jufier@daimi.aau.dk (Svend Jules Fjerdingstad) (11/13/90)
The January 1990 issue of Scientific American featured two articles about Artificial Intelligence: "Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Program?" by John R. Searle, and "Could a Machine Think?" by Paul M. Churchland and Patricia Smith Churchland. All three authors are professors of philosophy, which may explain their poor general understanding of the properties of computers and computer programs. In the September issue Scientific American printed a number of responses to the articles. Although I agree with most of the objections to the articles stated in these letters, I feel that important points of criticism was omitted. The following represent my response to the articles. I must confess, that I'm not exactly impressed by the quality of the arguments presented in the two articles. It seems to me, that most of the arguments are quite weak and remarkably simple to refute. In "Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Program?" professor of philosophy John R. Searle attempts to show that even passing the famous Turing test does not prove a computer program intelligent. He tells this story of a "Chinese Room" in which a person ignorant of Chinese language manipulates Chinese symbols according to the rules in a book. He correctly points out, that the rule book is the "computer program", and that the person is the "computer", merely executing the program. But then he wrongly concludes, that the _person_ satisfies the Turing test in spite of being ignorant of Chinese. Obviously, it is the Chinese Room _as a whole_, which is able to pass the Turing test. And the room itself certainly cannot be said to be ignorant of Chinese, as an extensive knowledge must be present in the rule book, although the person in the room has no means of accessing this knowledge. To him or her, the rules in the book _seem_ entirely meaningless. Unless speaking Chinese in a manner "indistinguishable from those of a native Chinese speaker" does not require intelligence, then of course the entire room must be considered intelligent. It certainly behaves intelligently, and as this cannot be ascribed to the person, the intelligence must be due to the rule book, whether the rules are stored on paper or not. Searle tries to avoid this so-called Systems Reply by imagining yet another (impossible) situation, in which the person in the room memorizes all the rules for manipulating the symbols. His argument is nearly unbelievably naive: "There is nothing in the 'system' that is not in me, and since I don't understand Chinese, neither does the system." The consequences of this statement are absurd: If his statement is correct, then he has proven nothing more, than that it should be possible for a person ignorant of Chinese to pass the Turing test for speaking Chinese. All he has done is reducing the requirements for speaking a language fluently. In fact, he has simply made it impossible to determine, whether a person understands a given human language or not: If other humans are able to answer in speech as though they understood what was being said, then surely all their actions might also be the result of consulting a simple rule book. The entire concept of comprehension has been made hollow and without meaning. Furthermore, if the Turing test no longer is a valid test for intelligence, then it has become impossible to judge the degree of intelligence present in a person. The concept of intelligence has also been made meaningless, as the presence or absence of Searle's kind of intelligence in no way influences an entity's behaviour. If it did, the Turing test could be used to distinguish between the two. Of what use are Searle's concepts of comprehension and intelligence, if they are not related to any events of this world? If Searle's statement were true, he would simply have made it clear that conscious thought was unnecessary for all kinds of human behaviour! Which is probably the exact opposite of what he wanted to prove. But perhaps the key to the explanation could be, that Searle himself actually does not understand English. Whenever he writes an article, he simply consults a (lousy) book full of rules for writing articles against artificial intelligence :-) The entire attitude of Searle is ridiculous. He states that "a program merely manipulates symbols, whereas a brain attaches meaning to them". But why is it important, that humans attach meaning to symbols? Does it matter? Of course it does, it is exactly this attaching meaning to symbols that allows us to interpret the symbols as conveying a message, and allows us to understand this message. Obviously, the fact that we are able to understand symbolically encoded messages affect the way we interact with our environment. Which is why a computer would have to be able to understand human language, not merely manipulate it, in order to pass the Turing test. Does our intelligence influence the way we behave? Of course, it does. If not, what is intelligence, then? And why are we equipped with it, if it is of no real, practical use? But if intelligence influences our behaviour, then it follows, that a computer also would have to be intelligent, if ever to pass the Turing test. As the person in the Chinese Room were unable to understand the Chinese signs entering the room, all of these qualities would have to be present in the "rule book" in the Chinese Room, which would make it something far more sophisticated than merely a book. I think, this is where Searle really cheats. By using a simple book full of rules, he is able to carry along with his arguments, because it is obvious, that a book could not understand Chinese, or be intelligent. However, he has at no time demonstrated (or even made likely) that a book would indeed be sufficient for his project. His assumption is, in fact, a degradation of intelligence to a set of simple rules that can easily be formulated in a book. Searle gets things mixed up by assigning the name "book" to an entity with properties, that are fundamentally different from those of a book. This is, in my opinion, the central error in the Chinese Room argument. Searle confuses himself (and the Churchlands) by calling something a book, that could never be just a book of rules. Searle's attack on the Turing test is unfair and unfounded. He mistakes his own lack of understanding for flaws in the Turing test. It is odd, that the Churchlands in their article "Could a Machine Think?" fail to recognize the untenability of Searle's arguments against the Turing test. They agree with Searle, that "it is also very important how the input-output function is achieved; it is important that the right sorts of things be going on inside the artificial machine." Well, I certainly do not agree with that. That's just pure mysticism. A black box must be considered intelligent, if it acts intelligently. It is ridiculous to define "conscious intelligence" in a way, which makes it impossible to measure, because it in no ways affect its surroundings. With this definition, we won't ever be able to determine whether conscious intelligence is present or not in an object. All we can say is the following: "Is it human? Ah, then it's intelligent! Not human? Well, then this seemingly intelligent behaviour is not achieved the right (human) way. Therefore, it is not intelligent!" Then we have defined intelligence in such a way, that it can only occur in humans. And by defining it this way, we have excluded all the most impressive and important qualities of human intelligence. I am not at all impressed by these three philosophers' abilities to reason: Searle also argues that