Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 178.
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        Date: 2024-10-08 01:49:54+00:00
        From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.173: a paradox (?) commented

Tim --

"I'm sorry for the length of my reply, but does this symbol processing way
of doing AI work for you as a way to justify describing the machines we
build as knowing, understanding, and reasoning machines, albeit in terms we
define and investigate?

-- Tim"

To answer your question, yes, it absolutely does work for me, and please
never apologize for the length of your replies. That was a wonderful read.
I will have to digest it. The immediately important thing to me is that you
have sensible and applicable definitions of the terms that you're using.
The problem is that we use the same terms for human processes, and, even
worse (or better?), they are applicable as you are using them to human
processes, but there still seems to be a difference between the use of the
terms for machine intelligence (etc.) and human intelligence. My first
thought is that there is an element of volition and self-consciousness when
humans engage in these processes, and emotion tied with memory even in the
most abstract forms of human cognition: e.g., the human programmer may
have, somewhere in the back of his or her head, a feeling accompanied by a
memory of the approval of his or her third grade math teacher.

Does that matter? I don't know.

But that's just the first thought that comes to mind. I will be rereading
your post.

Jim R


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