colonel%sunybcs@math.waterloo.edu.UUCP (02/17/87)
In article <8702132202.AA01947@BOEING.COM>, ray@BOEING.COM (Ray Allis) writes: > ... Homo Sap.'s > distinguished success among inhabitants of this planet is primarily due > to our ability to think. ... Success is relative! Cockroaches are successful too, for quite different reasons. And our own success is questionable, considering how many of us starve to death. Try explaining _that_ to a cockroach. Biologically, our chief advantages over other species are erect posture and prehensile hands. Abstract thought is only ancillary; other species lack it mainly because they cannot use it. > and it is difficult > for me to imagine a goal more relevant than improving the chances for > survival by increasing our ability to act intelligently. Well said. But this is an argument for using computers as tools, and it is seldom true that tools ought to be designed to resemble the human components that they extend. Would you use a hammer that looks like a fist? Or wear a shoe with toes? Why try to endow a lump of inorganic matter with the soul of a human being? You don't yet know what your own mind is capable of. Besides, if you do produce an intelligent computer, it may not like you! -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: colonel@sunybcs, csdsiche@ubvms