simulating a process on a computer is very different from the actual process, and that therefore even if we could simulate all the processes of the brain, we should still not have attained artificial intelligence. However his example, that you cannot make a car run with a computer simulation of the oxidation of hydrocarbons in an engine, is really not relevant. Obviously, "a simulation of cognition" would process the same genuine information as a brain, not just some symbolic substitute. And it would process it the same way as the brain. The simulation would be a genuine "processor of information", just like the brain. Therefore the two situations are not comparable, and the argument is invalid. Let me try to summarize, why I think AI is possible. The definition of intelligence I will use, is the more usual one than Searle's: Intelligence is the ability to interact with the environment in an "intelligent" way, that is, in a way which shows comprehension of the workings of the environment. My argument goes like this: Only purely random events (if such exist at all) are not governed by rules. And since intelligence is the quintessence of non-randomness, rules for intelligent behaviour must exist, however complex they may be. These rules are not the kind of rules to be found in Searle's rule book. These are complex rules, which take into account all knowledge and memory of past experiences, all emotions, the behaviour of the surroundings, et cetera. Because of that, all rules are not the same in all humans, but no doubt we share a large proportion of these rules. Intelligent behaviour is in essence highly non-predictable. But this is simple due to the complexity and multitude of the rules guiding intelligence. It is certainly not the result of no rules, as this would only lead to random, and thereby non-intelligent, behaviour. As a consequence of the existence of such complex rules, artificial intelligence is possible, as it is "simply" a matter of creating a machine, which is able to handle these complex rules and the enormous amount of memory required. And it would be very unlike human beings, if we were not to achieve such a machine one day. In his response in the September issue of Scientific American, Searle writes: "It is a mistake to suppose that in opposing a computational explanation of consciousness I am opposing a mechanical explanation." In my opinion, this doesn't make sense at all. If there is a mechanical explanation, then there has to be a computational explanation as well, because every mechanical process can be described computationally. Searle admits: "There must be a mechanical explanation for how the brain processes produce consciousness because the brain is a system governed by the laws of physics." Yes, and that is precisely the reason why artificial intelligence is possible. "Consciousness" and "intelligence" are results of a functioning brain. It is this functionality, that we want to recreate. What matters is the functionality itself, not how it is achieved. And if there is a mechanical explanation of how the brain's information processing works, then of course we can, in principle, recreate it as a computer program, however complex it might have to be. Searle ends his response my stating that: "Any sane analysis has to grant that the person in the Chinese room does not understand Chinese." Right, I agree. I don't think, that Searle could find anybody disagreeing. However, this is completely uninteresting. As Searle pointed out in his article, the person is acting as a "computer", whereas it is the rule book, that corresponds to the computer _program_. So Searle has just proved, that the _hardware_ of a computer need not be intelligent in order for the computer _system_ to be intelligent. But he certainly hasn't proved, that the brain's mind could not be the result of executing a computer program, as was his intention. Searle's article, and others like it, always makes me think of the apparent paradox, that the people most strongly opposed to the notion of artificial intelligence are sometimes those, who seem less well endowed with natural intelligence :-) -- Svend Jules Fjerdingstad, jufier@daimi.aau.dk Computer Science Department, University of Aarhus Ny Munkegade 116, DK-8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK
deichman@cod.NOSC.MIL (Shane D. Deichman) (11/14/90)
In his earlier posting, Svend makes some brilliant arguments in support of a deterministic, non-free will environment for human existence. By deftly casting the arguments of both Searle and the Churchlands aside, he resorts to a "If it exhibits the qualities of intelligence then it IS intelligent" argument. Is that to say that human perceptions are always infallible, and that what we see and perceive actually IS? Or does it imply that our percep- tions, while not always accurate, still elicit a deeper understanding of a given phenomenon based on multiple repetitions? The Chinese Room argument points out some deficiencies in the Turing Test -- deficiencies which call upon the observer to take a deeper, more profound look at what is meant by "understanding" and "knowledge." Svend disregards the subconsciousness associated with cognition and lucidity, and therefore begs the question. Furthermore, he attacks the Churchlands (supposed "allies" in his campaign in support of Strong AI) in their reasoning capacities for failing to see this point he so astutely raises. Perhaps, in a stolid, deterministic world where emotions are bleak representa- tions of mere "sensory inputs," Svend's arguments would carry some weight. But in a world enriched by the subtleties of life, his "intelligence" as a function of outward appearance is exceedingly bland. -shane "the Ayatollah of Rock-and-Rollah"
JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET (Josh Hayes) (11/14/90)
What needs defining here is "intelligence", because it seems that Searle has his own definition which _de facto_ includes being a human being, or at least an organic being; it's no surprise then that no machine "intelligence" need apply.... Sven, on the other hand (I have a Colombian friend named Sven; it's an odd name for that part of the world....where was I?) defines intelligence as "that which appears intelligent" (I paraphrase, but I think, fairly). This is a simple definition (though it begs the question of how we determine what "appearing intelligent" is), and is, I think, the relevant definition to the question of A.I. I believe we want a pragmatic definition: what is the PURPOSE of AI? We ostensibly design AIs to perform a task or tasks that we assume to require a degree of intelligence; to the extent that they carry them out well, are they not intelligent? This all ties back to the emergent properties shtick (sorry). The systems reply to Searle's CR analogy is entirely appropriate if we regard "intelligence" as a property of a system as a whole which cannot be said to reside in any particular component of that system. It is the property of the "instruction book" and the "guy who manipulates the symbols" AND the interaction between these sub- systems AND the interaction of that whole system with the outside world (that speaks Chinese to the "Room"). As such, "intelligence" may not be a very useful term, since it's so difficult to pin down, and of course, since it's such a loaded term. ------- Josh Hayes, Zoology Department, Miami University, Oxford OH 45056 voice: 513-529-1679 fax: 513-529-6900 jahayes@miamiu.bitnet, or jahayes@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu "It is always wise to remember that it was the gods who put nipples on men, seeds in pomegranates, and priests in temples."
