Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cam From: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Cog Sci Fi (was: STRONG AND WEAK AI) Message-ID: <1838@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 15 Jan 90 20:02:09 GMT References: <1781@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <5871@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> Reply-To: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK. Lines: 32 In article <5871@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: >From article <1781@aipna.ed.ac.uk>, by cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm): ... >>Wherever sensing and action have been locally amalgamated in this sort of >>way a barrier is created to the extension of separate sensor and motor >>processing hierarchies. ... >This seems a central point, but I don't understand it. Why is >a barrier created? (And is the barrier in the creature, or >in our analysis of it?) Good point. Now that I think it out carefully, it is not in fact a barrier, so much as an opportunity not be missed. One _could_ just go on extending the sensor and processor hierarchies, but the point is that local amalgamation, as in a feedback servo, creates (when seen with the right timeframe and granularity) a useful new feature of the "world" (umwelt) which cannot be seen either as the result of pure sensory processing, or as as some kind of macro-operation on top of effector processing. To take advantage of such a feature adulterates the purity of the twin hierarchy. For a criticism of the "vision-module" approach to "the vision problem" from this kind of standpoint, see Aaron Sloman's article in the latest (vol 1 iss 4) Journal of Experimental and Theoretical AI. Yes, it's in the creature. While it _might_ be possible to build creatures with separated sensory and actuator processing hierarchies, it would at least be very computationally costly. -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK