But my point was that while the growth may be a curve, it still only amounts to an increase in quantity. Better and more complex software can be run, faster.
Well, duh. That's the definition of "computing power". And it increases exponentially, not linearly as you stated.
But that's all. No real qualitative difference, in the form of one or more real "breakthroughs" in AI, has occurred for decades.
Really? So Deep Blue didn't beat Gasparov in chess, Stanford robot didn't beat the DARPA Grand Challenge and this very program didn't beat Jeopardy? None of that counts as "breakthrough" to you? And that's not even counting all the automation that has gone into place in the last few decades.
What, exactly speaking, would you count as "breakthrough"?
The total storage capacity thing was tricky - they meant if you wrote on every DNA molecule in every cell in the Human body..
Except, of course, human body is not able to store information that way. In fact, having cells differ by their DNA usually causes all kinds of complications, such as rejection by immune system.
Now I have even less confidence on the apparently completely nonsensical article.
But even if you did believe that they worked in fundamentally the same way, THIS article from just the other day claims that the best estimate so far is that all the computing power in the world today, including Watson, Deep Blue, all the Crays, desktops, and all the way down to cell phones, added together... is equivalent to approximately the computing and storage power of a single human brain.
The fine article claims that "Our total storage capacity is the same as an adult human's DNA". Yet human DNA has been sequenced and is available for download (link to chromosome 1, increase the number (3502, 3503 etc) to get the rest), totalling a few gigabytes as uncompressed text files. So I find the articles other claims somewhat dubious.
Why? I don't see anything more special or "AI" in this than in Deep Blue's wins at chess so long ago.
Then perhaps you should look harder. Both are examples of problem-solving, which is pretty much the definition of intelligence.
But then again, AI Winter was over a long time ago, if it ever even really existed in the first place. All of our society runs on AI, from our logistics systems to our power grid to our manufacturing plants to the very Internet itself. Automation is what drives increases in production nowadays, and arguably have since the start of Industrial Revolution.
There's something in human psychology that tries to make intelligence seem mystical (see Chinese Room nonsense for a good example). The unfortunate result is that if you understand how something works, it becomes de-mystified, and gets disqualified as an example of "true" intelligence - even if the task performed is actually beyond human capabilities, such as simulating a nuclear explosion, beating Gasparov in chess, or finding a relevant Web page from a sea of crud.
Yes, the natural language processing is impressive. But it takes a really huge computer, and it's really nothing more than a bunch of clever software along with a database of trivia.
Of course it takes a huge computer: the task is very, very, very demanding. The reason why human births are so painful and risky is that human heads are so big; and the reason they are so big is that they need to house human brains. There's an evolutionary pressure towards growing them larger still, which balances against the chances of dying at childbirth, and the fact that the balance has stabilized at the point of a significant risk shows that humans could actually use more processing power.
Of course, as a side note, this also means that with C-sections being pretty much routine medicine nowadays, human heads should evolve larger. Is there any evidence of this happening?
Watson showed very clearly how deeply it did not "understand" anything about what it was doing, via the nature of the blunders that it did make.
True. Deep Blue, on the other hand, did understand chess - that is, it had a mental model of the game, which it could manipulate to see the potential consequences of its choices before making them.
Natural language processing is very important, because it allows computers to build such models by themselves. Natural language allows the transference of a model of any complexity between two entities, and the negotiation of special-purpose languages - such as matemathics - for more efficient transfer of certain kinds of models. Since it allows the transfer of such models, it can also represent them within a hardware system, even if said hardware system lacks a "native" functionality to perform such manipulation; for example, human brain doesn't have neural pathways for integration, but can perform it nonetheless through language processing.
So no, Watson is not a general purpose AI, but it's an important step that way.
Uh, I was using 64-bit computers years before AMD started making Athlon-64s.
And I'm using one as a desktop right now. Sure, they existed before, but AMD began the march to the desktop.
And Intel was probably right that we should have thrown away the x86 architecture and built a new 64-bit line without the baggage that AMD dragged with it.
And replaced that baggage with more baggage as soon as the next-gen chip hit the market. There's not much point in that.
Now, if I was designing a processor today, I'd probably abstract away even more internals, such as registers (why not just let the processor's cache manager map memory addresses to internal registers, rather than have two namespaces?) since those vary from model to model; but the x86 virtual machine that's a modern processor does a good enough job that it's not worth it to change it.
The big loser in this would be all of us. Removing AMD as a competitor for both Intel and NVidia would slow the development of top-end CPUs and GPUs both, and make them more expensive. It's not like Dell is going to invest in further R&D, seeing how they make their profits by peddling cheap shit - or, if we're kind, mid-range market.
Without AMD, we wouldn't even have 64-bit computers now. Intel's IA-64 wasn't backwards compatible - well, early models could run x86 code, but the support was dropped when it turned out that a software emulator was faster - and also required very high-end compilers for efficient code, thus becoming a market failure. With AMD eliminated and its carcass repurposed to produce cheap processors for Dell, who's going to keep Intel from getting lazy? And with ATI similarly eliminated as a serious competitor for NVidia, what's going to keep progress going?
I'm not that young anymore, I need a superhuman computer to upload my mind to within the next hundred years !-) Preferably one that could rewrite Slashdot HTML on the fly to nullify the latest changes. Sure, Greasemonkey can do that, but it requires manually updating the script whenever the latest "update" hits the site.
Now you are doing it again: Looking at a small, remote group and asserting that their actions are general for more than 1 billion people. With no evidence what so ever.
Egypt is not remote by any stretch of imagination. And the article linked to is evidence. Not proof, of course, but evidence.
For the people who want American free speech laws there's still America, where anything short of real child pornography is legal.
Unless it's "obscene" (in the judge's arbitrary opinion), copyrighted, trademarked or patented. Or unless someone claims it is by filing a false DMCA notification and you don't have $10,000+ in spare cash to contest it. Or unless someone with more money than you says it is. Or unless your rulers decide it is.
A3 (Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics). Not only is this what Searle set out to prove in the first place,
You start off okay. This is what the Chinese Room illustration was intended to explain. The illustration was not intended to "prove" this (it's an axiom) only to make the point clear. (I agree that it doesn't do the best job, like a slashdot car analogy.)
Prove, illustrate, show, demonstrate, whatever. It's Searle's entire argument. It's what "Chinese Room" was supposed to show. It's the conclusion he set out to reach.
This is the error in your reasoning. A3 has absolutely nothing to do with consciousness or minds.
Yes, it does, according to Searle himself. His whole argument is that minds have semantics (A2), and syntax is insufficient for semantics (A3), and programs are syntax (A1), thus programs are insufficient for minds. I consider A3 a completely arbitrary claim with no evidence for it whatsoever, however it has everything to do with consciousness or minds. It's the cornerstone of Searle's argument.
Again, A3 has NOTHING to do with minds, "mental content", or consciousness. I'm going to guess that you're problem here stems from a poor or improper understanding of semantics.
(A3) "Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics."
(A2) "Minds have mental contents (semantics)."
Whether or not "semantics" is the correct word for "mental content" Searle uses them as synonyms (A2). Searle also argues that semantics/mental content is necessary for minds (A2). Thus A3 has everything to do with minds and mental contents - specifically, it's arguing that a program is insufficient to generate them.
All you need to accept A4 is that you have a brain and that your brain is the cause of your mind.
As I noted, this is unprovable under Searle's assumptions, since behaviour is not evidence for mind. It could be the anti-tachyon field generated by my hair that's causing my mind, and my brain is simply "simulating thinking" by running a program, and the disturbances in the field are "actual" thinking.
Absurd, yes, but that's what you get when you try to separate actual understanding and simulating understanding, as Chinese Room does.
Searle makes no magical claims.
Yes, he does. His argument is just the good old "I and my kin have souls, but these other beings don't, even if they act like us" all over again. He has absolutely no evidence whatsoever for his assumptions (and can't get it, since they specifically forbid observations from counting as evidence), nor does any philosophical reason back his assertions. His "logic" is just one big argument from incredulity.
"causal power" only refers to the ability of your brain to cause your mind -- whatever could cause minds in other systems must have an equivalent capability. He posits nothing mystical, he only offers a term so that we can talk about this capability and its nature.
Either mind is distinguishable from a "mere program" through behavior or not. In the former case, the Chinese Room argument falls flat on its face, since people outside the room could distinguish between the Room and a genuine Chinese speaker. And in the latter, "mind" is entirely superfluous to the function of the brain. Why would evolution produce neurons with capability of producing a mind, if that capability results in no behavioral difference and thus no selective advantage? And if there's no selective advantage, why would I assume that this capability is widespread in humanity, rather than assuming that I'm a mutant and the rest of you are philosophical zombies?
In this case, to show that by whatever means your brain causes your mind, it's not a prog
If there's anything people need to be taught, it's that you do not need to be offended by mere words, and indeed, it is far more efficient not to be.
Humans have been social animals for so long now that it's almost as difficult to ignore mean words from someone you're supposed to have a somewhat friendly relationship with - especially an authority figure - than pain nerves firing. It's especially unreasonable to expect the young to have mastered this skill.
