Xref: utzoo comp.ai.philosophy:1041 comp.ai:9525
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,comp.ai
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!jamesm
From: jamesm@gemma.cs.rpi.edu (Michael James)
Subject: Re: A "working definition" of intelligence.
Message-ID: <-hclt6l@rpi.edu>
Keywords: intelligance, ai, reasoning
Nntp-Posting-Host: gemma.cs.rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
References: <7135@gara.une.oz.au>
Date: 24 Jun 91 15:45:00 GMT
Lines: 54

In article <7135@gara.une.oz.au> pnettlet@gara.une.oz.au (Philip Nettleton) writes:
>People are again batting the breeze with notions about Turing Tests,
>intelligence and how to define it. Those of you who were not watching
....stuff omitted


>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>			DEFINITION:
>	GENERAL REQUIREMENTS OF AN INTELLIGENT SYSTEM.
>
.....other stuff omitted
>----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm glad this was posted at this time because I spent all of last weekend
trying to construct just such a definition.   I never could get it to 
say what I wanted, though (big surprise, eh?).  I have some problems with
the definition that Philip posted;  these are not flames but just problems 
that I am struggling with.

1) What is learning?  I'm not talking about a phrase or off-hand remark. 
   I am wanting an explicit definition.

2) What are instincts?

3) What is instruction?  It seems to me that when we say something learns by
   instruction, it is actually doing what we would call learning by
   observation.  The materials under observation are just manipulated by 
   an outside entity to facilitate the 'learning.'

4) What does it mean to say something is motivated?  When I tell my dog 
   to fetch his bone and he does this because he knows that I will give him
   something to eat, how is this different from a micro-organism which always
   heads toward light sources or a computer which computes the sum of two
   numbers?  I'm not sure I see any difference between them except in degree
   of complexity.

5) (Oh boy)  What does it mean to reason?  I still am pretty clueless on this
   one.  Do we 'learn' how to 'reason?'

6) Is self-awareness the same thing or an ingredient of consciousness? 
   Or neither?

The definition of terms section presented in the original posting says
that things such as learning and reasoning are behavioral phenomena.
I'm not sure that this is explicit enough to serve as a basis for the
recognition of learning or reasoning.



mj

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael James                Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
jamesm@turing.cs.rpi.edu