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From: jwi@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Cog Sci Fi  (was: STRONG AND WEAK AI)
Summary: LIfe by Proxy
Message-ID: <2775@cbnewsj.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 Dec 89 14:50:09 GMT
References: <11870@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <16033@megaron.cs.arizona.edu> <1989Dec10.221449.8321@cs.rochester.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 59

> >>Brian Yamauchi wrote:
> >>
> >> My complaint about most AI programs is not the worlds are simulated,
> >> but that the simulated worlds often are very unlike any type of
> >> perceptual reality sensed by organic creatures.  It's a matter of
> >> semantics to argue whether this is "intelligence"...
> >> It seems that one interesting approach to AI would be to use the
> >> virtual reality systems which have recently been developed as an
> >> environment for artificial creatures. Then they would be living in a
> >> simulated world, but one that was sophisticated enough to provide a
> >> convincing illusion for *human* perceptions.

> >Stevan Harnad writes:
> >
> >Illusion is indeed the right word! Simulated worlds are no more
> >"like" a reality than books are: They are merely *interpretable*
> >by *us* as being about a world.

> Brian Yamauchi writes:
> 
> There is a *big* difference between a book and a virtual reality (or a
> movie, for that matter).  When you read a book you are interpreting
> linguistic symbols, when you watch a movie you are processing raw
> sensory perceptions.


When you read a book, you are processing raw sensory perceptions and
interpreting them as literary symbols which recall associated memories
or previous perceptions and emotional states. 

Whe you watch a movie you are processing raw sensory perceptions and
interpreting them as visual symbols which recall associated memories
or previous perceptions and emotional states.

To an artificial creature without the necessary referent previous
perceptions and emotional states of a human, the interpretation of
human reality is likely to be impossible. To a human without the
necessary referent previous perceptions and emotional states of a
creature living in an artificial reality, the interpretation of
artificial reality is likely to be equally impossible. In short,
we probably couldn't communicate -- the problem isn't words, the
problem is what would we have to say to an intelligent tree?

> >The illusion is purely a
> >consequence of being trapped in the hermeneutic hall of mirrors.

> Actually, the illusion is the result of having very sophisticated
> graphics software...

Actually, the ilusion is the result of falsely thinking that an
individual has the referents to communicate outside its particular
system, or the ability to even perceive outside its system.

Jim Winer -- Post, don't email, I usually can't reply.
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