🚀 go-pugleaf

frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

> In article <3076@news.cerf.net> snodgras@cyber.net (John E. Snodgrass) writes
> >      Your suggestion that computer programs model themselves, in this or
> >any other way, however, strikes me as farfetched. To create a coherent
> >model of any type, I would suggest it is necessary to have a purpose which
> >that model serves. This provides a means for prioritizing and organizing
> >the data in the model. Thus without even criticizing the obvious point
> >that all computer programs have a 'bottom level' which is simply a set
> >of conditionals relating input to output, no computer program could have
> >a purpose with respect to _itself_, which would (by my definition) exclude
> >any possibility of consciousness.
> 
> I see no reason to believe that "purpose" is such a fundamental concept.  I
> see it as an emergent concept in complex systems.


      Do you see it as an emergent phenomena in yourself? Do you 
observe that you won a tennis match, and then say: "That must have
been my purpose"? Do you get a college degree, then look back and
say "Gee, now I understand why I took all those classes"?

      The reason we have the word "purpose" is because we know very
well that our minds are nested levels of plans, goals, desires, fears,
aspirations etc. We analyse everything we experience in terms of how
it relates to our purpose. Our ultimate purposes may be general and
vague, such as survival, growth, gaining of knowledge, status, wealth
love, valuable baseball cards etc., but these notions, whatever they
are, precede our actions -- at least our rational and intelligent
actions. Moreover, they are of paramount interest to us in understanding
our fellow beings -- human or otherwise. We observe behavior for one
reason only: to determine purpose: after all, once we understand
someone's purpose, prediction and control follow. And is that not the
purpose of science: prediction and control?


      Even though living systems fall mostly outside the purview of
exact sciences, these are the systems we would most dearly like to
understand well. A systems approach which assumes purposeful behavior
will yeild a better analysis, more cogent and useful, when dealing 
with living systems, IMO. It is also my opinion that such an approach
would be more useful in the areas to which the exact sciences seem to
address themselves as well, the opposite of this approach, i.e. the
framework analysis which you defend, being the biggest block to
further progress -- having accomplished to date nothing more than
leading us into the quagmire of subjectivism.

      John E. Snodgrass [snodgras@cyber.net]

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