Re: 3 possible views of "consciousness" +

From: John Regehr <regehr.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 19:34:31 -0700 (MST)

> In this way of looking at the setup, the intelligence and
> consciousness of the AI reside soley in the counting clock. The
> Humongous table is simply a translation device that maps the clock's
> representation to your representation.

How about we pick a straightforward implementation of the ticking clock
(an oscillator circuit, maybe) and a straightforward implementation of
the lookup table (an exabyte version of a CDROM, for example). Then, we
observe that the smallest computer program that models the behavior of
the clock is quite short, while the smallest computer program that
models the behavior of the (presumably compressed) table contains about
the same number of bits as the table - quite a few. At this point we
might think twice about calling the clock intelligent and the table just
a translator.

John Regehr
Received on Sat Feb 03 2001 - 18:39:07 PST