Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!toto.cis.ohio-state.edu!pollack From: pollack@toto.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Beating a Dead Homunculus Message-ID: Date: 16 Jan 90 00:32:18 GMT Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu Distribution: comp Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 29 There really are questions which a Turing Machine, or other "pure program" cannot answer, which real machines can: For example: What time is it? In order to answer this question correctly, a program MUST BE DEPENDENT ON THE HARDWARE upon which it is running. In fact, to even "play the game", a machine must has I/O facilities, such as the ability to set a bit which changes a measurable physical quantity in the universe, or to read a bit which reflects one. These facilities are definitely missing from Abstract Symbolic Computing machines. (Which is precisely why there is a P (not an A) in the PSSH.) I think anyone who has ever written a computer program tacitly assumes an extended computational model with I/O facilities. So, Searle, if he only knew, could actually win this on this one little point. So, I suggest the (mythological?) proponents of "Hard AI" agree to these two bits of physical machine dependency. Why not? Then it will be up to Searle to prove necessity of the FULL machine dependency of his "Brains Only" stance. -- Jordan Pollack Assistant Professor CIS Dept/OSU Laboratory for AI Research 2036 Neil Ave Email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu Columbus, OH 43210 Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890