Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!unido!sinix!es
From: es@sinix.UUCP (Dr. Sanio)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Can machines think....
Message-ID: <1029@athen.sinix.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 90 15:31:56 GMT
References: <2313@ritcsh.cs.rit.edu> <1990Feb19.165835.9673@pcsbst.pcs.com> <3964@cbnewsj.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: es@athen.UUCP (Dr. Sanio)
Organization: Siemens AG, DI ST SP4, Munich
Lines: 41

In article <3964@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> jwi@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ) writes:
>
>The answers that we provide to the questions:
>
>	Can submarines swim?
>and
>	Can airplanes fly?
>	
>may tell us a lot about the subject of whether machines can think.
>
>In paritcular, many of us would concede that airplanes fly, and some of 
>us that submarines swim for all practical purposes. By extension then,
>machines that perform a practical function that normally requires
>thinking can be said to think. Let us keep in mind that our answers to
>all three of these questions should be reasonally analogous.

I disagree simply by the fact that "swimming" (diving) or "flying" are
well-defined physical actions resp. properties of certain kinds of matter
or organisms. Though you can construct a notion under which ships/subs
don't swim and planes/balloons etc don't fly, that notion would be at least
a bit artificial and irrealistic.

On the other hand, when we say "thinking", we describe a process which is not
at all sufficiently analyzed or described.
We know that we can use some more or less complex/trivial tools to obtain 
certain  r e s u l t s  of thinking (as measuring/comparing/computing),
further on that we can store certain  r e s u l t s  of thought (language)
in books, computers or somwhere else. We can  even rearrange them, sure.

But what I'm completely missing (and it doesn't astonish me, at all) any
definition or description what thinking is.
In fact, we haven't but an intuitive notion about what thinking (as done by
humans) is, but not more. 

How the hell to build or simulate something you even don't know what id does?

regards, es

>Jim Winer -- jwi@lzfme.att.com
>-----------------------------------------------
>Opinions not represent employer.