From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Tue Jan 28 12:18:25 EST 1992
Article 3196 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism (was Re: Virtual Person?)
Message-ID: <388@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jan 92 22:46:22 GMT
References: <1992Jan22.213820.20784@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan23.015152.510@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Jan23.183325.2773@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan26.172924.11173@psych.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 38

In article <1992Jan26.172924.11173@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
|  Yes, it may be very unlikely
|that collections of galaxies, bunches of air molecules in my room, or a network
|of cash registers would ever form the appropriate causal network to, in the 
|eyes of AI, form a mind.  However, it is the *potential* for this to happen
|that I find theoretically repugnant.
|
|What I am trying to discover in this thread is how committed str. AI proponent
|*really* are to the principles of strong AI.

Well, I had no trouble with the ending to David Brin's "Earth" (except
for thinking it was a bit too abrupt), so I think that answers the question.

[For those of you who have not read the book - do so, Brin's books are always
good;  I will not spoil the ending by posting it - if you *must* know, write
to me].

|However, I am not sure that such arrangements *are* so improbable, given that
|all that is required is *some* appropriate functional arrangement.  To take
|the cash registers example, we could look at the number of pennies *OR* the
|number of nickels *OR* the number of dimes *OR* the number of quarters *OR*
|the number of the various bills *OR* the difference between the number of 
|pennies and nickels *OR* the difference between the number of nickels and
|quarters *OR* the change between the number of quarters today and pennies
|yesterday *OR* the rate of change of increase in pennies over the past three
|days *OR* and so on ad infinitum.  If we take the number we generate from
|these metrics as simple activation levels, who is to say that, under some
|description, the combined world's cash registers don't have a rich mental
|life?   

Because those are not *functional* relationships, just momentary
configurations.  Functional relationships (to me) imply sequential
influence.  (I would say 'cause' but then I would start to sound
like Searle).
-- 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)



