Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!gutfreund%umass-cs@CSNet-Relay
From: gutfreund%umass-cs%CSNet-Relay@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: re: mental states of machines
Message-ID: <14517@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Dec-83 11:56:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.14517
Posted: Thu Dec  8 11:56:00 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Dec-83 00:55:42 EST
Lines: 54

From:  Steven Gutfreund <gutfreund%umass-cs@CSNet-Relay>

I have no problem with using anthropomorphic (or "mental") descriptions of
systems as a heuristic for dealing with difficult problems. One such
trick I especially approve of is Seymour Papert's "body syntonicity"
technique. The basic idea is to get young children to understand the
interaction of mathematical concepts by getting them to enter into a
turtle world and become an active participant in it, and to use this
perspective for understanding the construction of geometric structures.

What I am objecting to is that I sense that John McCarthy is implying
something more in his article: that human mental states are no different
than the very complex systems that we sometimes use mental descriptions
as a shorthand to describe.

I would refer to Ilya Prigogine's 1976 Nobel Prize winning work in chemistry on
"Dissapative Structures" to illustrate the foolishness of McCarthy's
claim.

Dissapative structures can be explained to some extent to non-chemists by means
of the termite analogy. Termites construct large rich and complex domiciles.
These structures sometimes are six feet tall and are filled with complex
arches and domed structures (it took human architects many thousands of
years to come up with these concepts). Yet if one watches termites at
the lowest "mechanistic" level (one termite at a time), all one sees
is a termite randomly placing drops of sticky wood pulp in random spots.

What Prigogine noted was that there are parallels in chemistry. Where random
underlying processes spontaneously give rise to complex and rich ordered
structures at higher levels.

If I accept McCarthy's argument that complex systems based on finite state
automata exhibit mental characteristics, then I must also hold that termite
colonies have mental characteristics, Douglas Hofstadter's Aunt Hillary also
has mental characteristics, and that certain colloidal suspensions and
amorphous crystals have mental characteristics.

                                                - Steven Gutfreund
                                                  Gutfreund.umass@csnet-relay

  [I, for one, have no difficulty with assigning mental "characteristics"
  to inanimate systems.  If a computer can be "intelligent", and thus
  presumably have mental characteristics, why not other artificial
  systems?  I admit that this is Humpty-Dumpty semantics, but the
  important point to me is the overall I/O behavior of the system.
  If that behavior depends on a set of (discrete or continuous) internal
  states, I am just as happy calling them "mental" states as calling
  them anything else.  To reserve the term mental for beings having
  volition, or souls, or intelligence, or neurons, or any other
  intuitive characteristic seems just as arbitrary to me.  I presume
  that "mental" is intended to contrast with "physical", but I side with
  those seeing a physical basis to all mental phenomena.  Philosophers
  worry over the distinction, but all that matters to me is the
  behavior of the system when I interface with it.  -- KIL]