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From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Elementary AI Philosophy
Summary: Fear and joy without homunculi.
Keywords: Understanding and Comprehension, Reality and Modeling, Sentience
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Date: 1 Feb 89 14:42:59 GMT
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In article <474@macomw.ARPA> shouse@macomw.ARPA (Claude Shouse) 
votes in favor of keeping the current line of discussion (about
homonculi) in the open forum.  Hearing no objection, I am glad to oblige.
 
Claude writes:

 > 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?

Claude, I am not persuaded that man is his own homunculus.  Perhaps
you can elaborate your reasoning here.

As to a computer having fear and joy, I would like to address that in
more detail.

First, I think we should distinguish between *having* emotions and
*understanding* them.  I have many emotions which I undeniably
experience.  Some of them I can name, and some of them I can
explain in terms of the life circumstances that gave rise to them.
I also experience emotions from time to time that I cannot name
or explain.

An ambulatory automaton may reasonably adopt (or be given) two
conflicting goals:

	1.  Explore your environment and construct a map of
	    the territory so that you may navigate your way
	    without bumping into walls and people.

	2.  Exercise caution so as not to fall over and break
	    yourself.

The second goal ("be safe") would lead to behavior similar to
fear-based response in animals and people.  Self-protective
behavior is important for survival of a sentient being.  It
would be fair to say that prudence is the result of responding
to fear (of damage or destruction) in an intelligent way.

The first goal ("to boldy go where no automaton has gone before")
would be seen as the behavior pattern of a curious individual
with a healthy sense of adventure.  The discovery of a previously
unknown portion of the territory gives rise to an important
internal activity: map-making.  A goal-oriented automaton needs
to recognize progress and achievement, and that recognition may
fairly be labeled as a state of joy or satisfaction.

Thus I claim that a sentient automaton *has* emotions (although
it may not understand them, just as we do not always understand
our own fears and anxieties).

 > 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?

People working in natural language understanding have noted how
ambiguous our language is, and how easily we can be thrown off
by misleading contexts.

Try these:

	The astronomer married the star.
	The movie producer married the star.

	I saw the man in the park with a telescope.

(Does "with a telescope" modify "saw", "man", or "park"?)

To answer your question, computers are having just as hard a
time understanding English as people are.  Except that computers
are more honest about disclosing their confusion.

--Barry Kort