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From: asanders@adobe.COM
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Dear Roger,
Message-ID: <1797@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 90 22:24:15 GMT
Sender: news@adobe.COM
Lines: 85


Excerpts and comments on an open letter from Hans Moravec to Roger Penrose:


|Our emotions were forged over eons of evolution, and are triggered by 
|situations, like threats to life or territory... Since there were no 
|intelligent machines in our past, they must resemble something else to 
|incite such a panic...

We have worked quite hard at making life orderly and predictable -- perhaps
because we fear the unpredictable, the unknown. Mr. Penrose's book is aptly
named: in the fairy tale, everyone is afraid to speak up for fear of being
thought a fool. Our supposed understanding of "intelligence" and "the mind"
is somewhat like this: deep down, we realize that we really don't know what
these concepts mean and thus are very frightened by the prospect of "intelligent
machines." We cannot predict what they would be like or (scariest of all)
how they would view us. What if somebody really DID build an intelligent
machine and it took one look at us and said: "You guys have been messing 
things up for 5000 years -- you're outa here!"?


|How should we feel about beings that we bring into the world, that are similar 
|to ourselves, that we teach our way of life, that will probably inherit the 
|world when we are gone?

Perhaps we should feel that, first of all, we have a responsibility to
examine our way of life in order to assess its fitness to be passed on.


|Searle's position is that a system that, however accurately, simulates 
|the processes in a human brain...is a "mere imitation" of thought, not 
|thought itself. Pejorative labels may be an important tool for philosophy 
|professors, but they don't create reality.

Neither do logical constructs. Do we really feel entitled to place our
creative powers on an equal footing with the forces that brought the Universe
into being? We may be swimming in the cosmic ocean, but we are still mighty
small fish in a mighty big pond!


|Your own position is that some physical principle in human brains produces
|"non-computable" results, and that somehow this leads to consciousness.
|Well, I agree, but the same principle works equally well for robots, and its
|not nearly as mysterious as you suggest.

The notion that we could really build *conscious* machines is way out there!


|In the course of evolution (which, significantly, is driven by random
|mutations)...

I have often wondered how it is that "random changes" -- which, according to 
the law of entropy, must lead to greater and greater disorder -- can be
credited with bringing about an orderly evolution.


|If there are other universes with different rules, other Roger
|Penroses may be sensing quite different Platonic realities.

While this statement is logically true, it has always struck me as a sort
of "back door." It would seem difficult enough to understand THIS universe,
the one we live in.


|But suppose the robot also addresses you in a pained voice, saying "Please, 
|Roger, it bothers me that you don't think of me as a real person.  What can 
|I do to convince you?  I am aware of you, and I am aware of myself..."

This is pure speculation. Who has built such a machine? It can be argued that 
even most humans are not aware of themselves -- most of the time.


|Chess is a richer arena, involving patterns and strategy more in tune
|with our animal skills. 

It is very interesting that computers can challenge grand masters in chess
tournaments, but surely this is like playing with blocks compared with the
difficult abstract questions the human mind must contend with. Or perhaps
we should conclude that the highest reaches of thought are, afterall, just
so much pouring "from the empty into the Void" and exclaim: "What is the
meaning of life? Who cares! Anyone for a game of chess?"

Regards,

Alan