vic@corona.Solbourne.COM (Vic Schoenberg) (11/16/90)
I am enjoying this revisiting of the Chinese Room as much as ever this time around, but once again I feel we are having all the fun at Searle's expense. Typical of the Searle bashing is this conclusion to the posting by Svend Jules Fjerdingstad: > Searle's article, and others like it, always makes me think of the > apparent paradox, that the people most strongly opposed to the notion of > artificial intelligence are sometimes those, who seem less well endowed with > natural intelligence :-) I suppose it's possible that AI researchers are smarter than philosophers, but there are other possibilities. For example, Searle may understand the issues differently, or he may impose different criteria on a satisfactory reply. In the case of the question of whether passing the Turing Test in and of itself assures that a system understands a natural language, I think both these factors are involved. Recall that the very purpose of the Turing Test is to establish an operational test for intelligence, bypassing any attempt to agree on the definition of what intelligence is, or what it means to understand a language. With the Turing Test, we have a mathematician's attempt to bypass these sticky questions of philosophy. It isn't surprising that a philosopher should be unamused. To a philosopher of mind, this end run around the main issues of the day isn't acceptable. Searle isn't satisfied with an operational definition of intelligence because this doesn't address the issues of subjectivity, qualia, the problem of other minds, and so forth that are central to the human experience and constitute the core unsolved problems of this area of philosophic study. > Searle tries to avoid this so-called Systems Reply by imagining yet > another (impossible) situation, in which the person in the room memorizes all > the rules for manipulating the symbols. His argument is nearly unbelievably > naive: "There is nothing in the 'system' that is not in me, and since I don't > understand Chinese, neither does the system." > The consequences of this statement are absurd: If his statement is > correct, then he has proven nothing more, than that it should be possible > for a person ignorant of Chinese to pass the Turing test for speaking > Chinese. This is one of the points Searle wished to establish, that the Turing Test is inadequate. Searle is often accused of dualism or even mysticism, but he doesn't consider himself as either. If anyone is taking a leap of faith here, it is the AI advocates. I doubt if any of them think a radio understands speech, or a television enjoys sitcoms, or a computer reads the email that passes through it and forms opinions on its quality. But we think that with the right wiring and right programs it will suddenly become conscious and have beliefs. Searle doesn't deny that material entities can have such properties, but he suggests that something in the brain is making possible these subjective experiences which humans have, and the something that does this, whatever it is, is quite beyond anything computer scientists have created or proposed. I think he has a valid point, and I wish we could address the problems of qualia, other minds, and the subjective experiences of humans and other intelligent agents instead of belittling him and the issues he raises. -- Vic Schoenberg vic@Solbourne.COM 303/678-4603 ...!{uunet,boulder,sun}!stan!vic
marky@caen.engin.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) (11/16/90)
In article <1990Nov15.204949.12075@Solbourne.COM> vic@corona.Solbourne.COM (Vic Schoenberg) writes: > [In some other article someone else writes:] >> Searle tries to avoid this so-called Systems Reply by imagining yet >> another (impossible) situation, in which the person in the room memorizes all >> the rules for manipulating the symbols. His argument is nearly unbelievably >> naive: "There is nothing in the 'system' that is not in me, and since I don't >> understand Chinese, neither does the system." >> The consequences of this statement are absurd: If his statement is >> correct, then he has proven nothing more, than that it should be possible >> for a person ignorant of Chinese to pass the Turing test for speaking >> Chinese. > >This is one of the points Searle wished to establish, that the Turing >Test is inadequate. > My interpretation of Searle's reply here is that it should be possible for someone who doesn't understand Chinese to speak it in a way indistinguishable from someone who does understand, simply by memorizing the rules from the Chinese room. Of course, if we were carrying on a conversation with someone in Chinese, and that person claimed not to understand the language, we would hardly believe him. If Searle persisted in claiming that he didn't understand Chinese, in spite of carrying on perfectly fluent conversation therein, we would question his sanity before his understanding. Thus Searle's claim that the system does not understand seems far-fetched. So the Turing test is only inadequate as a theory of understanding (can it even be called a theory of understanding?). It is perfectly adequate as a test of understanding. >Recall that the very purpose of the Turing Test is to establish an operational >test for intelligence, bypassing any attempt to agree on the definition of >what intelligence is, or what it means to understand a language. With the >Turing Test, we have a mathematician's attempt to bypass these sticky >questions of philosophy. It isn't surprising that a philosopher should >be unamused. To a philosopher of mind, this end run around the main >issues of the day isn't acceptable. Searle isn't satisfied with an >operational definition of intelligence because this doesn't address the >issues of subjectivity, qualia, the problem of other minds, and so >forth that are central to the human experience and constitute the core >unsolved problems of this area of philosophic study. Since the Turing test doesn't address these issues, and was never meant to, isn't it irrelevent to them? Turing wasn't trying to help us understand what understanding is, only to help us recognise it. Why does Searle spend so much time and effort criticising something that has no bearing on what he's interested in? ...mark young
jufier@daimi.aau.dk (Svend Jules Fjerdingstad) (11/17/90)
deichman@cod.NOSC.MIL (Shane D. Deichman) writes: >In his earlier posting, Svend makes some brilliant arguments in >support of a deterministic, non-free will environment for human >existence. By deftly casting the arguments of both Searle and >the Churchlands aside, he resorts to a "If it exhibits the qualities >of intelligence then it IS intelligent" argument. Is that to say >that human perceptions are always infallible, and that what we >see and perceive actually IS? Or does it imply that our percep- >tions, while not always accurate, still elicit a deeper understanding >of a given phenomenon based on multiple repetitions? No. The point is this: If a human being "exhibits the qualities of intelligence" (according to our (subjective) perception of such qualities), then we DO (in normal every-day life) consider this human being to be intelligent. Therefore if some entity (be it a computer system or anything else) behaves "intelligently", then we MUST also conclude, that this entity has intelligence. If we cannot consider a computer system intelligent EVEN THOUGH it behaves intelligently, then we have redefined the concept of intelligence in such a way as to make it completely unrelated to any behaviour, that we can observe. This means that any piece of dirt might indeed be considered intelligent, or alternatively, that it is impossible to conclude about any human being, that he or she is intelligent. This definition could, in fact, lead to a belief in the non-existence of true intelligence, whether in humans or in computers. (Except in me, of course :-)) In my opinion, this last definition of intelligence is absurd an useless. Intelligence is the ability to BEHAVE intelligently. Nice definition, eh :-) The problem is that we cannot at the present time (and perhaps we never will be able to) give