jimmyz%oak.dnet@VLSI2.EE.UFL.EDU (Anubis The Psychic Chaos Metal Riffer Warrior) (06/08/88)
What leads you to believe the human mind is not a complex computer? Computers of are current time have a level of complexity no human device has EVER achieved before, and they are just a granule of what the human mind is. Or rather, the brain. THe brain is undoubetedly a complex computer, but the mind is a non-tangible thing. Just as this VAX 8600 I am using now is a complex (supercomputers and the like aside) computer, but the programs I am using to send this message have absolutely no physical substance. I'd say there is a heck of a lot of similarity. JTR
fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube) (06/10/88)
jimmyz%oak.dnet%vlsi2.ee.ufl.edu@BU-IT.BU.EDU in 8806081622.AA05165@vlsi2.ee.ufl.edu : > Computers of are current time have a level of complexity no human device has > EVER achieved before, and they are just a granule of what the human mind is. In "The Dragons of Eden" Sagan gave some figures on the quanti- ties of information species are born with and the amounts they acquire during their lifetimes (reptiles are at the intersection, i.e. they are the lowest types to acquire as much as they are born with). Does anyone have this handy, to provide some numbers to compare to a VAX et al. ? Presumably ROM = inborn, RAM & other writeable = acquired.
piet@ruuinf.UUCP (Piet van Oostrum) (06/16/88)
In article <8806081622.AA05165@vlsi2.ee.ufl.edu> jimmyz%oak.dnet@VLSI2.EE.UFL.EDU (Anubis The Psychic Chaos Metal Riffer Warrior) writes:
Or rather, the brain. THe brain is undoubetedly a complex computer, but the
^^^^^^^^^^^^ (sic)
What makes you so sure about that? You don't give ANY proof whatsoever for
that statement, yet you request proof from people thinking the opposite.
--
Piet van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, University of Utrecht
Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands
Telephone: +31-30-531806 UUCP: ...!mcvax!ruuinf!pietdoug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson) (07/01/88)
J> From: jimmyz%oak.dnet@VLSI2.EE.UFL.EDU (Anubis The Psychic Chaos
J> What leads you to believe the human mind is not a complex computer?
J> Computers of are current time have a level of complexity no human
J> device has
J> EVER achieved before, and they are just a granule of what the
J> human mind is.
J> Or rather, the brain. THe brain is undoubetedly a complex computer,
J> but the
J> mind is a non-tangible thing. Just as this VAX 8600 I am using
J> now is a complex
J> (supercomputers and the like aside) computer, but the programs
J> I am using to
J> send this message have absolutely no physical substance.
J> I'd say there is a heck of a lot of similarity.
J>
Agreed, there is similarity. In the same way there is similarity between
the sun and a lightbulb. We have been making bigger and better lighbulbs
for quite a while now. Can we make one just like the sun?
Well, in this case we happen to *know* there are differences as well as
similarities. We can't assemble enough matter, at least on earth, to
build something just like the sun. Our lighbulbs, though similar, do not
use the same sort of natural processes as the sun.
It is not a logically sound argument to say that because our technology
is advancing it will ever reach any given goal. The evidence of
advancing technology does not *prove* anything at all.
It is my hypothesis that there are fundamental differences between the
way organic thought operates in a human creature - that is to say, human
intelligence, and the totally logical, mathematical, effective
procedures which by definition are machine intelligence.
To build a good human intelligence out of silicon we would have to
minimally understand human thought and intelligence quite well. This is
really one of the more itneresting parts of AI research today, because
the understanding of human intelligence is not really a "mechanical"
problem. Heck, I don't even understand *myself*!
A good example is provided by chess programs. The intelligence required
to play chess is among the most mechanical and methodical. Machines can
play very good games of chess too. But they don't do it the same way
people do. They do it by making millions of calculations, and we *know*
that is not how people do it. People use something like intuition and
pattern recognition which we know to be quite intependent of any
numerical analysis or number crunching. Computers play chess by doing an
immense amount of arithmetic. As a calculator, the human brain is really
quite slow. Something else is going on.
Thus a quantum leap in technology is needed, a different kind of
computer, to even begin to process data of any sort (even mathematical
data) the way the human mind processes data.
We know that any AI problem is highly dependent on input. Now the input
into the "computer in my skull" comes through my eyes and my ears and my
fingers and toes, my nose and my mouth. To call an intelligence human,
it would need the same input spectrum. Of course people are working on
computer smell and tactile sensors, and you might one day mimic the
whole human sensorium, and create a mechanical copy of a human's entire
experience. You might get a computer to react just like a man to a
beautiful sunset, a starving child, or a girl in a bikini. You might get
a computer pondering ethical problems and answering questions about the
relative merits of marxism vs capitalism as a social order. You really
might one day be able to do that (though I seriously doubt it), but God
forbid that anyone would *want* to!
I've confused the issue between the can do and the should do. But the
should do speaks to the can do. What is a man? What is a machine? Do you
really honestly think that the indisputable similarities add up to a
potential identity? It strikes me as preposterous, and I am searching
for a language to articulate why that is.
The very fact that making mechanical men is something we should not be
doing from a moral and ethical perspective suggests to me that we
probably can't. Why is that? It's hard to be precise, but think of the
sort of human intelligence manifested as a mother holds her newborn to
her breast to suckle. Think about all the complex web of social,
emotional, political, relational and economic input into the behaviour
involved, (and there are two human intelligences to take into account in
this behaviour which is highly relational in nature) and then try to
think of a way to program a computer of any hypothetical power to mimic
it.
------------------------------------------------------------------
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Internet: doug@isishq.math.waterloo.edu (519) 746-5022
------------------------------------------------------------------ peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (07/10/88)
In article <58.22CCF148@isishq.UUCP>, doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson) writes: > Thus a quantum leap in technology is needed, a different kind of > computer, to even begin to process data of any sort (even mathematical > data) the way the human mind processes data. Not at all... you can do it with heavy use of brute force. First you need to have a program that will model reality down to the quantum level. I think we have the information to do that, even if we don't have the technology yet. Now, you model a few cubic meters of space containing a human. You now have a computer program (the simulator) processing data in exactly the same way a human does. You even get the same input spectrum (as you call it). I'm not saying this is useful, but it does indicate that a very fast computer of the kind we use today could solve the problem. Application is merely a matter of stepwise refinement :->. (yeh, this is pretty heavy brute forec). Better algorithms would make it easier, of course. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "Running DOS on a '386 is like driving an Indy car to the Stop-N-Go"
smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan) (07/12/88)
In article <2292@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <58.22CCF148@isishq.UUCP>, doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson) writes: >> Thus a quantum leap in technology is needed, a different kind of >> computer, to even begin to process data of any sort (even mathematical >> data) the way the human mind processes data. > >Not at all... you can do it with heavy use of brute force. First you need >to have a program that will model reality down to the quantum level. See also comp.lang.c. It is an open question if all space-time events can be sufficiently modelled by a discrete computer. It may be difference between aleph-0 and aleph-1 sets which is a tremendous (actually infinite) increase in complexity.