John,
The problem is that your phrases below have been used by people I
completely disagree with (John Searle) and also by people I completely
agree with (Doug Hofstadter) .... in different contexts, they mean
totally different things.
I am not quite sure how it bears on the quote of mine below, but for the
record I don't have anything much against the physical symbol system
hypothesis per se (even though I also agree with Stevan Harnad), but I
do have a problem with people who think that symbols are passive,
structureless objects manipulated by something external. (And my
objection is not so much that it is nakedly wrong, as that it
diabolically inconsistent with a lot of stuff, and untested).
From what you write, I think it was the latter issue that you were
referring to.
Richard Loosemore.
John Scanlon wrote:
I get the impression that a lot of people interested in AI still
believe that the mental manipulation of symbols is equivalent to
thought. As many other people understand now, symbol-manipulation is
not thought. Instead, symbols can be manipulated by thought to solve
various problems that can be solved that way. Intelligence is primary
to the ability to use language -- why we recognize in animals a certain
level of intelligence and sentience. The ability to use symbols and
language at the human level depends on more sophisticated, specialized
functions in the brain than are found in other earthly species, but the
symbol-manipulation is still not thought -- it is done by thought.
My question is: am I wrong that there are still people out there
that buy the symbol-system hypothesis? including the idea that a system
based on the mechanical manipulation of statements in logic, without a
foundation of primary intelligence to support it, can produce thought?
This comment from Richard Loosemore made me think about this question:
(I can't tell from this if he supports the symbol-system hypothesis or not.)
> Whether committed to human-inspired AI, or to anti-human ;-)
> Normative Rational AI, it was always some long-ago
> introspection that was the original source of the ideas that
> are now being formalized and implemented. Even logical,
> rational thought was noticed by the ancient Greek
> philosophers who looked inside themselves and wondered how it
> was that their thoughts could lead to conclusions about the world.
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