Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eneevax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!eneevax!phaedrus From: phaedrus@eneevax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.ai,net.philosophy Subject: New topic for discussion (long) Message-ID: <119@eneevax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 26-Apr-84 00:48:09 EST Article-I.D.: eneevax.119 Posted: Thu Apr 26 00:48:09 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Apr-84 04:09:28 EST Organization: EE Dept., Maryversity of Uniland Lines: 137 Hi there, I would like to start a new topic for discussion. Here, at the Univ. of Maryland, we have a course on the book by Douglas R. Hofstadter, "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid." In this book there are some really fascinat- ing topics on which we could get into some really good fra- cases (sp?). I want you experienced AI'ers, philosophers, anybody that is interested in AI out there in netland to let your hair down and start voicing your opinions on the fol- lowing excerpt from the book which in turn is an excerpt from the article by J.R. Lucas entitled, "Minds, Machines, and Godel". I have no idea what I need to do to follow copyright laws, so my apologies to the afore-mentioned authors in advance, if I do something to offend them. Here goes.... At one's first and simplest attempts to philosophize, one becomes entangled in questions of whether when one knows something one that one knows it, and what, when is thinking of oneself, is being thought about, and what is doing the thinking. After one has been puzzled and bruised by this problem for a long time, one learns not to press these ques- tions: the concept of a conscious being is, implicitly, realized to be different from that of an unconscious object. In saying that a conscious being knows something we are say- ing not only does he knows it, but he knows that he knows it, and that he knows that he knows that he knows it, and so on, as long as we care to pose the question: there is, we recognize, an infinity here, but it is not an infinite regress in the bad sense, for it is the questions that peter out, as being pointless, rather than the answers. The ques- tions are felt to be pointless because the concept contains within itself the idea of being able to go on answering such questions indefinitely. Although conscious beings have the power of going on, we do not wish to exhibit this simply as a succession of tasks they are able to perform, nor do we see the mind as an infinite sequence of selves and super- selves and super-super-selves. Rather, we insist that a conscious being is a unity, and though we talk about parts of our mind, we do so only as a metaphor, and will not allow it to be taken literally. The paradoxes of consciousness arise because a cons- cious being can be aware of itself, as well as of other things, and yet cannot really be construed as being divisi- ble into parts. It means that a conscious being can deal with Godelian questions in a way in which a machine cannot, because a conscious being can consider itself and its per- formance and yet not be other than that which did the per- formance. A machine can be made in a manner of speaking to "consider" its performance, but it cannot take this "into account" without thereby becoming a different machine, namely the old machine with a new part added. But it is inherent in our idea of a conscious mind that it can reflect upon itself and criticize its own performances and, no extra part is required to do this: it is already complete, and has no Achilles' heel. The thesis thus begins to become more of a matter of conceptual analysis than mathematical discovery. This is borne out by considering another argument put forward by Turing. So far, we have constructed only fairly simple and predictable artifacts. When we increase the complexity of our machines, there may, perhaps, be surprises in store for us. He draws a parallel with a fission pile. Below a cer- tain "critical" size, nothing much happens: but above the critical size, the sparks begin to fly. So too, perhaps with brains and machines. Most brains and all machines are, at present, "sub-critical"-they react to incoming stimuli in a stodgy and uninteresting way, they have no ideas of their own and can produce only stock responses-but a few brains at present, and possibly some machines in the future, are super-critical, and scintillate on their own account. Tur- ing is suggesting that it is only a matter of complexity a qualitative difference appears. So that super critical machines will be quite unlike the simple ones hitherto envisaged. This maybe so. Complexity often does introduce quali- tative differences. Although it sounds implausible, it might turn out that above a certain level of complexity, a machine ceased to be predictable, even in principle, and started doing things on its own account, of, to use a very revealing phrase, it might begin to have a mind of its own. It would begin to have a mind of its own when it was no longer entirely predictable and entirely docile, but was capable of doing things which we recognized as intelligent, and not just mistakes or random shots, but which we had not pro- grammed into it. But then it would cease to be a machine, within the meaning of the act. What is at stake in the mechanist debate is not how minds are, or might be, brought into being, but how they operate. It is essential for the mechanist thesis that the mechanical model of the mind shall operate according to "mechanical principles," that is, we can understand the operation of the whole in terms of the operation of its parts, and the operation of each part shall be either determined by its initial state and the construction of the machine or shall be a random choice between a determinate number of determinate operations. if the mechanist produces a machine which is so complicated that this ceases to hold good of it, then it is no longer a machine for the purpose of our discussion, no matter how it was constructed. We should say, rather, that he had created a mind, in the same sort of sense as we procreate people at present. There then be two ways of bringing new minds into the world, the traditional way, by begetting children born of women, and a new way by constructing very, very complex systems of, say, valves and relays. When talking of the second way we should take care to stress that although what was created looked like a machine, it was not one really, because it was not just the total of its parts: one could not even tell the limits of what it could do, for even when presented with the Godel type question, it got the answer right. In fact we should say briefly that any system which was not floored by the Godel question was eo ipso not a Tur- ing machine, i.e. not a machine within the meaning of the act. Ibbidy-Ibbidy-Ibbidy that's all folks!!! -- Without hallucinogens, life itself would be impossible. ARPA: phaedrus%eneevax%umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay BITNET: phaedrus@UMDC UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!eneevax!phaedrus