Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!harnad From: harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Understanding involves Learning? Summary: Learning Capacity is Necessary, Actual Prior Learning Is Not Message-ID: Date: 2 Apr 89 04:40:07 GMT References: <319@edai.ed.ac.uk> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 30 cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) of Dept. of AI, Univ. of Edinburgh, UK asks: " Does convincing linguistic competence involve learning?... does " understanding involve learning? There is good reason to believe that a candidate that will be able to pass the Linguistic Turing Test (LTT) will have to have and draw indirectly upon the robotic capacities that would be needed in order to pass the Total Turing Test (TTT), and that these will include the ability to learn. Suitably defined, "learning" is even involved in the normal course of coherent discourse, since information is exchanged, and the change must be reflected in the ensuing discourse. It is another question, however, whether the candidate would necessarily have had to arrive at its LTT-passing ability through the exercise of its learning capacity, in real time. In principle, the learning capacity, like the robotic capacity, could be latent -- present as a functional capability, but not yet used directly. In other words, there's no reason why a device with the functional wherewithal to pass the LTT couldn't have sprung, like Athena, fully developed from the head of Zeus (or some other artificer). In that sense there's nothing magic about learning or development (or even about real -- as opposed to apparent -- experiential history). -- Stevan Harnad INTERNET: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@princeton.uucp BITNET: harnad@pucc.bitnet CSNET: harnad%princeton.edu@relay.cs.net (609)-921-7771