Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Conciousness Message-ID: <229@tdatirv.UUCP> Date: 30 Apr 91 15:40:57 GMT References: <1991Apr16.061532.10775@panix.uucp> <2102@seti.inria.fr> <2124@seti.inria.fr> Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine Lines: 33 In article <2124@seti.inria.fr> ziane@nuri.inria.fr (ziane mikal @) writes: >I do not think that the problem is the same for pain and for intelligence. >I think that it is difficult to simulate intelligence whithout being actually >intelligent. Of course one may be temporarily misleaded in a limited context >(cf Eliza etc) but the point is a definition of intelligence will relate it >to the outer world .... >To be intelligent means that you can solve problems related to the outer >world. Even abstract problems are "abstracted" from some initial, although >sometimes remote, reality. I essentially agree here. Intelligence is a way of dealing with problems, and cannot be 'merely' simulated. If problems are solved in an intelligent way then intelligence is present. (There are, of course, various degrees and types of intelligence, so something can easily have a limited intelligence). >Feeling pain does not imply such a relationship, it is personnal. >Since pain often comes with some behavior, that behavior is usualy a hint >of some pain. I just wanted to stress that pain must not be confused with >an external behavior. Now the question is what is pain if it is not an external >behavior ? I see things a little differently here. Pain is the internal emergency signal that marks a situation as physically damaging. Any response system which has such a override signal attached to an intelligent system is essentially feeling pain. Without an independent decision agent (or intelligence) it is just a pain reflex, rather than a feeling of pain. [Simple animals have pain reflexes, but no brain with which to *feel* pain. More complex animals, like vertebrates, have a CNS, which interprets the pain signal, and thus they feel pain]. -- --------------- uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)