Re: Yes, real mock apple pie

[Ronn Blankenship]

>At 11:08 PM -0400 07/12/2000, William T Goodall wrote:
> >Emulating consciousness would be redundant. Or maybe a category mistake.
> >Simpler to just do it directly. Like what would 'emulating arithmetic' mean?

Does a computer or calculator "do arithmetic" or does it "emulate 
arithmetic"?  I suppose it depends on what one chooses to mean by "doing 
arithmetic."  Most people would probably agree that a computer is not doing 
the same thing when it calculates that a human does when he/she/it <g> 
calculates.  On the other hand, one could define "arithmetic" as any black 
box that given certain input returns the same output as one would get by 
formally applying Peano's axioms, in which case a computer and a human are 
both "doing arithmetic."

Just some random musings, I suppose.


-- Ronn!  :)