Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: mjs14@unix.brighton.ac.uk (shute)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
Message-ID: <1994Nov24.124344.23794@unix.brighton.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Brighton, UK
References: <3atltt$428@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1994Nov23.141453.27658@oxvaxd> <3avol3$csc@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 12:43:44 GMT
Lines: 67

Much as I don't really want to get involved in what has every indication
of shaping up into one of those jelly fights, to which some members of this
group feel so famously drawn...  I would like to seek clarification on a
point that confuses me in the previous article.

In his response to <1994Nov23.141453.27658@oxvaxd> econrpae@vax.oxford.ac.uk,
in article <3avol3$csc@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>please fill in the blanks:
> object x is executing program p iff __________________________________
>While you are about it, please supply a precise definition of "object"
>and of "program".

>Given a particular object 'x', and a particular program 'p', one
>might very well be able to analyze what it means to say that the
>particular object 'x' is executing the particular program 'p'.
>However, the original question was not about a particular object, but
>about a generic object.  And it was not about a particular program,
>but was about a generic program.

Ah, I hadn't grasped that.  I'd assumed that it had meant "this particular
object 'x' is executing this particular program 'p'".  I'll amend my reading
of the rest of the thread in the light of this.

>[...] No, it is not precisely the same thing.  There is broad agreement on
>what it means to say that there is a desk in front of me.  There is
>no such agreement on what it is for object 'x' to be executing
>program 'p'.

Umm.  Now this is where I get confused.
Suppose that the example had been 'table' rather than 'desk'.
(What I say next would still work with 'desk', but it is easier to see the
point with the word 'table' (drawing on the illustration which I have
seen Aaron Sloman use in his Beyond Turing Computability paper)).
Are we all in such broad agreement as to what it means to say that there
is a table in front of me?

If you are asserting that the 'x' and 'p', above, are generic,
then the comparison with the sentence "'y' is a table" is only meaningful
under the same conditions.  And I'm not convinced that I could define
what constitutes a table, and what doesn't.

>>[Re: Tetris]
>>pressing the "q" key must cause the current block to rotate anti-clockwise,
>Clearly, pressing the 'q' key cannot cause any such thing.  But if it
>could, there would be no need to have a program running.

But it's *because* the program is running, and meeting its design
specification, that pressing the "q" key causes the current block to rotate
anti-clockwise.  Please explain what I'm missing here, I'm confused.

>>pressing "w" must cause the current block to rotate clockwise.
>What if the program is running with the display in a window not
>currently displayed, and with the program taking its input from a
>file or from another program?  Do I gather that this would not count
>as running the program.

Presumably it would be running "a program"... just not "the program" that
the designers were hoping it would run.

Once you're talking about a specific computer, with a specific instruction
set, I think (given sufficient spare time) I could sit down to write out
what it means for that computer with that instruction set to be running a
program, and what it means for that computer with that instruction set to be
not running a program.
-- 

Malcolm SHUTE.         (The AM Mollusc:   v_@_ )        Disclaimer: all
