Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
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From: sylvere@unige.ch (Silvere Martin-Michiellot)
Subject: Thought Question and What is life
Message-ID: <1995Feb2.114842.6220@news.unige.ch>
Sender: usenet@news.unige.ch
Reply-To: sylvere@unige.ch
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 11:48:42 GMT
Lines: 49

Hi there,

I've been watching over your too leading reflexions (see the subject) since the beginning, AND I START TO GET BORED.

Why ?

Well, it seems that you lack of realism : stop banging your head against the wall, and go back to the begining : the question is WHY DID SOME PEOPLE ASK THESE QUESTIONS ?

First let's talk about life : we all know what lives on our planet and what doesn't, even if there is NO clear definition of life (at least for now).
But, what if you land on another planet ? (and that is the REAL question)
Will I be able to determine what lives and what doesn't ?
... and there everything collapses...
You have to decide what is alive or not, by enumeration, or with criterias, and then look at things you meet and declare "that lives" or "that doesn't"
Said another way, you have to formalise/program/decide-a-priori and then apply your rules... and maybe if it doesn't fit your unconcious definition, you can change the rules.

BUT, IT IS STUPID TO BELIEVE YOU CAN PUT A DEFINITION (BTW, that's what you've done, all of you) OF WHAT LIFE TRULY IS (AS IF YOU ALREADY HAD CHOSEN WHAT "THINGS" LIVE AND WHAT DON'T) SINCE YOUR DEFINITION WILL ITSELF DECIDE WHAT LIVES AND WHAT DOESN'T. UNIVERSAL LIFE DETECTORS DON'T EXIST, SORRY.

The second problem is consciousness. My method of thinking is the same, and may be did M. Minsky opended the way.
Let's examine ourselves. I'm in front of my computer, writing something, having an intellectual activity... BUT in no way being conscious of what I do. When I "become" concious of that, I do nothing else that BEING CONSCIOUS... and that is related to M. Minsky's cognitive point of view about a relation with short term memory (I personnaly believe he should have say working memory, but it is out of the topic I deal with now).
Moreover some try to state that there can or cannot be consciousness in a NN or a TM, or whatever...
But, first, you forget that all these models are coherent (all themselves) PRODUCTS OF YOUR IMAGINATION and by since it seems stupid to talk about the consciousness of a model (like if I wanted to talk about the consciousness of the news I read).
Second, THIS IS THE SAME PROBLEM OF DEFINITION AS "LIFE" (above) : let's imagine a computer program that pass the Turing Test, well it's up to us to DECIDE if it is conscious or not, without any argument, but as a postulate (in fact how can I be sure the news I read are not written by a computer ? I can't but it doesn't matter since I've decided that computer or whatever would be as conscious as I believe I am).

Really sorry for all of you.


Any comment ?

All right, I can flame myself...

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"Is anyone alive down there ?"

     sylvere@divsun.unige.ch 
   

Silvere MARTIN-MICHIELLOT
TECFA (Educational Technologies and Learning),
Faculte de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education,
University of Geneva,
9 Route de Drize,
1227 Carouge (Switzerland)

Phone: (..41) 22 705 9691, Fax: (..41) 22 342 8924

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