Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!greenba From: greenba@gambia.crd.ge.com (ben a green) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Testing Intelligence (Re: Turing Test). Message-ID: Date: 5 Dec 90 15:11:55 GMT References: <4832@gara.une.oz.au> <1990Nov30.180650.26648@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Dec1.020816.1372@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Dec3 Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Organization: GE Corporate Research & Development Lines: 47 In-reply-to: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu's message of 4 Dec 90 19:09:17 GMT In article yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) quotes me What I am trying to say, perhaps poorly, is not that reason and self-awareness are by definition limited to humans, but that they require language. Reasoning involves explicit use of language. Self-awareness needs language in its learning. The limitation to humans follows from the fact that only humans have highly developed languages. and adds While I would agree that some form of language is required for logical reasoning, I don't believe this is the case for self awareness. What is required for self awareness is the ability to perceive the world as separate from the individual, and the ability to generate some model of one's self. This requires perception, motor control, and the ability to interact with a complex environment, but I don't think it requires language -- unless you want to consider any knowledge representation or data structure as an example of language. I don't pretend that the connection between self-awareness and language is obvious (and no, I'm not extending the definition of language). It follows from an analysis by Skinner of what is involved in the process of coming to perceive things. There are many things around us every moment that are perceptible to us but which we do not perceive. What we perceive is typically something that is important to us. We say that is what we are paying attention to. In a state of nature, what is important to most animals is safety, food, and sex, and objects and conditions surrounding these concerns are perceived very well. We come to perceive these objects and conditions because we are "reinforced" for doing so. Now our internal states certainly affect our behavior strongly, e.g. blood sugar level vs. eating. But there is little in the natural world (exclusive of other people) that reinforces perception of our internal states. So we are not likely to learn to perceive our internal states in isolation. Other people can provide contingencies under which we do learn to perceive our internal states. They use language to do so. This is too brief to persuade anyone, I know. Look up Skinner's paper "Behaviorism at Fifty" last reprinted in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, December, 1984. -- Ben A. Green, Jr. greenba@crd.ge.com Speaking only for myself, of course.