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From: ijd@camcon.uucp (Ian Dickinson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Is the human mind flawed?
Message-ID: <995@titan.camcon.uucp>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 11:00:25 EST
Article-I.D.: titan.995
Posted: Fri Oct 23 11:00:25 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Oct-87 01:09:05 EST
References: <2809@sdsu.UUCP>
Organization: Cambridge Consultants Ltd., Cambridge, UK
Lines: 34

in article <2809@sdsu.UUCP>, caasi@sdsu.UUCP (Richard Caasi) says:
> 
> If the human mind was flawless we wouldn't be debating this issue.
> To determine how flawed the human mind is we need to first define the
> characteristics of a flawless or perfect mind.  Any suggestions?

My mind does exactly what I want it to do.  I like to be emotive, to be 
able to intuit, guess,  make mistakes and learn from them, do silly
things to let off steam, laugh at obscure jokes etc.  All of these
abilities could be regarded as flaws in a device which aspired to
mechanistic perfection.  But I like my mind - for me it _is_ perfect
(although maybe not so to another person).

>        Drawing an analogy with ideal operational amplifiers
> in electronics, ....
Hum.  I can't think of a machine that I would like to use as an 
analogy here.  One problem is that we know that the individual components
of the brain (perhaps more analogous to an electronic device) have
pretty awful performance characteristics,  but the *mind* as a whole
has characteristics that no machine in existence today can begin to
match.    So, whilst I have no doubt that we can create technology
that does improve on the metrics listed in the posting (indeed I am
actively involved in helping to do so),  I *do* doubt that this will
get us much nearer to a mindful machine.

> Question: Does such a mind exist or is nothing perfect in the real
> world?                                                      

Ultimately, reality is all we have.  End of problem.
-- 
Ian Dickinson    Cambridge Consultants Ltd, AI group     (0223) 358855 [U.K.]
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>>     Disclaimer:  All opinions expressed are my own (surprise!).         <<
>> To dance is to live,  but the dance of life requires many strange steps <<