On 2/16/08, Eric B. Ramsay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't know when Lanier wrote the following but I would be interested to > know what the AI folks here think about his critique (or direct me to a > thread where this was already discussed). Also would someone be able to > re-state his rainstorm thought experiment more clearly -- I am not sure I get > it: > > http://www.jaronlanier.com/aichapter.html
The raindrop thought experiment seems like the only one worth addressing, to me (the Turing Test argument just redefines word and the pragmatic objection is guilty to the same). The raindrop experiment is the argument that any physical process can be interpreted to implement any computation and therefore any physical process is conscious. Since this is absurd, it is concluded that the notion of consciousness only requiring computation is false. However, despite what is claimed, not every physical process can be interpreted to do any computation. To do such an interpretation, you have to do so after the fact: after all the raindrops have fallen, you can assign their positions formal roles that correspond to computation, but you can't *predict* what positions will be assigned what roles ahead of the time - after all, they are just randomly falling raindrops. You can't actually *use* the rainstorm to compute anything, like you could use a computer - you have to first do the computation yourself, then assign each state of the rainstorm a position that corresponds to the steps in your previous computation. http://consc.net/papers/rock.html is one article related to the topic - there might be better ones, but this is the first one that came to mind off-hand. -- http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/ | http://xuenay.livejournal.com/ Organizations worth your time: http://www.singinst.org/ | http://www.crnano.org/ | http://lifeboat.com/ ------------------------------------------- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
