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Article 7504 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Message-ID: <1992Nov3.234343.16571@spss.com>
Date: 3 Nov 92 23:43:43 GMT
References: <719720414@sheol.UUCP> <XD3FTB3w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz>
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In article <XD3FTB3w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz> system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall) writes:
>> : From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
>> : Groundedness doesn't diminish one whit when you close your eyes, any more
>> : than your capacity for vision does.  What could change things is if you gre
>> : up blind: then you'd lack grounding in (say) colors.
>
>Hmmm, following one from suggestions that "groundedness" can diminish 
>over a period of years, I'd like to suggest that groundedness CAN 
>diminish one whit just by closing your eyes. Doesn't "groundedness" as 
>it is being used refer to a "real world experience". Imagine that while 
>*I* have my eyes closed everyone else seems say an amazing comet, or a 
>supernova, or some transient phenomena (cf Day of the Triffids).

You have to keep 'em closed for a pretty long time to miss a comet
or a supernova...

>I would then not be grounded in relation to discussions about that 
>phenomena. In fact to others talking about it, my attempts at 
>discussions could appear to be completely without intelligence.
>
>Now granted that you could argue that this is not a "loss" so much as a 
>"failure to gain". But the fact that we CAN close our eyes for a second 
>(or a day), surely is a simple reflection of the fact that in all 
>probability I will NOT be seeing anything new that would add to my 
>groundedness. As opposed to when I was very young when so much of the 
>world was new....
>
>Just as I would suggest that a matured AI could be turned off for a 
>day, and then turned back on and will not have "gone off" significantly 
>because of the loss of a day's grounding.
>
>I guess that I am arguing that you DO need to maintain conatct with 
>real world experiences to maintain grounding, but the level of contact 
>can be proportional to the change in the real world environment. 
>Likewise, grounding can occur very quickly in a stable environment. It 
>can also be very difficult to those grounded in a stable environment 
>(even humans) to adapt when that environment suddenly does change (cf 
>culture shock).

I mostly agree with your comments, but there's a distinction I'm
not sure you're making.  You are seeing, quite rightly, that you have to
experience a given event (the supernova, your vacation, a new TV show,
whatever) to be grounded in it.  But there's also the grounding in the
world in general that you acquire while growing up: experience with
cats, cherries, trees, cities, people.  All of this came from experiencing
events, of course; but what's important here is that it's transferrable.
Your experience with your grandma's cats generalizes to a knowledge of
cats in general; if you've seen a meteor shower before you're not entirely
ungrounded even with respect to the one you missed when your eyes were closed.

It's this generalized grounding that isn't diminished when you close your
eyes, or sleep, or take a year's sabbatical.  And I'd maintain that this
grounding takes years to acquire, and lays the basis for whatever quick 
adaptations to changing circumstances we are capable of.


