Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!nprdc!meadors
From: meadors@nprdc.arpa (Tony Meadors)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: elementary AI philosophy
Message-ID: <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa>
Date: 30 Dec 88 19:16:34 GMT
References: <18464@santra.UUCP>
Sender: news@nprdc.arpa
Reply-To: meadors@nprdc.arpa (Tony Meadors)
Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego
Lines: 65

In article <18464@santra.UUCP> ay@hutcs.UUCP (Beta) writes:
>Here's some elementary AI philosophy (hopefully I won't get hanged for
>this).
>
>A very interesting problem for an AI researcher to study is to start
>studying what might be the essential element of the human mind, the
>something that humans have and which makes them different from
>machines.
>
I could hardly disagree more strongly. I don't know your background
or your reason for offering such a suggestion (other than the christianity
ties which follow) but you have made several assumptions herein
that I expect WILL get you flamed despite your hope not to be "hanged."
  Roughly, you assumed that there exists some "essential element
of minds" and that "humans have" some essence which makes them
fundamentally "different from machines." In contrast I suppose that
AI is that engineering effort to understand and produce intelligent
behavior and that living creatures are indeed very complex, physical
machines (ie. differ organizationally from more inert aggregations).
Just for completeness sake "cognitive science" is the closely related
approach which attempts to genuinely understand our "elements of mind"
such as images, memories, descision processes and the like in terms of
the physical substrate we're known to possess : possibly this is
more related to your notion of "the human mind" refered to above, but
as you show in the next few sentences you're fishing for some "essence"
more akin to a "soul", something that would in fact separate MEN from
BEASTS -- mainstream biology and psychology has gained much by coming
to recognize their vast similarities and almost nothing from assuming a
difference in "essence." 

>Christianity offers one answer to the question.  According to the Old
>Testament, God created man to be His image; and according to the New
>Testament, Apostle Paul "God is love".
>
>I invite the reader to do some elementary philosophy.  Machines, I
>would say, don't love in the sense humans do, however sophisticated
>their cognitive mechanisms are.  To answer the question whether
>animals can be said to love, a better biologist than me is required;
>but my intuitive answer is no.
>
Oh, but I do follow you...God created man in his own image...God is
love...therefore only men can have love. Now you tie this to your
own "intuitive answer" and have a powerful argument against 
"mechanisitic love."
  Turning off the sarcasm for a moment, I certainly can appreciate
your interest in these topics and your intuitions...we all have them
(of various sorts). But I sould like to suggest you give some thought
to your terms..."mind","love","machines": the definition of such
entities is crucial in these discussions. Unless one has rather concrete
notions concerning what constitutes "loving" and "a machine" and are
willing to defend those as well, then an assertion concerning whether
a machine can be said to love is, well meaningless. 
>Accepting a new hypothesis can always lead to new results, and I
>havent't seen this one in AI textbooks.
>
Textbooks? never. Yet thanks for this new hypothesis...
>It might be a good idea for AI researchers to study the romantic
>literature written by women for women (sic).
>
You'll have to spell this one out for me.
>Antti Ylikoski
>Helsinki University of Technology, Lab of Information Processing
>Science

tonyM