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From: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Can Machines Think?
Summary: Are there "programs" in nature?
Keywords: programs consciousness software hardware
Message-ID: <987@metapsy.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jan 90 13:07:37 GMT
References: <83367@linus.UUCP> <1989Dec18.014229.18058@athena.mit.edu> <968@metapsy.UUCP> <1989Dec19.061822.27585@athena.mit.edu> <973@metapsy.UUCP> <1779@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Organization: Metapsychology, Woodside, CA
Lines: 51

In article <1779@aipna.ed.ac.uk> cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <973@metapsy.UUCP>sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:

>>What *is* a "program", anyway?
>>...
>>is it, as I suspect, the detailed *concept* the programmer had in
>>mind when he wrote the source code?

>Computer programs, like knitting patterns, sometimes arise by
>serendipitous accident. "Gee, that looked good - wonder if I can do it
>again?"

>There are also those cases where one computer program invents
>another. In these cases there need never have been any mind which had a
>detailed concept, or even intention, behind the source code.

You haven't really defined "program", yet.  Do you mean the ascii
code?  I can see how that could arise from a random source, but
doesn't it take a conscious being to look at the source code and
label it as a "program"?  I suppose it would be easy to design a
program that would randomly generate syntactically correct ascii C
code that would compile and run without run-time errors (probably has
been done).  But would you really call such a random product a
program?  And if so, what's so interesting about programs as such?

>Even in fully deliberate programs, it is sometimes the case that the
>programmer fixes a bug by accident without understanding it -
>sometimes the only way, for obscure bugs, just to tinker until it
>goes away. But I would not like to say that programs which have never
>been understood are therefore not programs, any more than I would
>like to say that if God does not understand how I'm built then I'm
>not really a person.

Good point.  But even if a program were accidentally generated
randomly (like the fabled monkeys accidentally producing a Shakespeare
play), would it not require a conscious being to *label* such a
production a "program", in order for it to be one?

I'm not sure about this point.  I suppose there might be an argument
for saying that the enterprise of science is to discover the programs
that exist in Nature, so that we can understand, predict, and control
Nature.  In particular, the DNA system could be (has been) described
as a program.  I'm not sure if this usage is legitimate, or if we are
engaging in a bit of anthropomorphizing, here.  Or "theomorphizing",
if we find ourselves thinking as if the universe was somehow
programmed by some sort of intelligent Being and we are discovering
what that program is.
-- 
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
431 Burgess Drive; Menlo Park, CA 94025