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From: shebs@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley Shebs)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: the Halting problem.
Message-ID: <1985@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Oct-83 02:44:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.1985
Posted: Tue Oct 11 02:44:12 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 01:45:21 EDT
References: cca.5837
Lines: 16

I share your notion (that human ability is limited, and that machines
might actually go beyond man in "consciousness"), but not your confidence.
How do you intend to prove your ideas?  You can't just wait for a fantastic
AI program to come along - you'll end up right back in the Turing Test
muddle.  What *is* consciousness?  How can it be characterized abstractly?
Think in terms of universal psychology - given a being X, is there an
effective procedure (used in the technical sense) to determine whether
that being is conscious?  If so, what is that procedure?

					AI is applied philosophy,
					stan the l.h.
					utah-cs!shebs

ps Re rational or universal psychology: a professor here observed that
it might end up with the status of category theory - mildly interesting
and all true, but basically worthless in practice... Any comments?