a precise and exhaustive definition of intelligent behaviour. Therefore the Turing test represents the brilliant solution of using one intelligent system, human beings, to evaluate the possible degree of (verbal) intelligence residing in some other supposedly intelligent system, a computer system, for example. >The Chinese Room argument points out some deficiencies in the Turing >Test -- deficiencies which call upon the observer to take a deeper, >more profound look at what is meant by "understanding" and "knowledge." >Svend disregards the subconsciousness associated with cognition and >lucidity, and therefore begs the question. If subconsciousness is a prerequisite for intelligence, if it plays a role in forming intelligent behaviour, then of course a computer system would have to possess subconsciousness, in order to pass the Turing test. Anyway, IMHO the only deficiencies pointed out by The Chinese Room argument are deficiencies in Searle's understanding of the Turing test :-) If Searle's Chinese Room argument were valid, then all of you people out there on the net might just be mindless machines looking up words in a dictionary. But then, why do I bother writing this? Better stop now :-) >Furthermore, he attacks the Churchlands (supposed "allies" in his >campaign in support of Strong AI) in their reasoning capacities >for failing to see this point he so astutely raises. Perhaps, in >a stolid, deterministic world where emotions are bleak representa- >tions of mere "sensory inputs," Svend's arguments would carry some >weight. But in a world enriched by the subtleties of life, his >"intelligence" as a function of outward appearance is exceedingly >bland. Ah, I thought so. You ARE one of those :-) >-shane >"the Ayatollah of Rock-and-Rollah" Svend -- Svend Jules Fjerdingstad, jufier@daimi.aau.dk | "To love, Computer Science Department, University of Aarhus | and to learn." Ny Munkegade 116, DK-8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK |
mcdermott-drew@cs.yale.edu (Drew McDermott) (11/17/90)
In article <1990Nov15.204949.12075@Solbourne.COM> vic@corona.Solbourne.COM (Vic Schoenberg) writes: Searle isn't satisfied with an >operational definition of intelligence because this doesn't address the >issues of subjectivity, qualia, the problem of other minds, and so >forth that are central to the human experience and constitute the core >unsolved problems of this area of philosophic study. > >Searle is often accused of dualism or even mysticism, but he doesn't >consider himself as either. If anyone is taking a leap of faith here, >it is the AI advocates. I doubt if any of them think a radio >understands speech, or a television enjoys sitcoms, or a computer reads >the email that passes through it and forms opinions on its quality. >But we think that with the right wiring and right programs it will >suddenly become conscious and have beliefs. If you delete the word "suddenly," then of course you're right: Our operating assumption is that with the "right ... programs, it will be ... conscious." >Searle doesn't deny that material entities can have such properties, but >he suggests that something in the brain is making possible these >subjective experiences which humans have, and the something that does >this, whatever it is, is quite beyond anything computer scientists have >created or proposed. >I think he has a valid point, and I wish we could address the problems >of qualia, other minds, and the subjective experiences of humans and >other intelligent agents instead of belittling him and the issues he >raises. > I agree entirely (although "quite beyond" seems a little strong), .... >-- > >Vic Schoenberg vic@Solbourne.COM >303/678-4603 ...!{uunet,boulder,sun}!stan!vic .... however, it would be nice to have a decisive refutation of Searle. And here it is: Searle's argument takes the form of a Gedanken experiment. Such an experiment resembles a real experiment in that one starts with a prediction and at some point it gets refuted or confirmed. Obviously, this makes sense only if the experiment causes two theories to interact in surprising ways. E.g., Einstein imagined what light would look like if you were traveling at the speed of light, thus exposing basic contradictions among existing physical theories. Now, the question for Searle is: Exactly what prediction would cognitive science (or "Strong AI") make about the Chinese Room situation? He always talks as if the theory would predict that the squiggle-manipulator would come to understand Chinese. But I doubt anyone would agree to abide by that prediction. Instead, the prediction would be that (with the "right programs" again), a virtual person would come into existence that did understand Chinese. This is the virtual person you are communicating with via squiggles and squoggles. This prediction may seem crazy to scoffers at AI, but merely seeming crazy is not sufficient for a hypothesis to be refuted in a Gedanken experiment. One actually has to arrive at a contradiction of existing theories. And of course we're ludicrously underequipped with useful theories in this area. Anyway, the key principle here is that those espousing the theory being critiqued, and not those making the critique, get to say what the theory predicts. -- Drew McDermott
cw2k+@andrew.cmu.edu (Christopher L. Welles) (11/17/90)
In <1990Nov15.204949.12075@Solbourne.COM> Vic Schoenberg says: In response to Svend Fjerdingstad >> The consequences of this statement are absurd: If his statement is >> correct, then he has proven nothing more, than that it should be possible > >for a person ignorant of Chinese to pass the Turing test for speaking > >Chinese. > >This is one of the points Searle wished to establish, that the Turing >Test is inadequate. It appears you've missed the whole point of what Svend was trying to say. Just the fact that a part of the system, a logical part, not physical part, does not understand, does not mean that the system as a whole does not understand. It is not actually the person, as Svend had said, that passes the turning test, but the system as a whole, rules and all. The place Svend made a mistake was in just assuming what was meant would be understood. It seems those people who actually understand the systems reply take it for granted that others do. As for myself, it's hard to imagine not understanding the systems reply. It just seems obvious. So obvious, in fact, that it is difficult to communicate the reasoning behind it. It seems to be a conceptual leap of sorts. Let me try to explain the concept once again. Let us take you for example. When photons of light strike your eye, a complex series of chemical reactions take place resulting in pulses being sent from the nerve. If we traced these pulses throughout the whole brain, they would still only be pulses, or at least would result in specific physical reactions. We can define all those physical reactions as rules. Throughout the whole brain, you can follow all the pulses, all the chemical reactions, and they won't mean a thing to you. It's only the system itself that sees any meaning. It's doesn't even realize they are pulses! The two views of what's going on are from completely different view points. If you still don't understand, I'm at a loss. I'm strongly inclined to take the viewpoint that Svend did: "that the people most strongly opposed to the notion of artificial intelligence are sometimes those, who seem less well endowed with natural intelligence." I just don't know how to state it more clearly! I'm curious though. There is the question of why some people seem to understand the Systems Reply, while others have no concept of what it means. Could programming experience have something to do with it. It just seems to be that those people who understand the systems reply are those very same people who understand why a computer can be built out of toilet paper and rocks. <<<<< Chris >>>>>
G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) (11/18/90)
Why Chinese? Is this is a Red Herring (or racism)? Why not French,
Serbo-Croat or Swedish? The fact that Chinese use pictograms rather
than letters is irrelevant to the arguments.