More generally, it might not be such a good idea to train people to ignore what other people think. Society is already falling apart as psychopaths and hard-line individualists squeeze it dry. The last thing we need is our young to learn to ignore negative feedback.
Its when the money comes back to buy US products and services that you have to give up resources, but thats the same as buying or extracting domestically, and stimulates the economy the same way.
No, because the products and services end up leaving the country rather than staying in and increasing the wealth of Americans. Yes, it stimulates the economy and provides people with jobs; but it would be even better if the wealth generated by these jobs stayed in the country.
I see that you tried, but inexplicably managed to fail. All you need to say is A1, A2, A3, or A4 -- is that so hard?
A3 (Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics). Not only is this what Searle set out to prove in the first place, and not only is it quite unprovable (how would you go about proving something is not conscious, if behaviour isn't a trustworthy clue?), but it also doesn't imply that the Chinese Room doesn't have what it takes.
A4: Brains cause minds.
My brain causes a mind. I have no way of knowing if yours does. It certainly doesn't seem any more intuitive that a kilogram or so of gray wet noodles would cause mind than a computer might.
Is this the one you object to? Well, okay. Does that mean you agree with A1, A2, A3 and C1?
A1 isn't an axiom, it's just defining a term. I'd say it's a correct definition.
A2 is unclear: what is meant by "mental content"? A program that doesn't assign meaning to its symbols/bit patterns - such as machine instructions - isn't going to do anything. And a program that does can perform all the operations on them that I could, at least in the Chinese Room universe (since otherwise the output would differ). In other words: how does "mental content" differ from "data structure"?
A3 depends on the concept of "mental content" defined in A2, and is thus actually a conclusion, but since A2 failed to show any difference between "mental content" and "data structure", A3 remains unproved.
C1 is just restating A3 in different terms and runs into the same problem.
A4 is unprovable. I know that I have a mind, but I can't possibly know that you do, except from your behaviour - which, according to Searle, is insufficient to judge the matter. I also can't prove it's my brain giving me conscious experience: maybe the magic is really in my hair, and the next time I get a haircut I'll lose it, with no one being the wiser since my brain continues running its program (which is sufficient to cause conscious behaviour but not consciousness), and besides other people are actually philosophical zombies unable to really know anything.
C2 is fair enough: two devices doing the same thing could be considered "equivalent" in some sense.
C3 doesn't follow from the premises. Even if we assume that it takes special magical powers to cause a mind (as Searle suggests), there's no way of knowing that these are the only way of causing a mind (even if there were someone besides you capable of knowing anything. Braaaainnnssss...).
C4 is just C1/A3 all over again.
If we can agree to that point, we can discuss A4 and C2, C3, and C4.
Sure. It's always fun watching what kind of mental gymnastics someone will end up performing in defence of a ludicrous argument. That's why I always read the Intelligent Design stories when they pop up:).
His conclusions follow for his premises. Which one of Searle's axioms do you object to?
The one that is also the conclusion: that it takes special "causative powers" to cause a consciousness, or, in other words, that you can act conscious without being that. Not only is that circular logic, but its also completely illogical: why would evolution produce these "causal powers", if exactly identical behaviour can be created without them (as it must, for Chinese Room to work)?
Searle provides absolutely no reason whatsoever to presume that something that acts intelligently isn't inteligent, yet he wants me to assume it at face value.
Many have tried, yet none have been successful in toppling Searle.
All of his conclusions logically follow from his premises -- you've no alternative but to object to one of his four axioms. Which one is it?
Of course all his conclusions follow from his premises: he's assuming the very thing he's trying to prove!
Searle is assuming that the Chinese Room simply can't understand Chinese, since there's no component to be pointed to which would; he's then drawing the conclusion that the Chinese Room doesn't understand Chinese. This conclusion only follows if one accepts Searles intuitions as valid axiom; however, that axiom is assuming the very thing it's trying to prove. Furthermore, there's many examples in nature of things being more than just the sum of their parts; the very computer you're reading this message in or your own body are very good examples.
I'm sorry, but Searle simply is wrong. And he's wrong in so many and so obvious ways that he's either an idiot or in denial. I'm trying to be generous by assuming him to be a genuine idiot rather than a purposeful liar, but I could of course be wrong at that.
I tend to agree with Searle, that whatever the mind is, it is non-computational, thus not reducible to mere computations, therefore, in a nutshell, a program can never be sentient.
Even if your assumptions about the human mind were correct - which they probably aren't - your conclusion wouldn't follow.
