From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdat!swf Sat Oct 24 20:44:28 EDT 1992
Article 7338 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdat!swf
>From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <1279@tdat.teradata.COM>
Date: 19 Oct 92 19:15:05 GMT
References: <26893@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1992Oct15.095211.10805@klaava.Helsinki.FI> <1264@tdat.teradata.COM> <1992Oct17.185235.14938@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Sender: news@tdat.teradata.COM
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit
Lines: 68

In article <1992Oct17.185235.14938@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
|In article <1264@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com 
|(Stanley Friesen) writes:
|
|>Until we have a fairly complete understanding of brain operation.
|>Then it does become possible to test for the existance of relevant features.
|
|Yes, but this could take a very long time indeed, given the formidable
|complexity of the brain.  Neurological research is still in its infancy
|in many respects (not that I'm an expert on the subject, nor on AI).

Well, maybe not its infancy, but certainly its childhood :-)

True, it may well take a century, *if* it takes as long as the corresponding
shift in the understanding of the chemical basis of life did.

But then, scientific advances seem to come faster nowadays - perhaps due to
there being more researchers - so I suspect that it may only take 25 to 50
years.

|>Except you seem to reject all categories of evidence for mind.
|>That does not seem like an open mind to me.
|
|I don't understand this elliptical criticism, please clarify.  Where
|have I expressed an unwillingness to consider relevant evidence?

But you have ruled out all types of evidence that are really available
as irrelevent.  (Unless I am confusing you with someone else).

What kinds of evidence *would* you consider relevent?  If not behavior,
what else is there?

|>I do not claim that an artificial mind is *certainly* possible, only that
|>the past history of science makes it *likely* that it is possible.
|
|An artificial mind may certainly be possible; what is at issue is how
|closely its capacities would match, fall short of, or even exceed those
|of a human mind.  Where in the history of science do you see signs that
|an artificial brain capable of true cognition is possible?  I see only
|the history of digital computers, and recent efforts at neural network
|simulation that so far have produced some impressive feats of pattern
|recognition, but nothing even approaching the power of a human mind.

You are looking at only this one *new* field.  I am looking at all fields of
science, and see comparable levels of achievement on time scales of 30 to 100
years.  What I see is that science *eventually* solves almost any problem
it is applied to.  I see no reason why this one should be any different.

200 years ago it was considered inconcievable that life was chemical or
physical in nature.  Today we manipulate the chemistry of life routinely.

100 years ago human heavier than air flight was considered a pipe dream,
today there are literally thousands of airplanes in the air *right* *now*,
and we have actually flown to the moon.

Lord Kelvin could not see how the Sun could have been shining for more than a
few thousand years on the basis of energy sources then known.  Today we make
bombs that use the same energy source as the Sun, and may soon have electric
generators powered by that energy source.

So, why *should* neurology/cybernetics be any different than these much older
sciences?


-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com


