Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!venera!vaxa.isi.edu!smoliar
From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulating thinking is NOT like simulating flying
Summary: In defense of "consciousness."
Message-ID: <11994@venera.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 90 15:55:19 GMT
Sender: news@venera.UUCP
Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute
Lines: 72

In article <48c9f211.1a4d7@cicada.engin.umich.edu> zarnuk@caen.UUCP (Paul
Steven Mccarthy) writes:
>
> I think the whole debate about "conciousness" is a terrible red-herring.
> What does it really matter if a system displays "conciousness" or not,
> as long as it is capable of performing as required?
>
There is a useful ring of pragmatics here, but I would like to respond with the
possibility that "consciousness" may be less of a red herring than Paul had in
mind.  The problem is that, just as some folks can play fast and loose with a
word like "consciousness" until they have lost all sight of why they invoked it
in the first place, others can do with same with the phrase "performing as
required."  Let me try to put in a few kind words in favor of a JUDICIOUS
use of the term consciousness.  (I should note that these thoughts have emerged
as a result of my current reading of Gerald Edelman's new book, THE REMEMBERED
PRESENT:  A BIOLOGICAL THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.)

Those who talk about the technological limitations of expert systems often
gravitate to major obstacles which still exist in the domain of learning.
I would say that there is little argument that expert systems do not learn
the way people do.  We are still a far cry from an expert system which can
(figuratively) sit down with a physics textbook, read a chapter, and start
working on the problems at the end of the chapter.  Part of the problem stems
from the fact that that chapter consists not only of definitions and equations
but also of sample problems and their solutions.  I do not know about other
readers;  but, I, for one, found these essential to my education.  Working
on a new problem could always benefit from drawing upon a MODEL of some other
problem whose solution was understood.

The point I am getting at here is that my education was not a matter of
building up a "rule base" of what to do in given problem situations . . . at
least not at the level of rules for setting up and solving equations.  If there
were any rules at all, they were at a higher level and concerned drawing upon
my memories of other problem solving experiences (including passive ones
resulting from reading the textbook) and then adapting those memories to
suit my present needs.  I would argue that what I am talking about here
is an activity which is very tightly coupled to what we mean when we talk
about consciousness, since what it involves is an explicit inspection of
what may best be described as my "mental state" and subsequent manipulation
of what I find there.

Does it matter that such an activity be labeled as "consciousness?"  This
question can be argued either way.  My personal feeling is that if we are
having trouble modeling the kind of introspective problem solving based on
experience which I just cited (and now that there seems to be a major thrust
in the direction of case-based reasoning, we ARE beginning to encounter some
limitations), then we may benefit from recognizing that we are dealing with
a fundamental issue of consciousness.  Then, we can decide, from a purely
pragmatic point of view, whether any insights regarding consciousness which
have emerged from outside our own community (be they from psychology, biology,
or philosophy) might be of use to us.
>
> These (fuzzy) terms represent concepts which simply do not 
> exist in reality.  If these terms do not reflect some aspect of
> reality, then there can never be a correct definition for them.
>
Regardless of whether or not the concepts "exist in reality," the terms may
still carry some amount of informative baggage.  All I'm arguing is that we
should be able to use whatever means are at our disposal to mine information
which may benefit us.

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