🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <8093@cs.yale.edu>, by blenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (Tom Blenko):
> In article <Dec.10.11.48.06.1989.2717@elbereth.rutgers.edu> harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes:
> |.... As long as you allow yourself to interpret
> |ungrounded symbols you'll keep coming up with "virtual reality."
> |The only trouble is, what we're after is real reality ....

The reference to real reality raised a ghost, and part of Tom Blenko's
reply illuminated it:

> ..... even if all
> information from the environment were in principal available to a
> putative intelligent entity (it makes no difference whether it is
> artificial or not), there are necessarily limitations on what
> information the entity could extract......
> ...... All sorts of entities (corporations, the
> roach species, you and I, etc.) make imperfect use of incomplete
> information in order to survive and reproduce......

In sophomore philosophy, I heard of a problem that Rene Decartes had.
He had sensory information seemingly coming into his mind, but he
wasn't sure it was really sensory in origin.  He was sure only that he
existed himself: "Cogito, ergo sum," I think, therefore I am.  In other
words, he knew of the existence of the symbols, but he didn't know
whether or not they were grounded.  He finally copped out, through some
argument based on the concept of God, and convinced himself that God
had to exist, and hence, somehow, that everything else did too.

But is there any difference between Descartes's symbol grounding
problem (which we all have to solve for ourselves, as individuals), and
the problem of symbol grounding in an automaton?

I think there is no logical way out, just as there was none for
Descartes.  And for practical purposes we don't need one, because we
have got on for billions of years without one.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201) 949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	att!hounx!marty1 or marty1@hounx.ATT.COM

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Notice: Communication will cease 12/30/89 due to retirement.