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Article 4314 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence and Understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar6.171417.15561@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 6 Mar 92 17:14:17 GMT
References: <1992Mar4.022416.11169@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar6.011131.4146@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Mar6.051607.13266@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Lines: 102

In article <1992Mar6.051607.13266@a.cs.okstate.edu> onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR) writes:
>  No, I certainly believe that a computer can run by itself; it just
>can't invent things without a human.  See the other article I posted
>on the difference between determined volition and affected volition---
>you are sharpening my distinctions and reasoning skills yet.  Perhaps before
>we are through I can acutally write an article with a full fledged theory 
>that will blow you away! :-) 
>
I am having difficulty distinguishing between determinied volition
(of the type that a computer has) and affected volition (persumably
the type that a human has), It seems to me that they are the same.
(One can allways hope that one comes accross a theory that will 
blow someone away - but I have read a lot on the subject and one
has not come even close! The ramblings of a few other people on the
net are just rehashes, I can at least say for you that you are
trying to approach it from a different angle.)
>k
>	>>>
>>>>>
>>>>The understanding of that proposition comes from the fact that
>>>>it is a tautology. There is nothing to understand, that is the
>>>>way it is defined!
>>>  Then you have baffled me as to how you maintain that a computer, which
>>>resets on these tautologies, can have meaning at all. (much less understanding.)
>>>
>>How does a computer rest on tautologies? That I do not understand.
>  Once a computer is broken down we find it can only come to its conclusions
>using these tautologies.  Of course, a computer would never grasp something
>like a tautology because it can't look beyond its emptiness of meaning...

Once a human is broken down, we find that it can ony come to
its conclusions using tautologies that are inside of its brain!
No, wait that is wrong! If a human is broken down we no longer 
are speaking about a human, same goes for computers, if broken
down into parts we are no longer speaking about the entity, so
your argument about individual parts has no force.
>
>>>One of those differences is the ability for a human to invent situations
>>>and reactions to those situations quite arbitrarily; something which a 
>>>computer can not, and will never be able, to do.
>>>
>>Sorry, in my experience there is nothing to prevent computers from
>>inventing situations as arbitrarily as humans. I am not saying
>>that this has been done, but just that it is possible!
>  If it hasn't been done, how is it a part of your experience?

I should have said that it has not been done to any complex
extent, but it has been done! The mars probe that NASA was
working on is a good example, it could roam around the
terrain without getting stuck, falling off cliffs, getting
out of dead ends, etc... It could also decide where to take
samples of soil and air, *when it decided*, all in all it
has the intelligence of a beatle! (not much - aggreed -
but a start, there is no reason that it cannot be
upscaled from there!)

>
>>So again, I come to the conclusion, whatever humans can do
>>computers can do just as well!
>  Yeah, what computer do you have that can translate Gogol to English?
>Wasn't it that famous russian translation program, which can do whatever
>humans can do, that insisted on translating "Hydraulic Ram" as "water goat."
>If this is as good as you think humans can do, you don't hang out with
>very many humans.  HOw can you live with yourself--you seriously believe
>that the computer is just as good as you?  Notice: you did not use
>"possibly", you used the present tense..  Beware of those logical falacies,
>which to be sure, your computer is far better at than you. ;-)
>
I see now where you are coming from, you really do fear that people
can create something that is better than they are! Do you seriously
beleive that people are better at adding numbers than computers,
how about searching information, how about precision control.
Computers exceed the capability of people in many areas, I do not
believe, and no one has shown, that there is any reason that
this progression cannot continue to other areas of human skill.
My use of the present tense is justified in that we are not waiting
for any breakthru in physics to build computers in a significantly
different form from present day machines, the only thing that is
holding us up is the programming, and this can be cured by a
little ingenuity and hard work! Remember, up until the nuclear
bomb exploded there were many physicists in the WORLD that
insisted that it would never work! They were proven wrong!
	The use of that knowledge could have been put to better
use than the PEOPLE of that time put it to (killing 100,000+),
but that does not change the fact that it is possible! It could
have been put to good use just as well,eg. running power plants
that grow food for the population! We only need one person
with the calibre of Einstein in the AI community, who is to say
that this individual is not among us! AI can be put to good or
bad use, just as anything - If I held you by your feet, swung
you on someone and killed that person, no one in their right
mind would claim that you killed that person, they would blame
me.

>
>BCnya,
>  Charles O. Onstott, III
-- 
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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
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