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Article 6112 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas)
Subject: Re: Hypothesis: I am a Transducer (Formerly "Virtual Grounding")
Message-ID: <1992Jun5.190920.26879@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
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Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
References: <1992Jun5.045522.19139@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Jun5.130022.26367@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1992 19:09:20 GMT
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In article <1992Jun5.130022.26367@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>In article <1992Jun5.045522.19139@news.media.mit.edu> nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick
>Cassimatis) writes:
>> DID ANYONE EVER WONDER WHY YOU RARELY SEE DISCUSSIONS ON
>> THE RELEVENCE OF QM TO MOTOR CONTROL OR LANGUAGE OR ANY OTHER ASPECT
>> OF COGNITION?  Why focus only on consciousness?  This phenomena
>> convinces me even more that that QM is just a wild card that makes
>> people glassy eyed enough to accept mysticism.

What is not well understood leads ALWAYS to mysticism.
Since the majority of people have no idea about QM it is obvious
that there many such missconceptions.

>> Much talk about Quantum Mechanics a sign of intellectual decadence.
   ^^^^^^^^^

I would say that the much blaming about QM is a sign of impotence to produce
something positive.

>Much talk about QM and the mind _is hokum_, but by totally rejecting the
>possible relevance of quantum effects to mind, the baby may be going out
>with the bathwater. Quantum mechanics is ill-understood and mysterious
>and inasmuch as QM is a "theory of everything", the universe is ill-
>understood and mysterious.

QM is NOT theory of everything, in the sence in which humans need explanation of them.
To explain the weather phenomena you do not go down into the subatomic level,
you do not arrive even to molecular level, but you remain at the macroworld
and with statistical methods you try to find laws being statistically valid.
You cannot examine evrything by QM, as a doctor does not treat your deseases
by relativity theories, but he fights against viruses with elements of the same
scale. If universe is ill-understood this is NOT a problem of medicine,
mechanical or computer engineering, nor a problem of AI.

>I think my original point is still valid:  Harnad's thesis that grounding
>in the physical world is important to mind may find a physical explanation
>in QM phenomena.  Harnad's  argument therefore cannot be refuted by
>arguments based on simulation of classical physics.

But even simulation of QM does not reinforce this argument either.
There is absolutely no relevance between these two fields.
Harnad has to prove that his statement is true, but the people of the
opposite field do not need to prove anything.

>The central problem of AI - Searle's anyway - is that a machine behaving
>intelligently may not be conscious - have qualia etc. etc.  Even Searle
>would agree that it is possible to build a zombie - use a humongous LUT
>if all else fails.

Without a definition of conciousness one can prove ANYTHING about it.
If you define conciousness as an entirely human property, then obviously
machines do not fit into this definition. If you define it as a non human
property, then humans do not fit into it. So what is conciousness after all?
BTW who said that AI research is for producing conciousness?

>Achieving consciousness may require something else, that something else
>might well be quantum.  

Of course! But you cannot know what is required if you don't know what you want
to produce. Can one tell what is required for achieving ojhflg1pi :-)

>DID ANYONE EVER WONDER WHY ALL THE DISCUSSIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL
>PROBLEMS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS ALWAYS SOMEHOW INVOLVE A
>CONSCIOUS OBSERVER?

I thought that they involve photons.

Philip Santas

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email: santas@inf.ethz.ch				 Philip Santas
Mail: Dept. Informatik				Department of Computer Science
      ETH-Zentrum			  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
      CH-8092 Zurich				       Zurich, Switzerland
      Switzerland
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