Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!msuinfo!galaxy.cps.msu.edu!dailey
From: dailey@galaxy.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: computer life?
Message-ID: <1991Mar3.025707.16737@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 3 Mar 91 02:57:07 GMT
References: <1991Feb27.134800.18153@news.larc.nasa.gov> <1991Feb28.190553.20519@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <12548@ur-cc.UUCP>
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Reply-To: dailey@galaxy.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Lines: 38
Originator: dailey@galaxy.cps.msu.edu

In article <12548@ur-cc.UUCP> ta2cs220@troi.cc.rochester.edu (H. Y. Firooznia) writes:
>In article <1991Feb28.190553.20519@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> dailey@buster.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey) writes:
>>In article <1991Feb27.134800.18153@news.larc.nasa.gov> kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) writes:
>>>   Computers play chess.  They play chess well.  But they play chess in
>>>a fashion utterly unlike human beings, because they operate in a manner
>>>very different from the human brain.  
>>However, these computers are designed (in many or most cases) with the
>>human's strategies.  They are algorithmic representations of human
>>thoughts.
>  Or, perhaps you could say that the chess-playing computers are designed
>with some of the strategies that the human designers perceive themselves as
>using.  This distinction is important, I think, because it seems that chess
>computers are, at present, not playing in quite the same fashion as humans
>do.  

I think the the computer is being used as an "extension" of the
programmer's brain.  The computer itself is not truly showing
intelligence, it is merely following instructions.

[..long paragraph with Deep Thought example deleted..]
>>The only way (IMO) they could operate in a manner truly very
>>different would be if they were the ones that taught themselves how to
>>play.
>
>  How do you define "different"?  Would you say that Deep Thought plays in a
>manner different from humans?  How different?

Good point.  When the computer can no longer be viewed as an extension
of the human programmer but rather as an independent force [but to some
extent, as nothing is TRULY independent of everything else].  Is that
reasoning clear?

>-Hoss
-- 
Chris Dailey   dailey@(frith.egr|cps).msu.edu
    __  __  ___       | "A line in the sand." -- The Detroit News
 __/  \/  \/ __:>-    |
 \__/\__/\__/         | "Allein in der sand." -- me