From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Wed Feb 26 12:54:12 EST 1992
Article 3980 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff
>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <6255@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 24 Feb 92 19:40:31 GMT
References: <1992Feb22.171652.5827@oracorp.com>
Sender: news@aiai.ed.ac.uk
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 93

In article <1992Feb22.171652.5827@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>Jeff Dalton writes:
>
>>>I can imagine ways that a table lookup program differs from a brain,
>>>but I don't see why they should be considered relevant.
>
>>You're not trying very hard. Indeed, you're devoting all your
>>effort to the other side.
>
>Jeff, I wish you would take me at my word. I'm generally quite honest.
>I have not heard a convincing argument why the table lookup program
>should not be considered conscious, and I can't think of an argument
>on my own. Okay?

And you can't see why any of the differences (between table lookup
machines and brain) should be considered relevant?  If not, I probably
can't help you to.

>Why do you say "no non-trivial thoughts are possible"? 

Where are they taking place?  What processes are involved?

There's really nothing mysterious about this.  Suppose we had a 
C compiler that looked up the object code in a huge table.  Now
someone comes along and (without knowing how it works) asks
whether it's executing a graph-coloring register allocation
algorithm.  

I say: no it's just looking things up in a table.  The interesting
register allocation algorithm might have been involved in making the
table, but it's not doing anything like that now, when compiling the
program.

Then you come along and say: But wait!  The data is enormously
complex!  I believe this compiler is running register allocation
algorithms as complex as those in any compiler.

And then you say I have to convince you that nothing of the sort
is going on.

I must say I find that approach rather bizarre.

>It is ridiculous to identify the matching algorithm with "thoughts",
>just as it is ridiculous to identify "store, add, jump" (machine language
>instructions) with thoughts, or to identify chemical reactions in
>neurons with thoughts. If thoughts occur in any of these systems
>(table-lookup, computer, human brain), they occur at a higher level.

But the lower-level processing has to have the right structure
to support it.  It is surely not the case that every program will
have thoughts (of any but the trivial sort of thoughts Chalmers
might find in thermostats), just as it is not the case that every
program is computing Chess moves.

>When I say that I believe the table-lookup program is conscious, I
>mean that I believe that it has thoughts, thoughts as complex as you
>or I have.

I do not see how this can possibly be the case.  Can you give any
argument for it other than "it's so complex anything is possible"?

>>>The complexity of the table lookup must include that of the algorithm
>>>(which is obviously trivial) and that of the data (obviously
>>>enormously complex). 
>
>>The structure is not complex. It's a table, remember.
>
>I said the *data* is enormously complex! To get a measure, take some
>measure of complexity and estimate the complexity of a single sentence
>of English. For example, you might consider how many bits it takes to
>code it using the best known compression algorithms. Now multiply this
>number by the number of sentences in the table (estimated at
>10^(10,000,000)). That gives a rough idea of the complexity of the
>table.

What makes you think the data has anything like the right structure
for thoughts?  If all you mean by "complex" is non-compressible, how
does that complexity do anything at all to show thoughts might be
involved?  For one thing, how does it have different thoughts at
different times?  Nothing in the table changes.

>> So far, no one in this group (except Zeleny) has seriously attempted
>> to answer Putnam's argument about cats and cherries (see his _Reason,
>> Truth, and History_), and the related arguments that causal connections
>> can't fix reference.  Correlations have even less hope of doing so.
>
>To the extent that causal connections and correlations can't fix
>reference, it doesn't get fixed, either in humans or in table-lookup
>programs.

And you'd be happy with that?  That it doesn't get fixed?

-- jd


