Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncrlnk!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!aipna!rjc From: rjc@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Message-ID: <411@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 18 Dec 88 02:51:18 GMT References: <484@soleil.UUCP> <1654@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <1908@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4040a289.9d8d@hi-csc.UUCP> Reply-To: rjc@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Richard Caley) Organization: Dept. of AI, Edinburgh, UK Lines: 22 Dragon: Oolong In article <4040a289.9d8d@hi-csc.UUCP> harper@hi-csc.UUCP (Paul L. Harper) writes: >It is an incredible leap of faith, completely unfounded >by science, to assume that computers can obtain the human >quality we call intelligence. Where is the scientific justification >for the assumption? Where is the scientific justification for the oposite assumption? It is an open question, and one certainly gets no answers by assuming it is impossible, so the best strategy seems to be to assume it is possible and try to disprove this, since this could be done by one facet of human "inteligence" which is proved to be incomputable. There is no "scientific" justification for the assumption that the entire universe obeys those laws we have observed locally on the earth, it is an assumption. One must assume something to get anywhere. -- rjc@uk.ac.ed.aipna AKA rjc%uk.ac.ed.aipna@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk "We must retain the ability to strike deep into the heart of Edinburgh" - MoD