Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!gatech!lll-lcc!well!wcalvin From: wcalvin@well.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: More on Minsky on Mind(s) Message-ID: <2562@well.UUCP> Date: Tue, 10-Feb-87 01:19:58 EST Article-I.D.: well.2562 Posted: Tue Feb 10 01:19:58 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 11-Feb-87 05:55:17 EST References: <460@mind.UUCP> <1032@cuuxb.UUCP> <465@mind.UUCP> <2556@well.UUCP> Lines: 54 Xref: watmath comp.ai:219 comp.cog-eng:56 Sender: Reply-To: wcalvin@well.UUCP (William Calvin) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Keywords: Consciousness, throwing, command buffer, evolution, foresight Reply to Peter O. Mikes email remarks: > The ability to form 'the model of reality' and to exercise that model is > (I believe) a necessary attribute of 'sentient' being and the richness > of such model may one-day point a way to 'something better' then > word-logic. Certainly, the machines which exist so far, do not indeed > have any model of universe 'to speak off' and are not conscious. A model of reality is not uniquely human; I'd ascribe it to a spider as well as my pet cat. Similarly, rehearsing with peripherals switched off is probably not very different from the "get set" behavior of said cat when about to pounce. Choosing between behaviors isn't unique either, as when the cat chooses between taking an interest in my shoe-laces vs. washing a little more. What is, I suspect, different about humans is the wide range of simulations and scenario-spinning. To use the railroad analogy again, it isn't having two short candidate trains to choose between, but having many strings of a half-dozen each, being shaped up into more realistic scenarios all the time by testing against memory -- and being able to select the best of that lot as one's next act. I'd agree that present machines aren't conscious, but that's because they aren't Darwin machines with this random element, followed by successive selection steps. Granted, they don't have even a spider's model of the (spider's limited) universe; improve that all you like, and you still won't have human-like forecasting-the-future worry-fretting-joy. It takes that touch of the random, as W. Ross Ashby noted back in 1956 in his cybernetics book, to create anything really new -- and I'd bet on a Darwin- machine-like process such as multitrack stochastic sequencing as the source of both our continuing production of novelty and our uniquely-human aspects of consciousness. William H. Calvin University of Washington 206/328-1192 or 206/543-1648 Biology Program NJ-15 BITNET: wcalvin@uwalocke Seattle WA 98195 USA USENET: wcalvin@well.uucp