RE: Implementation

From: Gilles HENRI <Gilles.Henri.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 14:54:28 +0200

>I fail to see how the format of the inputs, eg ASCII, has any bearing on the
>discussion. I have an optical system than converts data such as colours into
>electrical signals, like a keyboard converts ascii characters into
>electrical signals and a monitor convert them back.

James, it is just a definition of a HLUT. As defined by Hans, it is ONLY
programmed to handle language, through exchange of ASCII characters(am I
wrong, Hans?). It is NOT interfaced with the external world to handle other
kind of information. Furthermore the HLUT program is EXPLICIT, not
compressed (or it is no more "humongus"!) So my "experiment" is really
demonstrating that you must handle other information than ascii characters,
and that there is no way to programm "only" a correct language capability
without interfacing the system with its environment (what you are
apparently). As I said, if you are really able to handle all environmental
information and to link them correctly to a language, you ARE a thinking
machine that I can not distinguish from a human being by this way. There
are other ways by which I can know if you are a human, for example by
asking you to send me a scanned picture of your mother, or to send you a
DNA probe and ask you to analyze your DNA and send me the results,
etc...(my machine is coded in such a manner that you will have to send me
the encrypted result without possibility of cheating), or send you some
drug which has a curious effect on the mind, that I know but that I let you
discover, etc.... But of course it will only prove that you belong or not
to the human race, not that you are actually thinking. Again if you are
built in such a manner that you can handle properly your environment, I
will recognize that you can be considered as conscious. All I wanted to
demonstrate is that it can not be reached by a HLUT as Hans proposed.

Now what you have probably in mind is an extended "HLUT" (SuperHLUT!) that
tabulates not only language but all possible inputs histories: visual,
auditive, internal information like hunger and thirst...and ouputs all
motor functions, speech, keyboard typing etc...(which would require of
course much more than 10^(10^13) nodes, and is still more impossible in the
physical world than the regular HLUT) Would it be conscious ? My personal
opinion is that the ONLY highly compressed system that is able to do that
in all imaginable details is ...yourself with the current physical laws. If
you were able to build a superHLUT with this extended information, he would
of course have a wrong "idea" of itself because he is a machine and he
seems to believe to be a human. (Note that ironically, you speak like a
machine that knows that it is a machine in your last mail, a typical
reaction of a human who plays to be a machine, not that of a machine
programmed to look like a human!!) So its reactions are not determined by
its physical reality, and I postulate that this forbids real consciousness.

Of course Bruno, I still maintain an idea of external reality!

Gilles
Received on Tue Aug 03 1999 - 05:58:21 PDT