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From: ascott@egreen.iclnet.org (Alan Scott - CIR)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and (continuous) consciousness
Message-ID: <1994Dec6.174947.27872@egreen.wednet.edu>
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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 17:49:47 GMT
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In article <3bu2p7$t1i@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Gerardo Browne <jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> first quoted:
>Aaron Sloman (axs@cs.bham.ac.uk), who wrote:

>: People who work on computer vision usually have to start from a
>: digitised image array. However, they often write code that
>: interprets the array as if it were derived by *sampling* a
>: continuous image, or optic array. By making certain plausible
>: assumptions about bounds on the discontinuities in the original
>: array one can, as necessary, interpolate between the pixels in the
>: array, and, for example, answer questions about the colour or
>: intensity at a point two thirds of the way along a pixel. Similarly,
>: intersection points between intensity edges can be located with
>: sub-pixel accuracy.
>
>: It is possible for higher level processes to be given information
>: from which it is impossible to tell that the visual imput was
>: discrete and quantized at a certain scale.
>
Then Mr. Browne wrote:

>I fail even to see why one would have the impression that one's
>visual field was continuous.  We are not even able to "interpolate
>between" the "pixels" in our retina.  We don't even have a *mistaken
>opinion* about what is occurring at, for example, the position
>pi/4 x pi/4, derived from some weighing of inputs from pixels at
>nearby locations.  There is no such interpolation going on, not
>for a question of *that* level of precision.
>

Then I wrote:

This sounds to me like support for Sloman's original point (quoted above
for clarity).  His higher-level digital robot wouldn't have any
*knowledge* of such interpolation, either!  The "pixels" of our visual
perception (rods and cones) are not individually perceptible to us, as
Browne says, and the robot's "rods and cones" would not be individually
perceptible to it, at least not ordinarily.  Presumably, an intelligent
robot could "look at" its internal functioning in such reductionist detail
(just as we can "look at" our retinas using special equipment) but under
'normal' circumstances it wouldn't bother. 

Good work, Aaron!  And an informative followup from Mr. Browne.

Alan P. Scott
The opinions expressed herein are... the opinions expressed herein.


