From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!psinntp!scylla!daryl Wed Feb 26 12:54:17 EST 1992
Article 3988 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Feb24.212351.8001@oracorp.com>
Date: 24 Feb 92 21:23:51 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation
Lines: 33

Neil Rickert writes:

> In spite of the elegance of functional approaches, a computer program
> is only important because of its side effects. If I gave you a
> program which computed the first trillion digits of pi in one
> microsecond, but which had no side effects, running that program would
> be worthless for there would be no record on paper, disk or screen of
> the results.

Well, people don't usually refer to the output as a "side effect", but
if you mean that a program is important for how it changes the state
of the world, I would agree.

>>It seems that the overwhelming majority (perhaps everyone except me)
>>in this newsgroup feel that being conscious or not is objective,
>>independent of interface considerations.

> You don't have to feel completely alone.  In my view the I/O is
> critical to the function of the mind, although this is apparently lost
> on those who, like Searle (and like all too many AI proponents),
> appear to view any possible attempted implementation of strong AI as
> consisting of mere symbol manipulation.

I hope you are aware of why many people feel uncomfortable with that
view. If you take I/O as primary, then it means that a human being has
no thoughts if those thoughts have no effect on his or her outputs. A
thought that is forgotten before it is told isn't a thought at all, if
you only consider I/O.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
 


