On Feb 1, 2008 10:09 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > I'm not suggesting that there is any reason to believe there is no > real world out there. What I am saying is that *if* the world you > perceive were due to computer-generated data at an arbitrarily high > level of resolution fed into your brain, it would respond in the same > way as if it were in an intact body interacting with a real > environment and you would have no way of knowing what was going on. > Thus your claim that it is *impossible* for an intelligence to > function in a virtual environment is false. (The weaker claim that it > might be easier for an intelligence to develop and function in a real > environment using a robot body, for example because this is > computationally cheaper than building a virtual environment of > comparable richness, may yet have merit.) > > The other point I was trying to make is that even if the world is > real, the picture of the world your brain creates from sensory data is > an abstraction that exists only in the computational space that is > your mind. The map is not the territory. >
To add further evidence, I've just read a new article about haptics: <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080125233408.htm> Haptics: New Software Allows User To Reach Out And Touch, Virtually ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2008) — European researchers have pioneered a breakthrough interface that allows people to touch, stretch and pull virtual fabrics that feel like the real thing. The system combines a specially designed glove, a sophisticated computer model and visual representation to reproduce the sensation of cloth with an impressive degree of realism. --------------- Now, drop the glove and screen and just feed the inputs direct to an AI and you provide the AI with a sense of touching the virtual universe. Who needs a real body? BillK ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=92620471-46284f
