Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!visdc!jiii
From: jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What is a Symbol System?
Message-ID: <668@visdc.UUCP>
Date: 21 Nov 89 20:38:57 GMT
References: <11640@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <17189@netnews.upenn.edu> <11657@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III)
Organization: VI Software Development, Boise, Idaho
Lines: 35
Keywords:

In article <11657@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
(S. R. Harnad) writes:
>
> Here is an easy example. I think it contains all the essentials:
> We have two Rube Goldberg devices, both beginning with a string
> you pull, and both ending with a hammer that smashes a piece of
> china. Whenever you pull the string, the china gets smashed by the
> hammer in both systems. The question is: Given that they can both be
> described as conforming to the rule "If the string is pulled, smash
> the china," is this rule explicitly represented in both systems?
> -- 
> Stevan Harnad  Department of Psychology  Princeton University
> harnad@confidence.princeton.edu       srh@flash.bellcore.com
> harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu    harnad@pucc.bitnet    (609)-921-7771

I believe that artificial intelligence is only concerned with the
problem of if and when to pull one of the strings.  Once the string is
pulled or not, the result is deterministic.  The china may break or it
may not, but the result requires no intelligence.  It seems kind of
clear that if we want to consider artificial intelligence distinct from
the chaotic determinism in which it is embedded, we have to resort to
some sort of contrived formalism.

Like others, I think of intelligence as a recognizer of a language taken
over an alphabet of symbols.  Not only is this mathematical contraption
capable of doing anything, in the sense of "knowing" precisely when to
to pull the string, but it is brutishly mechanistic and free from
subjective magic, (although seldom possible to build).  In such a model
it is fruitless to quibble about what is to be included in the set of
symbols, since the set of possible languages taken over an alphabet even
as simple as {a, b} is infinite.
--
John E Van Deusen III, PO Box 9283, Boise, ID  83707, (208) 343-1865

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