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Article 3167 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: smoliar@maclane.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: Searle Agrees with Strong AI?
Message-ID: <1992Jan27.023737.1343@nuscc.nus.sg>
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Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
References: <TODD.92Jan22225612@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp> <1992Jan23.032151.8824@nuscc.nus.sg> <TODD.92Jan23224728@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1992 02:37:37 GMT

In article <TODD.92Jan23224728@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
todd@juno.elcom.nitech.ac.jp writes:
>
>
>In article <1992Jan23.032151.8824@nuscc.nus.sg> smoliar@hilbert.iss.nus.sg
>(stephen smoliar) writes:
>
>>>I would prefer to let Eugene Spafford have the last word on this one.  The
>>>following paragraph is taken from the final section of his paper, "Computer
>>>Viruses--A Form of Artificial Life?," in the ARTIFICIAL LIFE II proceedings
>>>volume:
>>>
>>>	     Our examination of computer viruses leads us to the conclusion
>>>	     that they are very close to what we might define as "artificial
>>>	     life."  Rather than representing a scientific achievement, this
>>>	     probably represents a flaw in our definition.  To suggest that
>>>	     computer viruses are alive also implies to me that some part of
>>>	     their environment--the computers, programs, or operating
>>>	     systems--also represents artificial life.  
>
>To me it implies that the parts of their environment are simply
>that: parts of their environment.  By your way of thinking, the
>human environment includes rocks, which must be alive.  Not likely.
>
This has been a busy morning.  I cannot remember the classical name for the
fallacy of interpreting "some" to mean "all."  Spafford is not being quite
as silly as you would read him to be.

>>>                                                      Can life exist
>>>	     in an otherwise barren and empty ecosystem?  A definition
>>>	     of "life" should probably include something about the
>>>	     environment in which that life exists.
>
>Man can exist in space, albeit for not very long, and space is
>maximally barren.  But I agree that life (and intelligence) must
>defined by an entity's environment.
>
>Why do you think a computer virus's environment is so barren 
>anyhow?  Not very physical varied, admittedly, but very rich in
>informational structure, probably a high degree of dimensionality
>(defined in a fractal way), other 'beings' (other viruses, people), 
>lots of hardware to play with, etc.  By this perspective,
>the computer virus passes the life test again!
>
This DOES raise an interesting point about defining life.  Many of us seem
inclined to wrestle over how life should be defined and then define an
ecosystem as a system whose components are alive.  Perhaps we are going
at this the wrong way around.  Perhaps we should first try to define what
constitutes an ecosystem:  What is it about both the whole, its parts, and
the way those parts interact that leads us to classify it as such.  After
than, we should be in a position to classify the living parts of the ecosystem.
This then gives us the definition of life over which we have been struggling:
A living entity is a living part of an ecosystem!

This leads me to ask if we might take an analogous approach to intelligence.
There seems to be a general consensus by now that coming up with definitions
for intelligence from scratch do not get very far.  Perhaps we would be in a
better position to try to characterize a SOCIAL system (analogous to an
ecosystem) and approach intelligence in terms of how well individuals manage
in that social system.  Needless to say, such an approach should be as free
as possible of our own cultural biases;  so perhaps it is time for the
anthropologists to move in again (as they did in Suchman's work on planning).
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


