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Article 4871 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Rock/FSA -> Humongous LUT
Message-ID: <1992Apr1.132848.9773@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 1 Apr 92 13:28:48 GMT
Sender: news@cs.ucf.edu (News system)
Organization: University of Central Florida
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I have been following the Rock/FSA thread with interest since the discussion  
seemed to bear on the issue of the computational status of chaotic processes in  
which I am interested.  (A chaotic rock would not need an external clock to  
provide a series of unique internal states for implementing the FSA.)

The discussion by MZ, DC and DMC seems to be converging on the conclusion that  
the rock not only implements every I/O-less FSA, but any FSA whatsoever through  
an appropriate re-identification of states.  Intuitively, a most unsatisfactory  
state of affairs.

Presumably the rock would pass a (bounded) Turing test, albeit with the  
assistance of a lab full of equipment for determining the rock's internal  
state.  Placing the rock in front of a terminal CRT displaying the message "How  
are you?" would produce a unique rock state due to optical radiation emitted by  
the screen's phosphors etc.  The equipment would then determine this state and  
determine that the proper output would be the key presses "Fine. And  
you?<return>".  The determination of the output must be done automatically,  
free of human intelligence, however, to avoid cheating.  A sure way to  
determine the output would be a look-up table (invoke quantum mechanics at  
finite temperature to argue a finite number of rock states).  An algorithmic  
approach could also be used, but I couldn't implement it, even in principle.  

Whatever means are used to determine the map from rock state to output, it  
would seem that the rock is just being used as an unusual sensor system.  In  
the above example the rock is a very indirect way of sensing the characters on  
the CRT.  
Thus, the rock is redundant and we return to the question of the humongous  
look-up table or other means for passing the Turing test.

The rock in front of the CRT does nothing.  The rock plus lab plus humongous  
look-up table passes the Turing test.  The intelligence is not solely in the  
rock.  


