Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!pdxgate!eecs!erich From: erich@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Erich Stefan Boleyn) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: forwarded post Message-ID: <557@pdxgate.UUCP> Date: 5 Nov 90 21:06:03 GMT References: <1990Nov5.181355.24990@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: news@pdxgate.UUCP Lines: 106 cpshelley@violet.waterloo.edu (cameron shelley) writes: >The following is a post forwarded by me for Stephen Miller at NASA >whose system seems to have posting trouble. Please direct responses >to him at the address below... >In article <497@pdxgate.UUCP> you write: (Erich Boleyn) [stuff deleted] >my response: > let's take an elementary spelling course: original > (there were some others, too.) (Sorry, when I get excited, my ability to communicate degrades quickly, usually starting with my spelling ;-) > (it causes loss of credibility...) Bummer... but true. It is a testament to the need of nicely formed arguments instead of valid content in any field. (sigh) > content: > i like it, however, do you think there is an emotional/instinctive >element in perceiving concsiousness in another entity? certainly our >need (emotional, instinctive, whatever type) has something to do w/it. I am absolutely sure it does. There was an excellent posting made not long ago (a week or two (?)) which discussed this point. I think it has to do both with our innate social needs/wants, and with our own conceptual structure that we try to fit the behavior of the devices into (or, for that matter, look at how many people who work and/or live closely with animals anthropomorphize them to some extent...). > i for one think a lot will come to light when the first generation >of babies grows up w/intelligent-acting computer/robot systems freely >available. that is, when these systems are in the nuturing environment >such as at home and at day school. will the children grow up considering >"robbie" to be a companion and playmate, a significant other persona? or >will the children say "oh, it's just the computer", and not become attached >to it as they do to their human friends and playmates? > ...will there be an emotive element? if there is, will the children >think the systems conscious? I think the question will have an interesting answer... but probably not one that you listed. > i think it is a tremendously complex question, this one about >machine consciousness, and a tremendously important one. it has bearing >on all kinds of ethical and moral issues, not to mention many different >branches of scientific inquiry. like all inquiry, and revolutionary >scientific (or other) thought and ideas, it will take both completely >NEW ways of looking at things (witness Heisenberg, Einstein, Darwin,...) >and more than one person brave enough to think these new things/ways, >and (lastly) time. revolutionary ideas neither form nor become accepted >overnight. > i maintain what we are witnessing and contributing to is a completely >new way of conceiving (for western man, at least) of our selves, our machines >and technologies, and our other things in our universe; i.e. other intell- >igences, including not only computer ones but also nonterrestrial ones such >as ocean-going mammals, other life forms on earth, and extra-terrestrials. > i think it is a fundamental revolution in the way we conceive of >ourselves and our place in the universe. all the evidence points to this >conclusion. we are consistently encountering multiple levels of reality >in particle physics, cognition, astronomy, computer science, bioengineering. >the same thing happens if one reads cultural philosophies from a variety >of nonwestern and western cultures. I somewhat agree with what you say, but there are some points that puzzle me in the implications. Up until recently, our philosophical foundations have gone fairly untouched (the argument of Newtonian vs. Quantum mechanics notwithstanding), i.e. we still use the same philosophical concepts that have been used for a *long* time, with little change. Even before they were formalized, these concepts were used in a loose way in social interaction and classification of other humans. I think the boundaries of "AI" have been enroaching on the "final fortress" of the old concepts, and it is looking like that may fall, and with it the revolution you speak of will take place. What I am curious about is what form some of these new concepts may take. I am also curious about how "fundamental" they are. We use the somewhat naive terms "conciousness" and "intelligence" in our social discourse, but we seem so weded to them, is there a reason for it? It very well could be that our whole society contributes to this in a way. I sometimes wonder if our emotional states could be as much a hindrance to the progress of knowledge as anything else... *plus* they ground us in a specific framework. Look at the response of the fundamentalist christian movement to the progress in science. It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that they even existed. To me, it looks like a fear response to the pressure of newer scientists that were claiming more and more that religion was unnecessary. The mysticism movements on the surface appear similar to some of this, although different in their own way. It appears to be a combination of new evidence and fear to be called "just a machine" (at least on the surface... I admittedly have little experience with most of them), and a lack of understanding of the materialistic sciences, in some cases, I'm sure. I wonder how much our own innate concepts given by culture can cloud understanding of some things... Oh, well, just a few thoughts. Erich / Erich Stefan Boleyn Internet E-mail: \ >--={ Portland State University Honorary Graduate Student (Math) }=--< \ College of Liberal Arts & Sciences *Mad Genius wanna-be* / "I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it."