being capable
of something in this instance instantiates it.
>
>
>Hmm...I thought so...
>
>- michael


-- 
*****************************************************************
*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
*****************************************************************
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Rosen's New Book
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:02:21 GMT
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine

In article <538@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
|>2) Is a turbulent flow an effective form of computation?  That is,
|>   does a turbulent flow comprise an algorithm for computing something?
|
|Phase-locking from a chaotic process is an efficient way to implement
|pattern-recognition. I can discuss other chaotic processes that provide
|effective computation (if only as a model of a non-linear process...).

Indedd so.  In fact it appears that this is the way, or at least one way,
that the human brain *does* accomplish its amazing feats of pattern matching.
[At least the waking brain wave pattern seems to be just the right sort of
chaotic system for this to work].

By the way, in reading Penrose' "The Emporer's New Mind" this was the
first major weakness I found, he dismissed the computational efficacy of
chaotic systems too glibly, and therefore failed to give them due
consideration as a possible alternative.

Other than that his discussion was excellent, as far as I could tell,
up until he started talking biology - then it slid into extreme sloppiness.
His neurobiology is 15+ year old beginning stuff, not even up to the level
I got in "Intro. to Human Neuroanatomy" at Berkeley 10 years ago.

And his understanding of evolution and the appropriate statistical models
to use with it is simply abysmal.  [The moment he said something about
life 'struggling upwards' I knew he was totally off the wall there].

At least when he was talking physics he clearly labeled his deviations from
the standard models as such.

|>3) What happens if we use an analog computer instead of a digital one?
|>   The analog computer still has the 'initial condition' problem.
|>
|I'm not sure what problem you're aluding to here. Do you mean the problem
|of calibration?

No, he means that it can still only have its initial conditions specified
to a finite precision.
 
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:52:21 GMT

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.  

But where does this lead us?  To entities that only have a "part" of a belief,
or a "bit" of an experience, a "portion" of qualia?   I want to be a realist
about mental states, and so therefore believe that it is not simply a matter of
"deciding" whether rocks have beliefs, like one would decide whether glass is
a liquid or a solid.  There is, from my perspective, a *fact of the matter*
whether or not rocks, or thermostats, or SHRDLU, has mental states.

>  I like to think of SHRDLU as having mind to a very small degree,
>and a thermostat as having an "atom" of mind.  A rock, because it
>contains no representation of the world and does not communicate
>or act purposefully, has no mind at all.
>

I see no way in principle from distinguishing between a rock and a thermostat.
Both react to the external world.  Both exhibit "behaviours".  And both can
be described as being "purposeful" under some description.  It is a mistake
to think that merely because we build thermostats to carry out actions 
we require that they are somehow more special than other objects which also
respond to the environment.  Of course, *all* objects respond to the environment
which may make things a *bit* problematic for your view...


- michael
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Systems Reply I (repost perhaps)
Date: 14 Apr 92 00:40:21 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation

jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
(in response to Antun Zirdum)

>> I think that you missunderstood my point, just because we cannot
>> explain how its done in humans - does that mean that it cannot be
>> duplicated by a physical system?

> No, but if we have good reasons to conclude that it can't
> be duplicated by a computer, we still have these good reasons
> even if we can't say how it's done in humans.

> Unless you are willing to accept this point, there is no point in
> continuing to discuss these matters with me, because I am never going
> to agree that showing how it's done in humans is necessary.

Well, I think that's a big mistake on your part. I believe that
investigating how (and *if*) human brains escape these purported
proofs of the impossibility of AI is crucial in making any progress.
Whether or not AI is actually possible, I would say that these
arguments (such as Searle's about syntax versus semantics, or Putnam's
about cherries and cats) are pretty worthless unless we know how human
brains escape from them. It is as if you proved the impossibility of
robot bumblebees by proving that nothing that worked like a bumblebee
could possibly fly. The existence of bumblebees would suggest that
something is wrong with your proof.

>>Now I am not saying that understanding has already
>>been duplicated by machines, I am arguing that there
>>is no reason that it cannot be!

> Several people have offered reasons why it cannot be.
> They may be wrong, but they're not wrong just because
> they haven't said how humans do it. Address their
> arguments rather than demanding they they do things
> that are unnecessary!

