Forgot your password?
Cyhist Dec 28 1996 A
Document Actions
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 13:26:23 -0500
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: "christopher f. chiesa" <lvt-cfc@servtech.com>
Subject: Re: CYHIST Digest - 22 Dec 1996 to 24 Dec 1996
In-Reply-To: <199612250532.AAA01591@servtech.com> from "Automatic digest
processor" at Dec 25, 96 00:32:50 am
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
A couple of folks whose names and contributions are just too darned difficult to include here with the tools at hand, have been discussing whether computers can/do "think," and are or are not "intelligent."
Whomever asked for DEFINITIONS of the terms "think" and "intelligent," is on the right track, IMHO. The question of whether COMPUTERS "think" and/or are "intelligent" CANNOT be answered until we can nail down the MEANING of those two terms. If I recall correctly, these questions have been debated, discussed, theorized and philosophized upon, etc., for CENTURIES, without clear-cut resolution. Descartes made a mighty beginning when he started from the one point he "knew," and stated "Cogito, ergo sum" -- "I think, therefore I am" -- but this just raises the issue of whether or not Descartes really DID "think," or just THOUGHT he did... :-)
Personally I subscribe to the theory that "thought" is an "emergent behavior" arising from the innumerable, microscopic, complex electrochemical interactions in a sufficiently complex brain. I see no inherent reason why ANY system composed of a similarly large number of similarly complex interactions, electrochemical or otherwise, could not reach a meta-state (superposition or chronological sequence of "states") in which it would at least APPEAR to "think" and possibly to have "intelligence" of some sort. For an excellent illustration of the idea, see Chapter 25, entitled "Who Shoves Whom Around Inside the Careenium? or, What is the Meaning of the Word 'I'?" -- of the book, "Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern," by Douglas R. Hofstadter (ISBN 0-553-34279-7). Heck, check out the whole darned book for that matter; not all of it concerns itself with the topic at hand today, but there are a lot of other byways-and-backroads there that will get you thinking (there's that word again) in unusual ways and directions...
Chris Chiesa
lvt-cfc@servtech.com
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: "christopher f. chiesa" <lvt-cfc@servtech.com>
Subject: Re: CYHIST Digest - 22 Dec 1996 to 24 Dec 1996
In-Reply-To: <199612250532.AAA01591@servtech.com> from "Automatic digest
processor" at Dec 25, 96 00:32:50 am
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
A couple of folks whose names and contributions are just too darned difficult to include here with the tools at hand, have been discussing whether computers can/do "think," and are or are not "intelligent."
Whomever asked for DEFINITIONS of the terms "think" and "intelligent," is on the right track, IMHO. The question of whether COMPUTERS "think" and/or are "intelligent" CANNOT be answered until we can nail down the MEANING of those two terms. If I recall correctly, these questions have been debated, discussed, theorized and philosophized upon, etc., for CENTURIES, without clear-cut resolution. Descartes made a mighty beginning when he started from the one point he "knew," and stated "Cogito, ergo sum" -- "I think, therefore I am" -- but this just raises the issue of whether or not Descartes really DID "think," or just THOUGHT he did... :-)
Personally I subscribe to the theory that "thought" is an "emergent behavior" arising from the innumerable, microscopic, complex electrochemical interactions in a sufficiently complex brain. I see no inherent reason why ANY system composed of a similarly large number of similarly complex interactions, electrochemical or otherwise, could not reach a meta-state (superposition or chronological sequence of "states") in which it would at least APPEAR to "think" and possibly to have "intelligence" of some sort. For an excellent illustration of the idea, see Chapter 25, entitled "Who Shoves Whom Around Inside the Careenium? or, What is the Meaning of the Word 'I'?" -- of the book, "Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern," by Douglas R. Hofstadter (ISBN 0-553-34279-7). Heck, check out the whole darned book for that matter; not all of it concerns itself with the topic at hand today, but there are a lot of other byways-and-backroads there that will get you thinking (there's that word again) in unusual ways and directions...
Chris Chiesa
lvt-cfc@servtech.com
______________________________________________________________________
