From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!torn.onet.on.ca!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!gatech!mcnc!aurs01!throop Mon Jun 15 16:04:24 EDT 1992
Article 6179 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Transducer Hypothesis, The Next Generation
Message-ID: <60796@aurs01.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jun 92 17:17:18 GMT
References: <1992Jun8.134537.468@cs.ucf.edu> <1992Jun9.183631.5422@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
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> chisnall@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz (The Technicolour Throw-up)
>> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke):
>> the secret of the conscious (?) robot died with his creator.
> Except that the Enterprise's computer systems was able to make a conscious
> mind following a simple verbal request from Geordi.  Sheesh.  I mean why
> bother employing zillions of federation scientists when a ship's computer
> can solve your major research problems.  (Can you say continuity error?)

There is another point I noticed.  First, it seems that the basic
premise of the show's treatment of AIs is very much akin to Harnad's.
For example, the mind of a dying man, transplanted into Data's
sensorimotor system, produced a living, thinking, TTT-passing entity.
The same programs and data, when transfered to the ship's computer,
resulted only in "squiggles and squoggles".  They even showed some
squiggles and squoggles on a display panel, to reinforce the
non-living-ness of the information in the computer.

And then there's the Holodeck, where simulated entities are very wooden
and unlifelike, since after all they are "computer generated".

The problem is, they keep slipping up, and examples abound: Moriarity,
the designer of the enterprise's engine systems, the seductress used to
manipulate Riker (and Picard by accident).

( Interesting that two of these counterexamples involve Geordi simply
  asking the computer to simulate a conscious being... maybe Geordi has
  some psychic talent he's unaware of, involving the ability to
  "ground" the symbols used by computer simulations.  After all, when
  Riker makes a very similar request of the computer to try to
  recreate his seductress, the result is still wooden and unlifelike. )

But how can you expect consistency from a show who's writers think
it is plausible that Data can do all of the things he can do, but
(of all stupid things) can't bring himself to use contractions.  Ghak.

( Note that by poking fun at the ST:TNG, I don't mean to
  ridicule the notion of grounding, or that there might be a
  distinction between a thing and a simulation of a thing. )

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop


