On 2/13/2012 12:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/13/2012 8:24 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Feb 12, 8:09 pm, "Stephen P. King"<stephe...@charter.net> wrote:
Hi Craig,
Great post! Check this
out!http://newempiricism.blogspot.com/2009/02/symbol-grounding-problem.html
Onward!
Stephen
Thanks Stephen,
That's a great one. It does a better job saying what I'm trying to say
on this than I did.
Craig
"The symbol grounding problem does not seem to apply to us. Unlike a
digital computer, we know what we are doing, for instance if I fill a
hole by digging soil with a spade my mind contains the directedness of
the loaded spade towards the hole as a real extension in time (see
Time and conscious experience). It is this extension in time that
allows me to know my own symbols.
Harnad (1990) shows that symbols can be grounded by association with
real objects in the world but this demonstration only means that we
can construct machines that work, not that the machines have any
internal conscious experience."
It doesn't apply to us because we exist in an environment (where there
are spades and soil). It doesn't apply to the Chinese room either,
because there is a world outside the room in which Chinese is spoken
and children are taught Chinese ostensively and by example.
This goes to my point that, in spite of ones feeling of separation,
consciousness exists relative to an environmental context. The
successful substitution of a silicon based AI module for part (or even
all) of a brain depends on its interaction with the environment.
Brent
--
Hi Brent,
Your point does not counter Craig's point at all. It actually
supports it! To actually implement digital substitution, we would have
to not only match the functionally of the module internally but also
match the interactions of that module with the environment. Silicon does
not have the same chemical properties as carbon.... In effect, digital
substitution requires that the laws of physics be alterable for the
transformations implicit in functional equivalence. Digital substitution
is not a local symmetry.
Onward!
Stephen
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