Gordon Joly +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
InterNet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BTmarky@caen.engin.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) (11/18/90)
In article <1990Nov16.161134.2845@daimi.aau.dk> jufier@daimi.aau.dk (Svend Jules Fjerdingstad) writes: >deichman@cod.NOSC.MIL (Shane D. Deichman) writes: > >>The Chinese Room argument points out some deficiencies in the Turing >>Test -- deficiencies which call upon the observer to take a deeper, >>more profound look at what is meant by "understanding" and "knowledge." >>Svend disregards the subconsciousness associated with cognition and >>lucidity, and therefore begs the question. > >If subconsciousness is a prerequisite for intelligence, if it plays a role >in forming intelligent behaviour, then of course a computer system would have >to possess subconsciousness, in order to pass the Turing test. > I think this is a very important point, one that is ignored in the Chinese room argument. The CR argument goes like this: IF the Turing test is correct, AND a machine of such-and-such a type passes it, THEN that machine is intelligent. BUT, that type of machine can't be intelligent (it doesn't have the "right stuff") THEREFORE, the Turing test is not correct. Implicit in this argument is that the offending machine will pass the Turing test (otherwise the implication is invalid). It is possible that the Turing test is valid, and yet no machine will ever pass it. It is possible that any machine that passes the TT will be totally unlike anything we now consider to be a computer. Nevertheless, this would not invalidate the test itself. ...mark young
thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) (11/20/90)
In article <1990Nov15.204949.12075@Solbourne.COM> vic@corona.Solbourne.COM (Vic Schoenberg) writes: > >I suppose it's possible that AI researchers are smarter than philosophers, >but there are other possibilities. For example, Searle may understand >the issues differently, or he may impose different criteria on a >satisfactory reply. In the case of the question of whether passing the >Turing Test in and of itself assures that a system understands a natural >language, I think both these factors are involved. > Certainly, certainly. It seems to me that Alan Turing was interested in testing for the existence of intelligence, while Searle is interested in the nature of intelligence. To give a gravitational analogy, Turing is calculating possible observed planetary orbits based on Newtonian theory to see if planets might follow them, while Searle is studying the curvature of space, and why it happens. >Recall that the very purpose of the Turing Test is to establish an operational >test for intelligence, bypassing any attempt to agree on the definition of >what intelligence is, or what it means to understand a language. With the >Turing Test, we have a mathematician's attempt to bypass these sticky >questions of philosophy. It isn't surprising that a philosopher should >be unamused. To a philosopher of mind, this end run around the main >issues of the day isn't acceptable. Searle isn't satisfied with an >operational definition of intelligence because this doesn't address the >issues of subjectivity, qualia, the problem of other minds, and so >forth that are central to the human experience and constitute the core >unsolved problems of this area of philosophic study. > Frankly, Alan Turing didn't write his little paper to amuse philosophers. He was trying to come up with an operational definition that people could use, if and when anybody declared that a machine was intelligent. The technique of establishing an operational definition for something you don't understand is very common. I've seen it applied to gravity, memory, and a host of other things. What makes such a criterion useful is not its theoretical basis, or an ability to capture all members of a class, but that it establishes some set of instances (in this case, hypothetical intelligent computers) that we can observe and reason from. At the very least, it has the virtue of being somewhat objective. Consider this Searle person (how did he get into this discussion? :-). He keeps saying that brains think. How does he establish that? Has he ever observed a brain removed from the rest of its body, and determined that it thinks? How does he know that anybody but himself thinks, if he is willing to consider that behavior indicating thought may proceed from another source? Speaking personally, I don't know that I have a brain. I have hard stuff in my head, which corresponds to descriptions and pictures I have seen of "skulls." I am assured from many quarters that skulls of humans (which class I seem to fall into - consider appearance, physical capabilities, and the fact that medical techniques based on humans seem to work on me, not to mention genealogical evidence) contain brains. I am further assured that electrodes placed upon my scalp have detected electrical activity consistent with sleeping and waking (whether this is from an alleged brain or not I do not know). Furthermore, I am told that various parts of science, now somewhat united as cognitive science, tell me that brains are the source of various functions which description resembles that which I experience as "thought." Therefore, there is one entity which I know thinks, and I have no more than strongly suggestive evidence that that entity possesses a brain. Were I therefore to construct the appropriate thought experiment, I could conclude that there is a possibility that you cannot build anything capable of thinking with organic materials, but you need a computer. If, on the other hand, I grant that intelligent behavior indicates intelligence, the thought experiment becomes too much like Descartes' malevolent demon to be even vaguely plausible. Therefore, I will start taking Searle more seriously when he provides some sort of criterion of thought that is not ultimately based on the Turing Test, or when he gives an understandable difference between the cognitive powers of a human and the proper computer programs running on an appropriate machine. (Searle is correct in that programs don't think; actually, programs don't do anything. It is the system running the programs that does something.) I will take the "causal powers" argument seriously when I find out what "causal powers" are and why computers (*not* programs, see above) don't have them. I will take the "symbol grounding" argument seriously when somebody shows how to test for it, in a system-dependent way, in a way not dependent on behavior. (If you ask me what an apple is, what kind of apples I like, and to pick an apple out of a fruit basket, how do you know I am referring to apples, and not thinking I am playing some sort of chess game or discussing the stock market in some weird code? The possibility that a computer is doing this plays a major role in the Scientific American article.) DHT
mark@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Mark Johnson) (11/21/90)
Drew McDermott makes the interesting claim that in Searle's Chinese Room, we wind up communicating with a "virtual person". This raises all sorts of interesting questions, like "What is a virtual person?", and "How is it that real people like you and me might be able to communicate with them?" Presumably such "virtual people" must be "instantiated" somehow on real entities, and maybe they even need to be "connected" to the "real world" in some way to be "real virtual people"? Maybe all of this sounds crazy to you A.I.'ers --- of course the mind is a computer, what else could it be? (But remember during the last century people thought the brain was like a steam engine, controlled by governors and what not: there is a definite tendancy to view the brain as the most complicated machine around). Actually, what I really wanted to do here is point out the relationship between Searle's Chinese Room argument and some recent issues in the semantics of natural language. There are two basic approaches to N.L. semantics. The first trys to understand N.L.U. solely in terms of symbol processing; if only we can come up with the right representations and algorithms we will be able to explain natural language understanding. The second claims that one must focus on the fact that natural language expressions are *about* something: that when I say "The sun is shining" I'm not just telling you about my internal psychological state, but also about things external to me: the relationship between the sun, clouds, and where I happen to be sitting, etc. These people take the *situatedness* of natural language to be perhaps its most important property. If these people are right, and if intelligence is like language, then its not just the abstract representations and algorithms used by an entity that make it intelligent, but crucially the way in which these representations are grounded in (related to) external reality. Mark Johnson
