From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 05:10:57 GMT

In article <C0CHsG.557@spss.com> ,
markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:

>In article <C08L0t.Ksv@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
>writes: 
 
>... 
>However, if we focus on the mature visual system, I think we could 
>duplicate the functions electronically, without using HBSME. 

>I think I've lost you here.  Which element of high-bandwidth sensorimotor 
>experience is not, in your view, necessary for a "mature visual system": 
>the high bandwidth, the experience with the world, or the motor component?

My view (subject to change when countered by a good argument) is that HBSME
shapes the sensory equipment early in life, and our developing and mature
consciousness only receives highly filtered narrow band information.  

The bandwidth of the motor side is probably capable of improving with age
up to the peak years (as performers, surgeons, athletes, etc), but I think
the sensorimotor totality is relatively low bandwidth compared to (O..say
for example, the bandwidth of the communications link connecting the
nucleus of a cell with the rest of the cellular machinery).

The physical stimulation of the sense organs may involve many photons and
be considered high bandwidth from the physicist's perspective, but what we
actually notice can generally be described adequately with narrow bandwidth
verbiage.  Even if we are describing the scene to someone with an alien
background, and are forced to described every detail, I submit that the
details which we are conscious of are relatively narrow bandwidth.

I'm not saying that the "high bandwidth" sensory organs can be dispensed
altogether (though a case can be made for dispensing with some of them
without affecting "grounding").  I am saying that any artificial sensory
system only need provide accurate narrow-bandwidth (processed) information
to the core entity.  

The accuracy of this output may depend on the bandwidth of the input
sensors, but I maintain the bandwidth can be processed out and the accuracy
left in before presentation to the "grounded" core.

>And then, given such an alternative system, what are the implications for
>grounding? 

It could be that I'm still not tracking you on exactly what you mean by
grounding, but I'm tentatively defining it as the ability to project the
appearance of knowing what one is talking about.  To get around the
limitations of the Turing test here, you are allowed to specify additional
tests other than conversation.  If you've administered the tests of your
choice and the individual still appears (to you) to know what he's talking
about, then he passes your grounding test.

Suppose it seems to you that I don't know what I'm talking about today, but
in a few months I come back after having read Searle, Harnad and Lakoff and
sound thoroughly "grounded".  Do I require high bandwidth sensorimotors
to read, or to think about what I've read?

>>As a biological entity, I accept the idea that much of my development 
>>during the first few years (after birth) depended heavily on HBSME.   
>>However I think the bulk of intellectual development that gives me the 
>>sense of knowing what I'm talking about arises from conceptual activity. 
 
>I don't agree.  All of your mature thinking depends heavily on the huge
>mass of information about the world acquired during those first few years.

I DO agree, I guess I didn't elaborate sufficiently.  A child certainly
knows more about his world than a present day AI ________, but children
don't generally appear to me to know what they're talking about. (I bet I
catch hell for that remark).   I think to be grounded in the adult world
requires further development of childhood knowledge, generally along
rational lines.

>But go ahead, explain color to a blind man, or sex to a virgin, or poverty
>to a Republican, so that they know what you're talking about as well as
>you do, using language alone.  Good luck... 

BLIND MAN.  Vision is but one way to gather information, and I suspect most
blind people would resent being termed ungrounded, if they new what you
were talking about (but seriously folks).  Color is a subjective
experience, and I'm not sure if other people know what I mean my red or
green, blind or not.  A blind person would stand as good a chance of
convincing me as a sighted person simply by SAYING he was once sighted, and
by saying red is the color of apples and green is the color of... green
apples.

VIRGIN. There's really no way for the outside observer to tell, is there? 
I understand hymen reconstruction is big business in Japan.  I would
venture that more than once a man has bedded one when he thought she was
the other.

REPUBLICANS.  Some words are better at communicating than others. 
"Returned for insufficient funds", for a few months running might do the
trick.  The point being, poverty is a decidedly narrow bandwidth
experience.

>>I think the proof is in the pudding.  If the AI does it's job, then it's 
>>grounded enough.   
 
>Nonsense.  The job of the top chess programs is to play chess, and they do
>it very well; are they grounded?  Obviously the job has to have something
>to do with tasks for which humans need to be grounded-- and even there
>effective performance is no proof; a computer might be able to execute
>those tasks in a different way, without needing to be grounded at all. 

It seems to me that the requirement for grounding is simply a matter of
adding one more detail to the job description, "in addition to primary
duties, the candidate must be able to project (to Mark Rosenfelder) the
appearance of knowing what he or she is talking about."

>And I say you're evaluating "vision" by testing for "sensitivity to
>light." An AI that could do well in a debate would be quite interesting;
>but debating is a small subset of human experience, and one which panders
>to the skills computers can be most easily given, such as memory and
>logic. As for whether debating tests grounding, I would think that a few
>months' experience with Usenet would suffice to demonstrate that the
>ability to dominate a debate has little to do with knowing what one is
>talking about. 

USENET is but one way to exchange information, and I suspect most USENET
people would resent being termed ungrounded, if they new what you were
talking about (but seriously folks).  

Debate by block-and-copy, aren't word processors wonderful?

--
Ken Easlon                | "...somebody spoke and I went into a dream..."
ken@holonet.net           |    -Paul McCartney
Pleasantly Unaffiliated   |