On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 6:11 PM, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This has been a great thread! > > Actually, if you read Searle's original paper, I think that you will find > that he... is *not* meaning to argue against the > possibility of strong AI (since he makes repeated references to human as > machines) but merely against the possibility of strong AI in machines where > "the operation of the machine is defined solely in terms of computational > processes over formally defined elements" (which was the current state of > the art in AI when he was arguing against it -- unlike today where there are > a number of systems which don't require axiomatic reasoning over formally > defined elements). There's also the trick that Chinese Room is > assumed/programmed to be 100% omniscient/correct in it's required domain.
So you are arguing that a computer program can not be defined solely in terms of computational processes over formally defined elements? Computers could react to and interact with input back in the day when Searle wrote his book. A computer program is a computational process over formally defined elements even if is able to build complex and sensitive structures of knowledge about its IO data environment through its interactions with it. This is a subtle argument that cannot be dismissed with an appeal to a hidden presumption of the human dominion over understanding or by fixing it to some primitive theory about AI which was unable to learn through trial and error. Jim Bromer ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=108809214-a0d121 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
