Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3121 talk.religion.misc:10197
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From: ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: elementary AI philosophy
Message-ID: <232@maths.tcd.ie>
Date: 17 Jan 89 12:10:46 GMT
References: <18464@santra.UUCP> <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <904@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Reply-To: ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey)
Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin
Lines: 23

In article <904@ubu.warwick.UUCP> mirk@emerald.UUCP (Mike Taylor) writes:

>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 the absence of any real knowledge of how the mind works, I am perfectly
happy to allow the possibility of the existence of a soul, although I think
it's more useful to science to assume for the moment that a natural
explanation of the mind is possible. As regards your comments on Searle's
"Chinese Room": as I see it, all Searle did was to show that it is 
impossible to test for the presence or absence of 'mind' in a machine that
appears to be acting intelligently; for an automaton can show all the
appearence of being self-conscious - while being in fact a mere automaton.
I don't think it follows that it is impossible to make a machine that has
a mind (ie. is self-conscious), or that the mind is a supernatural
phenomenon. The question is rather: if we ever succeed in making a mind
'of nuts and bolts', how will we know we have succeeded?

			Yours, Fergal Toomey
				TCD