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From: James Jolley on 29 Apr 2010 19:28 On 2010-04-30 00:24:36 +0100, peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) said: > James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: > >>>> It's an answer, how is it necesarrilly a useful one in todays age of >>> research? >>> >>> I think it's a useful answer because it obliges us to reconsider the >>> terms of the question. >>> >>> Daniele >> >> I suppose so. If you can call it reconsidering, it's more like >> restructuring it to fit a proposed ethic. > > I think it makes us think about what we mean by 'think'. And that's > always a useful thing to do. > > For what it's worth (not a lot) I don't believe that we know what we > mean by it, and I suspect that at some point in the future we will > realise that in all the ways we want machines to 'think' they are > already doing it, and we never realised it. And the main problem is that > we have an inflated idea of what our 'thinking' is. I think it's a lot > more plonking and constrained by circumstance than we believe. More > operational, if you like. > > But as I say, in machine terms we're not there yet. Good argument and fair points. This stuff always has interested me though for years.
From: Bruce Horrocks on 29 Apr 2010 19:29 On 29/04/2010 21:23, James Jolley wrote: > I'm with you on this to a degree. I wouldn't go as far as Penrose and > suggest that just because we can't truely understand the brain at the > quantum level, we can't teach a A friend, back in his student days, attended a lecture during which Penrose stated that he couldn't ever imagine a silicon-based computer truly thinking. To which his waggish response was "So I suppose you can't imagine a carbon-based computer thinking either?" -- Bruce Horrocks Surrey England (bruce at scorecrow dot com)
From: James Jolley on 29 Apr 2010 19:35 On 2010-04-30 00:29:21 +0100, Bruce Horrocks <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> said: > On 29/04/2010 21:23, James Jolley wrote: >> I'm with you on this to a degree. I wouldn't go as far as Penrose and >> suggest that just because we can't truely understand the brain at the >> quantum level, we can't teach a > > A friend, back in his student days, attended a lecture during which > Penrose stated that he couldn't ever imagine a silicon-based computer > truly thinking. To which his waggish response was "So I suppose you > can't imagine a carbon-based computer thinking either?" Brilliant, just brilliant.
From: Jim on 30 Apr 2010 01:21 Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > >I confess to disappointment. Not ONE of you tried to resurrect the "the > >cake is a lie!" meme. I mean, ok, it's been a couple of years, but even > >so. > > > >Roll on Portal 2... > > Sometime later than June.... But! Steam on the Mac any day now, > including Portal, Half-Life 2 and lots of other Valve goodness. I've very recently re-played Half Life 2 (together with Episode 1 and Episode 2) on my XBox360, and I must say it's still a very good game. Jim -- "Microsoft admitted its Vista operating system was a 'less good product' in what IT experts have described as the most ambitious understatement since the captain of the Titanic reported some slightly damp tablecloths." http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
From: D.M. Procida on 30 Apr 2010 03:43
Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > I think it makes us think about what we mean by 'think'. And that's > always a useful thing to do. > > For what it's worth (not a lot) I don't believe that we know what we > mean by it, and I suspect that at some point in the future we will > realise that in all the ways we want machines to 'think' they are > already doing it, and we never realised it. And the main problem is that > we have an inflated idea of what our 'thinking' is. I think it's a lot > more plonking and constrained by circumstance than we believe. More > operational, if you like. I assume - again, without actually knowing - that this or something like it represents Dijkstra's position: that we are a little bewitched by this idea of 'thinking', and that it is distracting, and as he says irrelevant to to the question of machine intelligence. I also think it's probably wrong. Questions like: is computing like thinking? seem to be critical rather than irrelevant. But it's certainly not 'stupid'. Daniele |