Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!acates!dan
From: dan@acates.UUCP (Dan Ford)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument
Summary: Sentience needs no outputs
Message-ID: <275@acates.UUCP>
Date: 14 Apr 89 05:51:04 GMT
References: <10992@bcsaic.UUCP> <16880@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: dan@acates.UUCP (Dan Ford)
Organization: Acates, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 19

In article <16880@cup.portal.com> dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) writes:
>     2. A machine could achieve sentience by being given the proper
>        self-organizing properties (say a large and biologically accurate
>        self-configuring neural network), a sufficiently rich set of inputs
>        (videocam vision, microphone hearing, pressure-plate touch, and so
>        on), and a sufficiently rich set of outputs (robot arms, mobility,
>        speech generation and so on)

I see no reason why outputs would be necessary to achieve sentience.  Of 
course without outputs outsiders would have a harder time determining whether
the machine had achieved sentience.  People who lack the ability to communicate
with the outside world are no less sentient than those who can communicate.
Perhaps the fact that a couple of the listed outputs (robot arms and mobility)
are part of feedback systems, and thus also act as inputs, is what leads to
the above statement.  "Pure" outputs are needed to recognize sentience, not to
achieve it.

Dan Ford    uunet!acates!dan
"You may not have stolen any eggs, but I bet you've poached a few." Odd Bodkins