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Article 6030 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Grounding: Virtual vs. Real
Message-ID: <1992Jun2.015731.1405@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
References: <614@trwacs.fp.trw.com> <1992Jun1.120457.28281@mp.cs.niu.edu> <9625@scott.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1992 01:57:31 GMT
Lines: 42

In article <9625@scott.ed.ac.uk> sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Soren Harder) writes:
>rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>In article <614@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>>>I don't think this has been demonstrated. If the sensory organs do
>>>sufficiently complex processing, the possibility remains that intelligence
>>>is distributed between them and the brain.
>
>>  I would argue that once you add "sufficiently complex processing" to
>>the transducer, it is no longer a transducer.  I didn't see anything
>>in Harnad's postings that would suggest he was doing this.  Otherwise I
>>would have said he was begging the question.
>
>I think he does (suggest this, that is).

  Sure.  Then here is a solution to the AI problem.  Just take a
complex transducer with the intelligence of a human, and add to it a
null computer.

  Do you see what I mean by "begging the question?"

>                                         But it is an analog
>processing. I believe this makes it a transducer.

  Analog has nothing to do with it.  A digital to analog converter is
just as much a transducer as an analog to digital converter.

  The important thing is that it just transforms the information from
one form to another.  It cannot add information from its own knowledge
base.  It can lose information, but it cannot add any.  Otherwise it
is no longer a transducer.

>I had understood your earlier posts not as denying that transduction
>had to take place, but saying that this transduction was trivial.  I
>don't think you can get around transduction in the trivial sense; that
>the data from the world 'outside' has to be put 'inside' the
>intelligence in a form that it can process.

  That is an essentially correct interpretation.  Intelligence certainly
is involved with the ability to react to information.  In the total
absence of information, the term intelligence ceases to be meaningful.



