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Article 3095 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: lehman_ds@lrc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <1992Jan23.113800.152@lrc.edu>
Date: 23 Jan 92 16:37:59 GMT
References: <1992Jan20.152751.6143@oracorp.com> <1992Jan22.192721.16777@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC
Lines: 51

In article <1992Jan22.192721.16777@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>, chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
> In article <1992Jan20.152751.6143@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
> 
>>Marvin Minsky's assumption that there would have to be a node for each
>>brain state follows from the following hypothesis: Given two different
>>brain states, if the difference is important, then there is some
>>conversation that will uncover the difference. That is, the assumption
>>is that differences in our brain *can* (not must) show up as differences
>>in what we say.
> 
> This certainly isn't a valid argument, as presumably most brain-states
> will be never reachable through conversation alone -- e.g. a 
> post-orgasmic state (though you never know), a tasting-strawberries
> state, and so on.
> 
> Nevertheless I agree that there will be a vast number of nodes.  The
> point is that vastness alone doesn't count for much.
> 
>>I don't think that there is anything trivial about a system with
>>10^(6 million) states. (That's the figure I came up with for the
>>number of possible conversations, as well). If the triviality is
>>simply due to the fact that there is a single transition between every
>>input and output, then consider the following thought experiment:
>>Augment the human brain with an electronic signalling device that
>>announces each brain transition (say, with a loud "beep"). For the
>>augmented brain, it is true that there is exactly one transition for
>>each output (although most of the outputs are "beeps"). Is the brain
>>less capable of understanding because of this?
> 
> This is cute but silly.  The point is that when I'm e.g. considering
> my response to a given statement, there's a lot of conscious awareness
> going along with it, and it seems extremely implausible that a single
> state-transition should be accompanied by this degree of awareness.
> 
> I have no doubt that consciousness, understanding, etc, arise from
> certain kinds of complex processing.  A single state-transition,
> however, seems far too trivial.
> 
> -- 
> 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."
  The point, I think, can be better stated as such - For every thought or
action, there is a particular state for the brian.  This does not mean that
you switch from one state to the next spontaneuously, but rather move
over a set of states to reach a point.  Also the act of changing states
afects the current state, thus we learn from experience and the brain
does not fall back to a single state every time we perform a particular
task.
    Drew Lehman
    Lehman_ds@lrc.edu


