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Article 4344 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Monkey Room
Message-ID: <1992Mar7.180909.10713@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 7 Mar 92 18:09:09 GMT
References: <9203031955.AA11770@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1992Mar6.004252.1593@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Mar6.213755.17977@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Lines: 77

In article <1992Mar6.213755.17977@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>>1) how likely is this to happen.
>>2) It can be argued that up until the room was opened, the 
>>monkey & teletype formed a system that (just by the random
>>ordering of atoms) was intelligent! When the room was
>>opened the system died!
>
>This must be a meaning of the word "intelligent" of which I was previously
>unfamiliar.
>
>The "Monkey Room" example is merely meant to show that seemingly intelligent
>behaviour can arise by random chance.  Certainly you don't *really*
>believe that a system that produces random responses is intelligent?

It all depends on what you mean by random, is the 'random' person 
in the following example producing random responses? And YES
I do believe that if the system produces intelligent behavior
it IS intelligent!
>
>> What is there that precludes that
>>a bunch atoms will not come together (randomly) and
>>form a complete human being, intact with memories and
>>everything! Let us assume that he was your copy in
>>every detail, now is he intelligent?
>
>Sure.
>
>>Same as the monkey argument!
>
>Not at all, and I am amazed that you can't see the difference.
>Take the case of someone with a multi-sided die that has all the characters
>in English.  If the die just happened to produce a string of characters that
>seemed like a conversation, would you be willing to say that the die was
>actually "intelligent"?  I would hope not...

I am amazed that you cannot see the simularity!
Re: the die, if you happened to ask it questions and it 'just
happened' to produce the correct responses every time, what
it your objection to calling it intelligent?
Note: this is not the same thing as having the die reproduce
Shakespeare, this can be considered truly random chance
behaviour.
Also, note that the die is not the THING that I am calling
intelligent, it is the system that includes the dice!
(I am befuddled when people speak of randomness as something
out of this world, the universe is not random in any way!
It is uncomputable, but this does not mean that it is
undeterministic, it simply means that to compute the universe
you need a reference point somewhere outside the univerese,
therefore something that we could never have!)
>From this point of view, when does something become random
behaviour? This is the problem that plagues me, since a
person can be created by random atoms, is that person
henceforth random?

Another objection that I have heard recently, computers
cannot possibly be entities like humans because they are
tools of humans! Well, I have news for you, humans are
also used as tools of other humans, does that make them
any less intelligent, understanding, alive?

I do not see the differences that people like you purport
there are between physical systems we call humans, and
physical systems we call machines! Yes, I do see that
there are differences of degrees of behavior, but they 
are not differences in QUALITY (Type)!
>
>- michael
>
>


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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
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