Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!burley From: burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: emergent properties Message-ID: Date: 24 Oct 90 09:31:52 GMT References: <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Oct3.183522.17076@riacs.edu> <3549@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <45348@apple.Apple.COM> <3560@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <4152@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <15238@venera.isi.edu> <1990Oct23.165301.9813@riacs.edu> Sender: burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) Organization: The World Lines: 105 In-Reply-To: danforth@riacs.edu's message of 23 Oct 90 16:53:01 GMT In article <1990Oct23.165301.9813@riacs.edu> danforth@riacs.edu (Douglas G. Danforth) writes: The point is that our pleasures and pains guide and direct our paths of thought in ways that have very little to do with rational or logical thinking. Both facets (emotion,logic) work together to make us "thinking" creatures. -- Douglas G. Danforth (danforth@riacs.edu) I might agree that pleasures and pains guide and direct our thoughts in ways that have very little to do with CONTEMPORARY rational or logical thinking -- that is, any such thinking occurring at the instant when a given pleasure- or pain-response event occurs. However, it seems to me that we continually use our rational and/or logical thought to train our reactions for different responses (pleasure, pain, and so on) in future "instant-reaction" situations. For example, I'm told that very few people actually like anything about the first cigarette they smoke, but whatever pressures -- peer, for example -- that govern their (semi-)rational thought at the time cause them to begin the process of retraining their responses, over time, to the point where the instantaneous response to a cigarette is pleasure. (Or consider Minksy's "curves" -- perhaps trained by watching bikini-clad models on TV beer commercials! :-) Hmmm...perhaps one way to distinguish a particular level of intelligence in "wetware" (machines that must substitute some kind of quick response in the responding to a stimulus for a more complete analysis of which they are capable of in less demanding situations) is whether a being shows the ability to recondition its own reactions using whatever means are available to deal with a situation it recognizes through analysis. (I'm not going to claim this is a test for intelligence or consciousness or self-awareness...just that it might be an interesting test.) For example, if I know that I must walk over a walkway of, say, hot coals surrounded by deadly molten lava to reach a goal I consider sufficiently desirable (say, survival), I am capable of deciding that my normal response to heat -- jumping off of it (and thus into the molten lava) -- is inadequate and must be readjusted, and I am also capable of exposing my feet to very hot substances (say the coals at the beginning of the walkway) to recondition my responses (or at the very least, render my feet incapable of any feeling) so I don't jump off when I make the walk. Given looser constraints, I of course might make shoes, and given tighter constraints (such as insufficient time for such training), I might be capable of simply suppressing the reaction while I run over the coals. But other examples may be constructed where it is necessary for the being to truly retrain its responses to a stimulus and not simply inhibit them. Now, if I was a scientist and tested a human being and it passed, I'd consider that a "control" in an experiment. (Note that distinguishing capability from the particular being's willingness to use that capability in a particular situation is a weak aspect of this theory, and any experiment should strive to deal with that weakness as best as possible -- though, theoretically, ants might be able to so retrain their responses if necessary, yet we might never know just what conditions must be present for an ant to decide to use this capability.) If I then tested a chimpanzee, I'd be interested if it passed, as I would for a dolphin (using a modified form of the test, of course). But if a dog showed the ability to recognize such a situation and decide to retrain itself (even though the situation might have to be simplified or changed to be recognizable to the dog -- I'm only trying to prove some kind of "conscious" retraining of its own reactions), I'd be VERY impressed with the dog or dogs in general. I fully expect that life forms considered to be of less intelligence than, say, a dog or cat, would be incapable of passing the experiment under any situation, and, if that was the only other choice, would (effectively) choose death. On the other hand, I'm a firm disbeliever in the "disease" theory of alcoholism and other isms/habits, since I know (as does anyone else who cares to research the subject) that it has been disproved that a human being cannot "cure" him or herself of such a habit without some kind of medical or external attention. For example, I believe that humans could pass that test that white mice fail, the one where they push a button that stimulates a pleasure center of the brain until they die of thirst or starvation, even though food and water are nearby (directly or accessible simply by pushing another button). Whether a human could pass the test with no prior "warning" is a separate question from whether it could pass having observed the test's effect on a white mouse and understood the implications, and having been given time to recondition itself if it so chose. (Observing how a human reconditions itself to break away from constantly stimulating itself to get some munchies would be interesting in itself!) So while we may accept the limitation that in a given situation, we respond to a stimulus in a fashion not directly governed by our capacity for rational or logical thought, I think it is going too far to extend this concept to include the limitation that we cannot in any way employ our "higher" capacities in the training of our own responses. (Be aware that I also do not believe man is ultimately composed entirely of atomic particles, i.e. I don't believe creation is described entirely in matter. This might appear to some to affect how I view any attempt to reproduce man's intelligence via a machine. However, I do find the whole field fascinating, worth pursuing, and highly revelatory, both from a scientific standpoint and a philosophical one, so I feel perfectly comfortable participating in the process. And since I no more fully understand the implications of my own beliefs than do any others the implications of theirs -- for example, the belief that a man is entirely describable and thus reproducible at a material, or atomic/subparticulate, level -- I have at least as much to learn from these discussions as anyone else.) James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley@world.std.com