G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) (11/23/90)
I said > Why Chinese? Is this is a Red Herring (or racism)? Why not French, > Serbo-Croat or Swedish? The fact that Chinese use pictograms rather > than letters is irrelevant to the arguments. Somebody suggested that this revealed my own xenophobia. Another said that Searle's thrust was to present a language that was very foreign in every sense, that is in syntax, idiom, grammar and so on. In response, I would like to suggest "The BSL Room". The operator in room cannot speak British Sign Language but has a method of reading the signs and giving answers back in BSL. Sign is a language in its own right. It is not a one-to-one mapping onto, say, English. BSL and ASL (American SL) are different languages. Note also that Belgian Sign is used by both the Flemish and French communities. Gordon Joly +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716 InterNet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT
cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) (11/26/90)
In article <MARK.90Nov21124612@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de> mark@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Mark Johnson) writes: > >Drew McDermott makes the interesting claim that in Searle's >Chinese Room, we wind up communicating with a "virtual person". >This raises all sorts of interesting questions, like "What is >a virtual person?", and "How is it that real people like you >and me might be able to communicate with them?" Presumably >such "virtual people" must be "instantiated" somehow on >real entities, and maybe they even need to be "connected" to >the "real world" in some way to be "real virtual people"? The analogy is with "virtual machine". Some machines have a level of description of their functioning which is independent of the technology used to implement the operations of that level. This lets you port software around different computers: you only have to re-implement the virtual machine the stuff runs on. Is there such a level of description of human mental functioning? Another way of asking that: is cognition computation? Possible answers are: 1. Impossible. 2. Well, in fact people aren't built like that, but they could be. 3. Yes. Much AI and cognitive science has presumed one of the latter two answers and is still making entertaining progress. So, if the answer is "yes", then you and I are in fact virtual people. If the answer is "well ...", then you and I are probably indistinguishable from virtual people. It's just that the concept only has theoretical interest until you find a way of breaking the thing apart at some virtual machine interface. -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (11/27/90)
In article <1990Nov19.191925.28285@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes: > >Frankly, Alan Turing didn't write his little paper to amuse philosophers. >He was trying to come up with an operational definition that people could >use, if and when anybody declared that a machine was intelligent. > Having now read several of David's contributions, I am not about to accuse him of not having read "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." He knows enough of the details of the story to convince me that he has read the paper at least once, if not several times. However, the above paragraph indicates, to me at least, that he may not have received Turing's message. Therefore, I would like to try to clear up a couple of points. First of all, for those who do not know this already, Turing's "little paper" was published in MIND. He may not have been interested in amusing philosophers, but he certainly considered them the primary audience for his observations. (Remember that Turing spent quite a few hours in discussion with Wittgenstein during his Cambridge days, so his thoughts about mind date back to before his work on breaking codes or building computing machines.) A more important point, however, is that nowhere in this paper does Turing talk about operational definitions. He begins with the question, "Can machines think?" The first thing he does is dismiss this question on the grounds that it bites off more than any sensible thinker can chew. THEN he poses the scenario of the "imitation game." The purpose of posing the scenario is to ask whether or not a machine could play it. He argues that this question is more tractable than his original question and then proceeds to discuss how one might ultimately build such a machine. Thus, we are now quite some distance from anything remotely resembling any sort of definition (operational or otherwise) for intelligence. Unfortunately, there now seems to be a flood of philosophers of mind who want to read more into Turing's paper than he ever intended to write. The "imitation game" was nothing more than an engineering decision to pull thought away from (possibly) fruitless speculation and direct it towards something more concrete. Of course, many of us have anecdotes about how some implementation of ELIZA managed to play the "imitation game" successfully. All this means is that we have probably now come far enough to think about scenarios more sophisticated than Turing's original suggestion. This seems like an excellent thing to do. Turing introduced the "imitation game" to discourage philosophers from idle speculation. Those philosophers now seem to be rushing back to those nebulous words like "think" and "intelligence" again. All this means is that it is time to invent a new scenario, more challenging than the imitation game, which can allow us to return to more concrete issues again. ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet
G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) (12/01/90)
Thought experiments are OK, but how long would it take to process one
question in the Chinese Room, by hand and in real time?
The age of the Universe? Or less time than that?
Gordon Joly +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
InterNet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BTthornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) (12/01/90)
In article <15798@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >In article <1990Nov19.191925.28285@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. >Thornley) writes: >> >>Frankly, Alan Turing didn't write his little paper to amuse philosophers. >>He was trying to come up with an operational definition that people could >>use, if and when anybody declared that a machine was intelligent. >> >[Polite notification that Smoliar wishes to disagree with me] > >First of all, for those who do not know this already, Turing's "little paper" >was published in MIND. He may not have been interested in amusing >philosophers, but he certainly considered them the primary audience >for his observations. (Remember that Turing spent quite a few hours >in discussion with Wittgenstein during his Cambridge days, so his thoughts >about mind date back to before his work on breaking codes or building computing >machines.) Guess I should have put the smiley on that comment. > >A more important point, however, is that nowhere in this paper does Turing talk >about operational definitions. He begins with the question, "Can machines >think?" The first thing he does is dismiss this question on the grounds that >it bites off more than any sensible thinker can chew. THEN he poses the >scenario of the "imitation game." The purpose of posing the scenario is >to ask whether or not a machine could play it. He argues that this question >is more tractable than his original question and then proceeds to discuss how >one might ultimately build such a machine. > Here's how I have read the paper. First, Turing points out the difficulty of answering the question, "Can machines think?" He discusses the male- female "imitation game," then switches to the human-computer game, suggesting that a digital computer is a good machine to use. He then suggests that, in about 2000 AD, machines will exist (with gigabyte storage) such that they will fool many people much of the time, and also says that he thinks that, by this time, it will be possible to "speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted." My reasoning from this is that Turing thinks that his test is somewhat connected with the basic question, "Can machines think?" Turing then proceeds to discuss nine separate possible objections, or, as he calls them, "opinions opposed to my own." He is not clear about which of his own opinions they are opposed to, but some, particularly number 4, _The_Argument_From_Consciousness_, do seem to argue that a machine that can imitate a human sufficiently can be said to think or understand or something vaguely like that. This is why I interpret Turing's paper as supporting the common notion of the "Turing Test." >Thus, we are now quite some distance from anything remotely resembling any sort >of definition (operational or otherwise) for intelligence. Unfortunately, >there now seems to be a flood of philosophers of mind who want to read more >into Turing's paper than he ever intended to write. The "imitation game" was >nothing more than an engineering decision to pull thought away from (possibly) >fruitless speculation and direct it towards something more concrete. Of >course, many of us have anecdotes about how some implementation of ELIZA >managed to play the "imitation game" successfully. All this means is that >we have probably now come far enough to think about scenarios more >sophisticated than Turing's original suggestion. This seems like >an excellent thing to do. Turing introduced the "imitation game" >to discourage philosophers from idle speculation. Those philosophers >now seem to be rushing back to those nebulous words like "think" and >"intelligence" again. All this means is that it is time to invent a >new scenario, more challenging than the imitation game, which can allow >us to return to more concrete issues again. > I don't think the Turing test has been outdated yet; for one thing, I have not seen anything reliably win the "imitation game" yet, and I do not expect to see a winner by 2000. I think the problem of machine "intelligence" is less tractable than Turing thought. I do believe that we will eventually produce machines that can pass the Turing test (in the sense that one believes one's mortgage will be sold to an out-of-state outfit with bad record-keeping, not in the sense that one believes in God), and I am sure that people, when interacting with these machines, will believe they are intelligent, and capable of thinking and understanding. I have no anecdotes about Eliza et al. playing the imitation game, just stories about Eliza being mistaken for human (*not* the same thing). Nor do I think we need something more challenging than the imitation game, since we haven't come near making a good player in forty years, even with storage greatly exceeding the gigawhatever quantities Turing wrote of. DHT
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (12/02/90)
In article <1990Nov30.231103.17041@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes: > >He then suggests that, in about 2000 AD, machines will exist (with gigabyte >storage) such that they will fool many people much of the time, and also >says that he thinks that, by this time, it will be possible to "speak of >machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted." My reasoning >from this is that Turing thinks that his test is somewhat connected with >the basic question, "Can machines think?" > "Somewhat" is a well-chosen word. I still think that David's reading is not quite on the mark. To make my case, I would like to provide a bit more context for his quotation from Turing: I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 10**9, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning. The original question, "Can machines think?" I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion. Nevertheless I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. Thus, having told his story about the imitation game, Turing still dismisses the prospect of pondering his original question as basically a waste of time. As I have said before, I am inclined to agree with him, leaving the question to philosophers while the engineers go off and try to do something useful. On the other hand, David is quite right that a computer which is mistaken for a human is not necessarily a "winner" at Turing's original imitation game. I would guess, however, that he would have been content to accept an example of ELIZA being confused for a human as a reasonable alternative solution to his original problem. After all, the scenario is not that different: Humans are communicating through typewriters, and the question is one of whether or not a computer could be successfully substituted for a human. (One of the factors Turing probably did not count on was a tendency of people who use computers too much to start talking like them, thus giving the computer an added edge on winning the game!) ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet
marky@caen.engin.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) (12/02/90)
In article <15878@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: > >On the other hand, David is quite right that a computer which is mistaken for >a human is not necessarily a "winner" at Turing's original imitation game. I >would guess, however, that he would have been content to accept an example of >ELIZA being confused for a human as a reasonable alternative solution to his >original problem. After all, the scenario is not that different: Humans are >communicating through typewriters, and the question is one of whether or not >a computer could be successfully substituted for a human. > While it's largely fruitless to argue about what someone would or would not have been content with, I have to disagree with the statement that ELIZA's being taken for human constitutes a "reasonable alternative solution". While the surface structure may be similar to the Turing Test, ELIZA's "test" is missing the two most important parts: (1) Direct comparison of human and non-human. The subject must be aware that it is possible s/he is talking with a non-human. Otherwise the natural assumption is that one is talking to a human (this is the assumption we all make on the net). Only when it becomes usual to talk with non-humans will this assumption go away. The direct comparison is important because research shows that raising suspicions about lying doesn't increase accuracy in detecting lies, it only makes people more suspicious of everyone (Toris & DePaulo, JPSP 47-5, 1985). By always having one truth-teller and one liar, the interviewer can concentrate on differences between the interviewees, and our measurements will thus be more meaningful. (2) The non-human must be able to fool a significant proportion of people, not simply a few here and there. There will always be a part of the population that has no idea how to tell a (simple but clever) computer simulation from the real thing. These people will be reduced to guessing, and the non-human will get half of them simply by chance. When we say significant proportion, we must have some comparable task carried out by humans (known intelligence). The humans' rate of success here sets the base rate against which the non-human is measured. Turing suggested the Imitation Game (man pretending to be a woman) as a comparable task for humans. I have often heard it said that ELIZA passed the Turing Test (or a version thereof). I've heard two stories describing this amazing feat. In one a person insisted that there must be someone on "the other side," otherwise who were they talking to? The other story involved a person who asked someone else to leave as the conversation with ELIZA was getting personal. In the second case, it's not even clear that ELIZA was mistaken for a person. In the first, the simple rejection that anything but a person was even possible seems the best explanation. Tests with PARRY come closer to the Turing test (though still not there). The only version I've seen in an actual journal (sorry, I can't remember where) involved having psychiatrists rate transcripts for degree of paranoia. PARRY did rather well, scoring "mildly paranoid" in its "low" setting and "very paranoid" in its "high" setting, nicely bracketing the actual paranoids used as control. Psychiatrists were not told, however, that they might be reading a transcript generated by computer. Apparently there was a later version of this experiment in which the psychiatrists were able to interview PARRY, and were actually told that it might be a computer on the other end. If anyone has any information on this experiment I'd be interested in seeing it. I'd be particularly interested in knowing whether any base rate measures were taken, and, if so, how PARRY compared to humans in their task. ...mark young
thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) (12/05/90)