I disagree. I believe that most of the arguments for why computers
can't understand actually make the conditions on understanding so
difficult that *nothing* meets them, not even human beings. If you
claim that "Here is a property that human brains possess, but
computers do not", then you have two obligations: (1) to show that
human brains possess the property, and (2) to show that computers do
not. If you have only argued for (2), then your argument is worthless
(as an argument against AI).

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
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 21:48:00 GMT
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

OK, I see you _were_ talking about the problem of calibration. And, yes,
measurement is more than quantization. You can also measure the
topological structure of the flow, and for many systems (particularly
chaotic ones), that's more interesting than quantitative measurements of
the system state at any specific time.

The conference proceedings for the Cambridge Conference on Dynamic
Modelling and Human Systems (12/10-13/90) should be coming out sometime in
the next few months. The title is Dynamical Modelling and the Study of
Change in Archaeology, S. E. van der Leeuw, ed., University of Edinburgh
Press. There are a number of papers relevant to this discussion, including
(I believe) Robert Rosen's comments as rappatour. (Did I get the spelling
right 8)).

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

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: What counts as the "Right" functional organization?
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:20:07 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.181138.8475@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.142239.7807@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

>>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.

"Not being sufficiently well defined" for what?  If you don't know what
the terms really mean, then how can you possibly claim to have a theory
of how they are produced?  How would you know when you are successful?

- michael


Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 22:07:00 GMT

In article <92099.165657JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.010858.5398@news.media.mit.edu>, minsky@media.mit.edu
>(Marvin Minsky) says:
>...
>>It is _you_ who may interpret what it is doing as formal or precise.
>
>   Does this mean that you reject the isomorphism that many philosophers
>find between computers and formal systems?  And if so, on what grounds?

  I certainly do when it is doing numeric computations involving approximate
arithmetic (as is done, for example, in the floating point unit).  To treat
the computer in such a case as doing formal symbol manipulations is to reduce
its task to something incredibly intricate and resource consuming, but
without any purpose.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 00:53:31 GMT

In article <92099.200726JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> <JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.220700.12092@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil
>Rickert) says:
>>In article <92099.165657JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>>   Does this mean that you reject the isomorphism that many philosophers
>>>find between computers and formal systems?  And if so, on what grounds?
>>
>>  I certainly do when it is doing numeric computations involving approximate
>>arithmetic (as is done, for example, in the floating point unit).  To treat
>>the computer in such a case as doing formal symbol manipulations is to reduce
>>its task to something incredibly intricate and resource consuming, but
>>without any purpose.
>
>     The purpose is to distinguish between what the computer is actually
>doing (i.e. what is actually happening inside the computer) and what kinds
>of things _we_ do with the various states (say, output) of the computer
>(i.e. how we interpret them).

 Certainly you may, if you wish, say that what the computer "is actually
doing" is formal manipulations, and anything else is an interpretation.  But
then you must surely say that what you are actually doing is chemical
manipulations, and anything else is an interpretation.  Any use of this
approach to deny the possibility that computers could ever have semantics
applies equally to deny the possibility that humans could have semantics.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:29:09 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Apr7.223711.18902@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:

>>As I said, I might be willing to participate in a debate with a wider
>>scope, as suggested by the pro-Searle side. But if we now widen the issue
>>from being "the Chinese Room" to "syntax vs. semantics", I would expect a
>>significant risk that the Chinese Room will still be invoked rather quickly
>>as one of the arguments against Strong AI, and then we'd be back at the
>>same point again.

Well, is the AI side willing to agree that the systems reply should
not be "the system understands", because no one has shown that the
system does understand?

>> Therefore, I have to ask: would the pro-Searle side (all
>>of the participants, not only some) be willing to agree to leave the Chinese
>>Room out of the argument, as being insufficient for proving the point? If
>>they are not willing to do that, then I think we would still need to argue
>>that out before going on to any wider questions.
>
>I'd be willing to drop the Chinese Room in favor of a wider debate.  I can't,
>however, speak for my "co-religionists".

I'm not willing to drop it if that means the AI crowd will start
to claim the CR is completely losing -- see no one in comp.ai.phil
was even willing to defend it.

(NB my position is that the CR fails to show the impossibility
of strong ai but that it's useful nonetheless, in part because
it shows we should question the Turing Test.)

-- jd
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy