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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Penrose on Man vs. Machine
Message-ID: <1992Jan19.233811.18340@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Jan19.011008.7786@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Jan19.212725.10371@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Jan19.170838.7805@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 92 23:38:11 GMT
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In article <1992Jan19.170838.7805@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>If you have the means of defining a partial, or, better yet, a linear
>ordering of "degrees of understanding", please share them with me;
>otherwise kindly restate your argument in less obfuscatory terms.

The point is simply that empirical synthesis may yield understanding of
how an algorithm works, but that doesn't imply understanding of its
behaviour (which is required for knowledge of consistency).  e.g. take
it from me that I understand how this pseudo-code algorithm works:

  for c:=1 to infinity do
   for a:=1 to c do
    for b:=1 to c do
     for n:=3 to c do
      if (a^n + b^n = c^n) then print "Hmmm...".

but I have no idea whether it ever produces output.

>So is strong AI consistent with the thesis that we are inherently incapable
>of discovering such a program, as Putnam would have me believe?

That's correct.  "Strong AI" names a very specific claim, and is not
a catchall for every view that an AI practitioner might hold.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


