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Article 5381 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Subject: Re: Intelligence, awareness... oh no, back to the Turing Test!
Message-ID: <1992May3.201239.26750@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
References: <1992Apr27.173029.36491@spss.com> <1992Apr28.062159.1931@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Apr28.185141.29465@spss.com>
Date: Sun, 3 May 1992 20:12:39 GMT
Lines: 79

In article <1992Apr28.185141.29465@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>There are two or three issues here; let's not confuse them.
>
>1. Whether intelligence can be detected only by a behavioral test.
>2. Whether intelligence is a primitive, or can be broken down into
>   its component or contributing characteristics.
>
>My point about "bad news for AI" relates to issue 2; your reply, to issue 1.
>You claimed, if I understand you, that intelligence can't be broken down into
>smaller components-- "There is nothing deeper than the bottom!", you say.
>But if that's so, there's no way to program it, except by chance.
>
I was trying to make the point that if you take it
appart into components, what you have left is not
intelligence. Sure you may have memory, recognition,
etc.. but when can you say that you have intelligence?
So in one sense it is a primitive, I do not think that
we will ever see a recipe for intelligence, as I see it
it is a wide overlapping set of ingredients. Something 
like a cake, even though there may be many types of cakes
that have nothing in common ingredientially, they are all
cakes.
	Just when do the ingredients for a cake become
a cake, is it when you put them all together, is it
when they are baked? I was trying to get at the issue
here, which is not whether intelligence is composed
of components, but just when can those components
be considered intelligence.
You are of course right that intelligence is built on 
components in the other sense, we can recognize that
certain components are necessary, and therefore it is
not a primitive! I have never believed that intelligence
is a primitive, and excuse me if I led you on. I just wanted
to make the point that as soon as we take it apart we are
not really dealing with intelligence!
>>same way - The physical world behaves! Behaviour does not have to
>>involve an action - the expenditure of energy, etc.. - behaviour
>>can be simply existing.
>
>Again, you're not responding to issue 2.  You seemed to claim that 
>"intelligence" could not be broken down into components.  I presented a
>list of components.  Do you still maintain your claim?
>
>On issue 1: As you expand the meaning of the word "behavior", your claims 
>about behavioral tests mean less and less.  You've simply defined the term
>so as to include every form of human knowledge: observable actions,
>unobservable mental phenomena, stative predicates.  Well, of course
>under that definition a "behavioral" test of intelligence will suffice!
>Even Jeff Dalton will be a behaviorist, now-- he will look for the
>"behavior" of having a brain!  

I must argue here that even with the expanded
definition of behaviour that I present, it is
still not as meaningless as Searle's causal
powers. I am simply stating that anything that
others can know about us is behaviour, is there
something wrong with that? Now the anti AI crowd
would have me believe that we can know something
somehow about another being without depending
on their behaviour. Sure Jeff D. can believe that
having a brain is sufficient for intelligence and
awareness, but I have yet to see what he means
by having a brain? If he can do so to exclude
machines from having brains then I will concede
that machines can never be aware, if the same
arguments can apply to both machines and humans
then you will have to rethink your argument.

If you want me to believe that you have something
that is not available to me to be investigated
by physical means then I dare say the burden
of proof rests on you. Simply because everything
that I know, I know because of physical interfaces.

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