Newsgroups: comp.ai.games
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!usenet.ufl.edu!zeno.fit.edu!mtulloch
From: mtulloch@winnie.fit.edu (Michael Tulloch)
Subject: Re: Consciousness and games (was Re: Chess, Tictactoe, and Checkers, Oh My!)
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References: <3mjt3i$roe@news.xs4all.nl> <D6zxIx.H02@wave.scar.utoronto.ca> <SMISHRA.95Apr14162929@eagle.acns.nwu.edu> <3n6ho5$77n@courier.urbana.mcd.mot.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 15:13:30 GMT
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Tim Thomas (thomas@pacific.urbana.mcd.mot.com) wrote:
: -Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #21 (NOV)

: In <SMISHRA.95Apr14162929@eagle.acns.nwu.edu> smishra@eagle.acns.nwu.edu (Sunil Mishra) writes:

: >Before saying that one should try to represent consciousness of the mind,
: >one has to consider what consciousness is, and if it is even useful for
: >most purposes.
: > [...]
: >Right now we are just trying
: >to figure out what the problem is.  Trying to reverse engineer millions of
: >years of evolution is not easy.

: Assuming that consciousness is explained by evolution... :-)
: Honestly, I'm *not* trying to get into a discussion of religion, or of spiritual
: things.  On the other hand, as has been stated before we are still trying to
: come up with an idea of what consciousness is.  I would add that we also need
: to know what is sufficient to *represent* consciousness.  A state machine model
: may not be sufficient.  It isn't for the Universe as far as we can tell --
: Heisenberg and all that.

: And also, as stated before, maybe it's just not useful for most things.
: In fact, let's attack it from the other side:  For what things *would*
: consciousness be useful?  Getting back to the game AI stuff, do we need or
: want games that have "consciousness" (whatever that is)?

: Tim Thomas
: thomas@urbana.mcd.mot.com

: Full domain name is:  thomas@pacific.urbana.mcd.mot.com.usa.earth.sol.end_of_spiral_arm_on_the_left_trust_me_it's_there.milky_way_galaxy.universe.heisenberg_was_here_but_we're_not_sure_when.reality

Well yeah that gets into the whole idea of "form follows function". Why 
waste code (and valuable CPU time, natch!) on having a fully-concious 
game, when all the player really wants is monsters who have some general 
wit about them? Let's face it: with the few standard algorithms we have 
already, we can make wargames fairly realistic in terms of enemy 
"thought" (y'know: march toward the sound of guns, et cetera). We need to 
up the ante a little bit for RPGS, maybe a lot more, but would we need 
conciousness to do it? Nah. AI I believe is parlor magic of the 20th and 
21st century. Let's give the gamers a good ride for their money, make the 
illusion a little more real, but we all know it's just an illusion.

--- Mike

