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From: jpd@kepler.UUCP (John Donovan)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: A halting problem
Message-ID: <443@kepler.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Jan-86 16:44:26 EST
Article-I.D.: kepler.443
Posted: Thu Jan 16 16:44:26 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jan-86 07:43:45 EST
References: <2175@aecom.UUCP>
Reply-To: jpd@kepler.UUCP (John Donovan)
Distribution: net
Organization: MicroPro Int'l Corp., San Rafael, CA
Lines: 46
Xref: watmath net.ai:3182 net.philosophy:3803

In article <2175@aecom.UUCP> berger@aecom.UUCP (Micha Berger) writes:
>
>
>	This would mean that there is a set of problems no procedure
>can ever do, yet the human mind does.  The root of them is at the fact
>that the human brain has meta-cognizance (I can realize, "Hey! This
>loop is taking me no-where.") Or, that the root of intelligence
>can not be duplicated by machine.

In my younger days I was fond of Teilhard de Chardin's distinction
between humans and animals.  For him the difference is that animals
are aware of their environment, but humans are "aware that they are
aware."  This "reflexive awareness" == consciousness, from which he
takes off in a religious direction.  You call this "meta-cognizance."

Actually, I don't think that humans can be "aware that they are
aware."  More likely, they are aware that certain cerebral processes
are going on that relate to acquiring data about their environment.
How is this different from the parallel processing example where
one process checks the status of another process that is running
in a separate environment on the same computer system?  In either
case, the process being checked is interrupted while the checking
process determines its status.  This is really not even parallel 
processing but high-speed switching between processes.  This would 
not support his theory about "meta-cognizance."  

Even if the first
process weren't interrupted, what we are seeing isn't "awareness
of awareness" but simply awareness of activity in another part of
the environment--nothing that a machine can't do (or at least emulate
pretty well).

The key point is that I don't see that humans can really be "aware that
they are aware."  Try reading this message while being aware that you
are reading it; slippery, but it can be done.  Now hold onto the aware-
ness of reading the message and be aware of *that* awareness.  I don't
think it can be done.  If not, then the brain (by this analysis) is
a parallel processing machine that isn't fundamentally different
from a computer that is capable of parallel processing.

I'm not advocating this analysis, but I would certainly like to
hear some counter arguments.
-- 
----
... John Donovan, MicroPro Technical Communications
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