Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!oxy!khan
From: khan@oxy.edu (Onnie Lynn Winebarger)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Imitations of Humanity
Message-ID: <129155@tiger.oxy.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 00:42:36 GMT
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA  90041
Lines: 29


     I'm relativity new to this net, so I'm not sure if this question will
really be appropriate.	My question is:  has the possibility of a neural net
hooked up to 2 cameras, connected for stereo vision, with other attempts at
equivalency for the other 4 physical senses, been considered for attempts to
produce intelligence?  I have been thinking that if a neural net was given the
same senses (as far as we can tell, of course we can't be sure they are the same
as our own) as a human, and given something to make it open it's eyes (a proverb
ial slap in the behind) then the flood of information it would recieve, somewhat
like a human baby would recieve, would force it to somehow deal with the flood,
and hopefully, eventually, enable intelligence.  I am rather existentialist in
belief and don't particularly believe that humans are born "intelligent" but
develop their thinking patterns over time in order to deal with what they sense.
If humans, who just happen to be biological machines, anyway, can develop these
thought processes, why shouldn't a machine given that it has very good
approximations of the sensory apparatus and "CPU" that a human has?
I am rather unfamiliar with this field, so I don't know how much this has been
debated or thought of, or anything like that.  I am also pretty sure that we are
unable, at the moment, to build this approximation of a human, but that really
isn't relevant to the question of if this approximation would become
intelligent.
    Also, consider the implications if this machine actually moved after it was
activated (without any programming to do it, but possessing the necessary motors
for movement and grasping and talking, etc. as humans.)

				 Lynn Winebarger
				 khan@oxy.edu
ps.  any info (by e-mail) on how to construct a .sig file would be greatly
 appreciated.	Thanx.