Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3261 talk.religion.misc:10792
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From: hassell@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Christopher Hassell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Elementary AI Philosophy
Keywords: Understanding and Comprehension, Reality and Modeling
Message-ID: <6292@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 31 Jan 89 19:29:57 GMT
References: <18464@santra.UUCP> <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <904@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <44077@linus.UUCP> <474@macomw.ARPA>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: hassell@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Christopher Hassell)
Organization: (Let's see, I'm positive <clang> .. I've <rustle> got ... )
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In article <474@macomw.ARPA> shouse@macomw.ARPA (claude shouse) writes:
# In article <44077@linus.UUCP>, bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) writes:
# >  > My point was to argue that Searle's man inside the computer was
# >  > essentially a homunculus.   ...  Finally, since most of us agree
# >  > that none of us need a little man inside our head in order to
# >  > understand, Searle's assumption that a computer _does_ can
# >  > easily be seen as fallacious.
# 
# Forgive me if this has been covered already.  Why is it fallacious?
# A man does not need a homunculus because he is the homunculus.  But
# the computer would need a homunculus if it were to understand things
# like fear and joy.  Am I way off base here?
That is a good point regarding this idea.
  
# A while back a linguist posted two sentences that were parsed the same
# way.  1)  That plane flies like an arrow.
#       2)  Fruit flies like an orange.
# 
# Maybe I really don't know how far AI has progressed in computers.  Do we
# really have computers that generate the proper models to get the sense of
# these ideas?
# 
# Just wondering.
# 
# Claude Shouse

They have.  The rational process of mass-association tries-and-failures
to make sense of a sentence are presumed to be the better ways to handle
this, with a bit of X-works-more-often-than-Y too.   Presumably for humans 
as well.

This "Star-Trek" Principle <a noted issue in 60s S.F.> has been around
and is viscerally maintained to be true: 
  That "emotions" are beyond
          description/generation and therefore not implementable/predictable.

It is a toughy certainly.

The biggest problem I see is that of *describing* emotions in any manner 
other than ........ EMOTIONAL.  Not a truism by far, but it does make it
generally difficult to analyze things.  As for other inhibiting factors
there are the Well-Heck-We-Affect-Everything-So-What-Is-Science-Worth clan.
They seem predisposed to nothing but self-maintained ignorance, so....

I personally find a problem with this, though.  There are alot of VERY
ticklish issues with regard to examining oneself in ORDER to decompose
that person into implementable ideas and principles, but that still won't
stop some of us. :-)

I have always found the vague definitions available as quite accurate w/regards
to emotion.. 

Sadness: Feeling of helplessness/grief<loss> from strong event.
Hate:  Feeling of infringment and tresspassing by someone else resulting
         in possibly arbitrary classifications and actions.
Happiness:  Sorta the opposite of all of helplessness/need/sadness
Love: <ooh yuk> The having of extreme trust/respect/need for and with someone
          else or for something.  Happiness in its satisfaction is notable.

Easy ones are Surprise, Fear <of sadness, in general>, Apathy, Interest...

This is by no means formal, or necessarily accurate.  It IS however 
"simulatible" by "computible" methods.  They require LOTS and LOTS of
associations as basis <to define helplessness in all colors, as well as
  infringement, as well as trust....>

I have often wondered about a model to use: <NOTE BTW that these are all the
  knowledge-representation Sledgehammer approaches and that N-nets are 
  much better at this "computation" in principle and in practice>

Given Maslow's hierarchy of needs, couldn't one say that if these DO cover
ALL of "Human Needs" then couldn't these be modeled as "substances"?

I always wondered if we could give credence to the idea of "I don't get 
  no Respect!" as being provable, within fuzzy limits.  Things like 
  Security and Power could be strange.  All of the interactions of such
  a beast would be strange.  But...then again, so is the subject of the
  simulation!  :->

I have heard *Reams-and-Reams* of argument on Why-even-if-it-looks-like-it-
-AI-won't-Make-A-Comparable-Intelligence.  These arguments are interesting
in that No One has done anything except find the best way to express it.

Logically and scientifically speaking....Couldn't there be another hypothesis
to test? if this one doesn't seem to work?  This is NOT a light possibility
but so was the discovery of the A-bomb.  Not Fun but not End-of-Everything and
certainly not Impossible by default.

It does seem that too many people look at their text editor and their operating
system <if it does> and see the SERIOUS DUMBNESS that would exist if it were
taken compared to humans.  The extrapolations don't seem to come into it.

That's enough dissension for now.
### C>H> ###