Xref: utzoo comp.ai:5324 sci.philosophy.tech:1841
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!voder!pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
From: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Thought and Utility
Summary: Machines can't intend.  Let's separate reality from metaphor.
Keywords: decision intention reality metaphor
Message-ID: <984@metapsy.UUCP>
Date: 31 Dec 89 17:43:48 GMT
References: <31821@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <0cTG02uf793w01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Reply-To: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Organization: Metapsychology, Woodside, CA
Lines: 37

In article <0cTG02uf793w01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com
(Ken Presting) writes:

>Evaluating a utility function and applying a decision procedure seems to
>me to be the formal essence of cognition.  Any system that does this has,
>I suggest, the beginnings of intelligence.  Several other qualities are
>relevant (use of a public language, self-modification, susceptibility to
>argument) to full "personhood", but you have to respect a machine that
>knows what it wants and knows how to get it.

>There is no reason a finitary system couldn't do this - that's why I
>believe in strong AI.

I would agree that the ability to decide (which implies the ability
to *intend*) is crucial to the process of understanding.  But
intending (or deciding) requires a conscious being.  It is not enough
to say that given condition A, result A' obtains, whereas given
condition B, result B' obtains.  The same could be said of an eroded
hillside:  When it rains, you get mudslides;  when it doesn't rain,
you get cracks.  That doesn't mean the hillside is *deciding*
anything.  It behaves that way because that is the physics of the
situation.  The same is true of a computer, except that what occurs
with a computer is simpler and more predictable.

It is important to recognize the difference betweeen reality and
metaphor.  We tend to use anthropomorphic metaphors when talking
about machines.  And that's OK, until we get so wrapped up in the
metaphor that we lose sight of the fact that it *is* a metaphor.
It's the same problem that exists with the metaphor of "mental
illness", used to describe confusion, unhappiness, and aberrant
behavior.  (I've heard the term "computer doctor" used in jest and
the term "virus", but nobody yet thinks that in debugging a program
we are curing an illness.)
-- 
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
431 Burgess Drive; Menlo Park, CA 94025