From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!yamauchi Tue Jan 28 12:17:44 EST 1992
Article 3145 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Building Artificial Animals (was Re: Cargo Cult Science)
Message-ID: <YAMAUCHI.92Jan25134942@heron.cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 92 18:49:42 GMT
References: <YAMAUCHI.92Jan16220910@heron.cs.rochester.edu>
	<1992Jan17.232633.12123@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Sender: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Organization: University of Rochester
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In-Reply-To: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu's message of 17 Jan 92 23:26:33 GMT
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In article <1992Jan17.232633.12123@a.cs.okstate.edu> onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR) writes:

>  Ah but now what you have is something that looks like a mouse but
>may not be a mouse.  Until you know what a mouse is in its truest and
>purest ontological form, which would include access to its own 
>epistemology however rudimentary, I'm afraid all you have is something
>that resembles and isn't.

Nobody is suggesting that we build a real mouse.  For one thing, this
would require a level of biotechnology far beyond what we currently
have -- even to build an amoeba, much less a mouse.  The suggestion is
that by building an artificial mouse, we can learn how to duplicate
the sensorimotor capabilities that mice possess -- and robots lack.

Now, I would argue that a system that could display behavior similar
to that of a mouse in an environment of similar complexity would
possess mouse-level intelligence.  Whether this intelligence is
mouse-like in some sort of subjective sense strikes me an unresolvable
question -- unless you have had the personal experience of being a
mouse...


