Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!ndcheg!uceng!dmocsny
From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Chinese Room
Summary: Simulated Bells.
Keywords: symbols
Message-ID: <807@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 24 Mar 89 16:56:13 GMT
References: <10884@bcsaic.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 45

In article <10884@bcsaic.UUCP>, ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis) writes:
> Simulated bells don't ring.  

Mechanical simulation is certainly a valid sound-synthesis technique.
It is not very widespread yet because it demands considerable
computation, but a simulated bell need not sound any different to your
ears than a real bell.

We know nothing of the "real" world other than what our sensory organs
encode onto our nerves and send to our brain. I believe that informed
opinion considers the bandwidth of our nervous system to be finite.
Therefore, in principle, no theoretical barriers forbid the
possibility of creating a simulation indistinguishable from "reality."
That we cannot yet do so means that our simulations are incomplete.
Must they always remain so?

I think when you mentioned the simulated bell, you were probably
imagining that the output would be in the form of a list of numbers
describing the average position and velocity over time of a set of
finite elements partitioning the bell. By itself, a list of numbers
doesn't "ring." But is this list of numbers a "simulation" of the
bell? I think we would more properly say the list of numbers simulates
a set of measurements one might make of a bell. If we fit the bell
with strain guages, accelerometers, and transducers, then strike the
bell with a hammer, we can record a list of numbers describing the
bell's behavior. This list of numbers, and not the "ring," was the
goal of the simulation. If we want the list of numbers to ring, we
must extract from them an appropriate waveform and send it through a
loudspeaker.

We can already record the sound of the ringing bell directly, with
exceptional fidelity, yielding a digitized waveform. The waveform is
just a list of several hundred thousand finite-precision integers.
Creating those integers from a simulation is not an impossible
problem.

After all, a computer, according to Steven Wolfram, is a physical
system and it obeys physical laws. A simulation is nothing more than
instructing one physical system to behave something like another
physical system.

> Ray Allis  ray@atc.boeing.com  or bcsaic!ray

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu