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Article 2563 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: santas@inf.ethz.ch (Filippos Santas)
Subject: Re: Ignore Searle and be happier
Message-ID: <1992Jan8.200537.18919@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
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Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
References: <1992Jan2.175438.20066@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Jan7.203119.6231@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> <1992Jan8.165208.26637@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1992 20:05:37 GMT



In article <1992Jan8.165208.26637@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Jan7.203119.6231@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> santas@inf.ethz.ch (Filippos Santas) writes:
>>
>>It receives some stimuli (temperature, light intensity etc) and it reacts
>>according to its current state. Note that this state is not
>>memory (or knowledge) as the man in our example has no memory (or knowledge) of
>>where he is.
>
>  State is memory.  If you don't believe so, try resetting the state of
>your computer back to where it was when you originally unpacked it.  This
>will require reformatting all the disks.
>

You used the example of a device which is constructed among others for data
storage. Not every system needs to keep as memory its previous states. But even so,
my computer does not have "memory", since I need to save the files from the 
hard disks into some other disk(s), and then I can reformat the original disks safely.

Simple example: input: voltage, system: resistance, output: voltage.
The voltage in the output does not depend on previous states => system
without memory. If you add an inductance then you have a system where the 
one state derives from a previous one but it still does not have consiousness 
and it does not have knowledge of this capability. Even then the system does 
not have memory although it may serve for data storage. The output current 
in these examples depends on its nature and the environment where it is 
created and manipulated. The same happens with the voltage. Inputs, resistances
and impendances and their connections form this environment. 

The system by itself cannot say a word about its previous states from 
its current state.

When YOU apply the physical laws, and you make certain assumptions
you can find the system's state in a previous time point. Your objects are not 
aware of these laws and assumptions. They do not have memory.


Philip Santas

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email: santas@inf.ethz.ch				 Philip Santas
Mail: Dept. Informatik				Department of Computer Science
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