From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Tue Apr  7 23:24:20 EDT 1992
Article 4939 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <6737@pkmab.se> <1992Apr5.210553.11966@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 18:25:33 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>Kristoffer Eriksson:
>>Surely, no-one has suggested that SHRDLU is advanced enough to have a mind?
>
>Christopher Green:
>>Under strong AI, one would be committed to such a view. Surely, if McCarthy
>>believes is thermostat has beliefs, he believes that SHRDLU does. Same
>>goes for any other thorough-going functionalists. Right Dave...?
>>
>
>  I think I'm a backer of strong AI, but I don't believe that
>mind is an all-or-nothing concept.  Minds come in varying degrees
>of sophistication.  

Varying degrees of sophistication have no bearing on the question of
presence or absense.  A small mind is still a mind, just as a small ball
is still a ball.

>The essential ingredients are a picture of
>the world, the ability to use it to accomplish goals, and some
>ability to communicate.  

This is all very appealing, but all very vague as well. Longuet-Higgens
(or however it's spelled) once built a little toy robot that used a
square of paper to (mechanically) keep track of where it was on a table
top. When it got to the edge of the paper, it would stop moving. This also
happened to be (no counterfactual support here) when it was at thee edge
of the table as well. This seems to satisfy your description. Would you
credit it with a mind? (Try not to say 'no' simply because it can't 
communicate. Stopping might be considered communication that it is at
the edge of the table, just as much a the whining of a dog is.)

>SHRDLU has all of these things (though
>its picture is actually of an "imagined" world), so I see no
>reason not to grant it a mind, albeit a primitive one.

And for the reasons I give above (in part) I deny it a mind.

Regards,

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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