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From: mirk@warwick.UUCP (Mike Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: elementary AI philosophy
Message-ID: <904@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 89 11:32:51 GMT
References: <18464@santra.UUCP> <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa>
Sender: news@warwick.UUCP
Reply-To: mirk@emerald.UUCP (Mike Taylor)
Organization: Computer Science, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 76

In article <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa> meadors@nprdc.arpa (Tony Meadors) writes:
>In article <18464@santra.UUCP> ay@hutcs.UUCP (Beta) writes:
>>What might be the essential element of the human mind, the something that
>>humans have and which makes them different from machines?
>
>Roughly, you assumed that there exists some "essential element
>of minds" and that "humans have" some essence which makes them
>fundamentally "different from machines." 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.

I am not at all sure that the original poster mightn't have a point here.
I assume that most of you are familiar with Chris Searle's intriguing
"Chinese Room" objection to the claim of "Strong AI": In a nutshell, that
a human could hand-simulate any putative AI program without gaining any
*understanding* of the supposedly cognitive acts involved.  Searle
concludes from this that we have no evidence to assume that the program
itself, when running on a computer "understands" as such, (leaving aside
for now the perrenial problem of exactly what we mean by "undestand").

As far as this goes, I am forced to accept Searle's argument - the replies
which he attempts to refute in his article "Minds, Brains and Program" seem
to me to be dealt with fairly adroitly by him.  But Searle then seems to
lack the courage of his convictions, and instead of adopting the "soulist"
point of view, which seems to me to follow fairly naturally from the
"Chinese Room" thought-experiment, he adopts the rather startling position
of believing that there is somehow something magical about the neural
substrate, that brains are somehow just made of "the right stuff" to
support intellignece, whereas computers are not.

To my mind, if Searle's conclusion that we have no evidence for the Strong AI
hypothesis, (that correctly programmed machines can "understand" in roughly
the same sense in which we do), is correct at all, then the difference
between the human mind and an AI program is something far more fundamental
than the mere fact of the physical composition of the substrate.

In short, I think that the intellectually honest response to accepting
Searle's experiment is to postulate the existence of "soul" or "spirit".

>>Christianity offers one answer to the question.  According to the Old
>>Testament, God created man to be His image.

And this entailed giving him (and her!  Don't forget Eve :-) with a soul
and spirit.  Whether or not you accept the existance of the Christian God,
I think that it is unscientific to dismiss out of hand the idea that there
is something "supernatural" (read: "operating by mechanisms as yet unknown
to mankind") about the mind.

>>Accepting a new hypothesis can always lead to new results, and I
>>havent't seen this one in AI textbooks.

I think that the reason for this is clear.  If AI researchers decided that
the mind was "magical", and that they were unable to synthesise one for very
fundamental and immutable reasons, then there wouldn't be any point in doing
what they do.  Accepting a soulist position undermines strong AI to the
point of collapse.

So-called weak AI remains a valid proposition under this hypothesis, though.
It would still be intersting and useful to see what can be learned about human
cognition by *simulating* cognitive processes, even if it turns out that this
is all we can achieve.

>>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.

Me too.  Any explainations out there, anyone?

Hmm, well I hope that this has provoked some of you to thought.  A disclaimer
here, to finish with: I am not in any way an AI professional - not even a
Computer Scientist, just an interested layman.  Please forgive any factual
errors in the above, or misuse of terms etc.
______________________________________________________________________________
Mike Taylor - {Christ,M{athemat,us}ic}ian ...  Email to: mirk@uk.ac.warwick.cs
*** Unkle Mirk sez: "Em9 A7 Em9 A7 Em9 A7 Em9 A7 Cmaj7 Bm7 Am7 G Gdim7 Am" ***
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