In article <15878@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >In article <1990Nov30.231103.17041@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. >Thornley) writes: >> >>[Discussion of exactly what Turing wrote.] > >[More discussion, including a longer quotation.] > >Thus, having told his story about the imitation game, Turing still dismisses >the prospect of pondering his original question as basically a waste of time. >As I have said before, I am inclined to agree with him, leaving the question >to philosophers while the engineers go off and try to do something useful. If you mean that you'd be impressed at a system that would pass the Turing test, and wouldn't start arguing that it isn't "really" understanding (Turing did consider that question in his paper), we can agree. Trying to figure out exactly what Turing meant is difficult and somewhat pointless. I still maintain that it is an operational definition for intelligence, and question any definition of intelligence that disagrees with it. (What is a simulation of intelligence? What is an image of a bright light? Did I ever tell you about the time I was frazzled at work, and asked myself how I would solve a problem if I could actually concentrate on it, and got the right answer? :-) More seriously, if Turing was claiming the question, "Can machines think?" was simply a waste of time, why did he discuss objections like "It isn't really conscious," or "It doesn't have a sense of humor/ sense of ethics/enjoyment of hot fudge sundaes?" > >On the other hand, David is quite right that a computer which is mistaken for >a human is not necessarily a "winner" at Turing's original imitation game. I >would guess, however, that he would have been content to accept an example of >ELIZA being confused for a human as a reasonable alternative solution to his >original problem. After all, the scenario is not that different: Humans are >communicating through typewriters, and the question is one of whether or not >a computer could be successfully substituted for a human. (One of the factors >Turing probably did not count on was a tendency of people who use computers too >much to start talking like them, thus giving the computer an added edge on >winning the game!) > I don't think it would have satisfied Turing, and it certainly doesn't satisfy me. I require (a) that the interrogator know that he or she may be communicating with a computer, and (b) that the interrogator have a real human to compare the computer with. Also, I require that the human used for comparison be adult, intelligent, educated, literate in the language used for the experiment, and fully able to use the communication mechanism in use. Any other specifications, it seems to me, allow too many abuses. (Then there was the time I ran into an inter-terminal talk program, and assumed it was something like Eliza for about five back-and-forth messages. Live and maybe learn.) DHT
kohout@drinkme.cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout) (12/06/90)
In article <15878@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >Thus, having told his story about the imitation game, Turing still dismisses >the prospect of pondering his original question as basically a waste of time. >As I have said before, I am inclined to agree with him, leaving the question >to philosophers while the engineers go off and try to do something useful. > I agree wholeheartedly, especially insofar as it applies to this Chinese Room business. Leaving aside for a moment my objections to his "proof" let us accept Searle's gedanken experiment as valid. Of what practical importance is it? He is telling us that, if you ever build a machine that can pass the Turing Test, it still won't "think". This sounds like an issue to be debated in Star Trek, The Next Generation, not here, not now. If, on the other hand, Searle were trying to show that digital systems alone will not be capable of passing the Turing Test, I would be much more concerned. This is, I believe, one of Steve Harnad's basic tenets. "Intelligence", whatever it may be, may simply not be computable. I know that some of you will want to object: "But the brain in just a big finite state machine". That is a conjecture, and for that matter an old one which has been largely discredited. Neurons are cells, real analog devices with certain behaviors that can be characterized as digital behaviors. It is by no means certain that they are, in fact, strictly digital in nature. Some of you may even want to go further. That is, you may say "At the fundamental level, matter is discreet, so at least in theory we should be able to model the way it behaves." Again, this is incorrect, on two counts. First, modern physics is somewhat confused about the nature of "fundamental" particles: they behave as both waves and particles. They are discreet, but also analog. Secondly, theory also tells us that we will never (as in NEVER) be able to model the world, or even a single brain, at the level of fundamental particles. So we might as well adopt a sort of Heisenberg's uncertainly principle and assume that, theoretically, we cannot model the behavior of a complex material system at the level of fundamental particles. Simple objections aside, the question remains: is "intelligence" computable? We immediately face the problem of having to define intelligence. To simplify then, and bring this back 'round to Searle: is it possible for a digital computer to pass the linguistic Turing Test? That is, can the Chinese Room itself ever be built? Now THAT is to me a more substantive and pertinent question that needs to be address, by philosopher and engineer alike. - Bob Kohout
cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) (12/10/90)
In article <28345@mimsy.umd.edu> kohout@drinkme.cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout) writes: >"At the fundamental level, matter is discreet, ... A reference to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? Or, more generally, the idea that Knowing How It All Works is fundamentally beyond our punny minds? -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna +44 31 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK DoD #205
rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) (12/12/90)
In article <MARK.90Nov21124612@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de> mark@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Mark Johnson) writes: > >Drew McDermott makes the interesting claim that in Searle's >Chinese Room, we wind up communicating with a "virtual person". I may have missed McDermott's posting, but the notion of a virtual person was discussed in a paper presented at the American Philosophical Association Central Division meetings last April: Cole, David J. (1990), ``Artificial Intelligence and Personal Identity,'' paper presented at the Colloquium on AI, American Philosophical Association Central Division, New Orleans, 27 April 1990. Cole can be contacted at phil@ub.d.umn.edu (he's in the Phil. Dept. at Univ. of Minnesota/Duluth). My reply is available in LaTeXable form by emailing me at rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu, or in hardcopy from Sally Elder, Dept. of Computer Science, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260; ask for: Rapaport, William J. (1990), ``Computer Processes and Virtual Persons: Comments on Cole's `Artificial Intelligence and Personal Identity','' Technical Report 90-13 (Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo Dept. of Computer Science, May 1990). William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science Center for Cognitive Sciencew Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!rapaport (716) 636-3193, 3180 ||fax: (716) 636-3464
G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) (12/12/90)
In article <3634@aipna.ed.ac.uk>, cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes < In article <28345@mimsy.umd.edu> kohout@drinkme.cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout) writes: < < >"At the fundamental level, matter is discreet, ... < < A reference to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? Or, more generally, < the idea that Knowing How It All Works is fundamentally beyond our < punny minds? < -- < Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna +44 31 667 1011 x2550 < Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University < 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK DoD #205 It would be interesting to known if space-time is discrete or continuous, before we start on the hard problems like matter and energy. Stephen Hawking gave a paper, many years ago, where he calculated the Winding number of space-time to be about unity, so space-time had holes in it. He christened this space-time "foam". More recently, Chris Isham has been looking at the space-time manifold and considering "quantum topology" of the "continuum" of space-time. If space were discrete, "in reality", then pseudo-Riemannian manifolds would be a poor models (but differentiable). Having discrete space-time would make numerical experiments a tad easier. But I digress... Gordon Joly +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716 InterNet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT