Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Pseudo-machine
Message-ID: <1991May16.133818.11606@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> <1991May16.101759.1757@cs.ruu.nl>
Date: Thu, 16 May 1991 13:38:18 GMT

>In <5329@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jones@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (JONES, THOMAS) writes:
>
>>Several writers have mentioned the idea of putting *all possible* English
>>conversations in memory.  Then the sentences can be retrieved, one by one.
>>The question now arises: Is this entity intelligent?  
>>
>>I claim that we have a pseudo-issue and a pseudo-question.  The reason is
>>that you could convert all of the  matter in the Universe into memory

Where do you get all this old logical-positivistic jargon?

>>for such a device, without having nearly enough.  Thus the existence of
>>such a device would be radically impossible.
>>
This by no means renders it an uninteresting question. Consider, for instance,
the meditations on the behaior of point-masses in physics. Newton would never
have got going without it.


-- 
Christopher D. Green
Psychology Department                             e-mail:
University of Toronto                   christo@psych.toronto.edu
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1                cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca