Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!aipna!rjc
From: rjc@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Making fires and making minds - the laws of physics prevail : -)
Message-ID: <748@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 16 Apr 89 21:51:44 GMT
References: <10992@bcsaic.UUCP> <16878@cup.portal.com> <2792@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: rjc@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Richard Caley)
Organization: Dept. of AI, Edinburgh, UK
Lines: 89
Dragon: Yevaud

In article <2792@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:

>In article <16878@cup.portal.com> dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) writes:
>> That is, you would have to violate physical law in order to
>>follow some other.

>No I wouldn't. I just exercise choice within the bounds of the laws of
>physics.

Name such a choice. There may be "choices" left open by "the laws of
physics"  since these are incomplete - they are just as much as
physicists know. They were not the thing under discussion however; I
know of no evidence that there is any choice in the operation of the
physical universe - if someone pulls your chair out from under you you
fall downwards, you do not have the option of floating where you are,

>In the design of
>a physical experiment, one does not have to worry about the subject
>matter sussing out what you're up to.

One has to worry about the performance of the experiment changing the
behaviour of the thing being investigated. I fail to see the difference
here.

>>Your body is a _completely_ physical system.  Therefore it is
>>governed _completely_ by physical laws.

>Your apparent ignorance is astounding.  You must be overlooking things.

>Language obeys far more than the laws of physics, and the laws of
>physics *CANNOT* explain language.  [ other examples ]

Give the guy a break, it is pure sophism to use a slight mistake in his
phrasing to attack his argument.

In case it escapes you he meant to say that your body can not behave in
a way which violates physical law. If you are going to argue by
reversing the implication they how can you expect anyone to believe you?

>Still, I doubt
>that you know anything about these areas, so your argument is
>unsurprising. 

Thank you for that useful contribution to the cause of rational debate.
Such statments make me wonder if, in fact, the historians whom I have
known have been aberrations since they have been capable of clear and
objective argument without recourse to insults or sophistic trickery. 

( yes, I know I have just been guilty of the same crime GIGO ).

>>     Nuts.  I suppose the first caveman to build a fire had a complete
>>understanding of it?

>Fire isn't an artefact, it's a natural phenomenum.  No deliberate
>attempt to 'simulate' fire was likely in its discovery.

Fire is a natural phenomeon ( or at least a cultural classification of a
class of natural phenomena ). _A_ fire is an artifact. It is a
deliberate attempt to construct a system whose behaviour includes
burning. This turns out to be very easy to do since many of the
conditions the system must fulfill are going to be true without effort (
eg easy access to a supply of oxygen ). If you want an example with a
more obviously artificial feel, think of fission reactors. Here a
partial model of sub-atomic phenomena was used to design a system which
had a cerain property ( sustained chain fission reactions ). To the best
of my knowledge physics does not have a complete knowledge of the
behaviour of sub-atomic particles.


>AI is a deliberate and conscious attempt to construct an ill-defined
>social construct.  The analogy with fire has no intellectual
>credibility.

You don't think `fire' is ill-defined? Place steel wool in chlorine and
heat ( feel free to correct my memory of O-level chemistry ); it will
react in a violent way. Is that `fire' - it was so described by my
chemisty teacher. How about phosphorus in water. How about iron rusting
in air?

>Nothing useful comes from an analogy between making fires and making
>minds.

except to refute your statment that we would need to be able to totally
define a phenomenon to reproduce it.
-- 
	rjc@uk.ac.ed.aipna

 "Politics! You can wrap it up in fancy ribbons, but you can't hide the smell"
			- Jack Barron