Artificial, computer mind/consciousness is not really possible, but that doesn't stop laymen from believing it is, nor does it matter (nor should it) to true AI researchers and computer and cognitive scientists, nor writers and readers of science fiction.
The "Chinese Room" argument to which you linked doesn't prove that computer mind is impossible. It could only prove such a thing if a system could not have qualities its components don't have, yet that's untrue for almost any system. Also, the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up your brain don't have sentience, at least any more so than those that make up a computer system.
In short, Searle is an idiot, his "Chinese Room" argument is nonsensical, and your claim is false.
Is your solution better somehow than that suggested in the article?
Yes, for the reason the article itself notes: my solution bases the kilogram on a physical quantity that can be measured various ways, some more accurate than others, while averaging two experiments that should but do not agree means you can't make more accurate measurements since that would require changing the experiment yet you can't do that since you don't know what you're actually measuring, since your model is apparently wrong since the results disagree with it.
You do know that two systems are in mechanical equilibrium when their pressures are the same, right? How are you going to experimentally determine the exact same pressures are being exerted in your closed system by the three states of water? Are you going to measure the pressure? Measure the distance some membrane is displaced? Are you going to use the torr or the millimeter of mercury (which are measures of pressure as well) instead of the pascal?
I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, here. The system is at the triple point when all three phases are present, and their proportions stay the same. At this point, you can simply measure the pressure of the gaseous phase.
If you use mmHg, at what temperature and gravity do you use it? How do you measure the temperature without pressure measurements and how do you measure the gravity without a mass reference?
Whatever temperature and gravity happen to be present at your lab?
So, get me some water and put it in the same pressure, temperature, at a steady temperature within the closed system with no net exchange of temperature between the different states across the system as a whole, in which no net chemical changes are happening. Do this without being able to measure the pressure accurately because you're using the pressure to calibrate your pressure.
Take some pure water in liquid, gaseous and solid phases and put them into a thermally insulated container with a pressure gauge at its side. If any of these phases runs out, add it. The system will eventually stabilize into the triple point, assuming the amount water and thermal energy were near enough. At that point, simply read the pressure off the gauge.
Also, do it without being sure you can measure the temperature accurately enough because you're probably using pressure and volume to measure the temperature.
Did you perhaps mean "calculate"?
BTW, make sure you're using chemically pure water made from the right specific mix of protium, deuterium, tritium and the right mix of oxygen 16 and oxygen 18 such as Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Waterso that your triple point isn't off by several hundred microKelvins in temperature. Be sure you're figuring out they're the right mixture without a reference mass with which to calibrate your equipment to find the ratio of differences in their atomic masses.
You can use a centrifuge to separate isotopes by weight, you know, and tell them apart by quantities produced. And at least time and quantity already depend on being able to produce chemically pure substances.
BTW, to make sure you're really not doing anything circular, make sure you use something to measure your temperature which isn't defined from the triple point of water, such as the Celsius and Kelvin scales, to set up your triple point.
Why would you need to measure the temperature?
Do you have some way to directly perceive the triple point as it is achieved? You can get really close. Is it close enough? Close enough that you can really base the kilogram on it?
Well, if you can't, you need to redefine Kelvins as well.
How do you tell if you've actually reached equilibrium inside the test cell or if it just appears that way?
Leave it alone for a week?
The usual way to get to the triple point of water experimentally is to use a fixed-volume perfectly sealed cell of glass or quartz and to then vary the temperature. How would you then measure the pressure accurately? Especially without knowing the precise mass the water is displacing in your equipment?
User laser interferometry to measure the stress on the cell wall?
Of course there are sources of inaccuracies, that is inevitable. H
No, some fuels work by converting energy from one form to another.
All of them do, unless you have a perpetual motion engine. The mass of a system - such as fuel - is equivalent to its total energy content times lightspeed squared, so when a fuel gives energy, it must lose mass.
Chemical bonds don't have any mass, yet they release energy when broken.
Chemical bonds don't release energy when broken, they require energy to break and release it when they form. And two atoms so bound weight less than the same atoms unbound.
Specific relativity, first published in 1905, or a bit over a century ago.
My recollection of thermo (a couple decades ago, to be sure) was pretty clear on non-relativistic energy change.
There is no such thing as non-relativistic energy change. It's all relativistic.
Enthalpy decreases, entropy increases, but mass stays constant.
It doesn't. However, the change in mass is directly related to energy release, which for chemical fuels is so small that it usually makes sense to ignore it.
Now, how would you like to define your kilogram so you can define your newton so you can define your pascal so you can define your triple point of water?
Why would you need to? You can find the triple point of water experimentally, measure the pressure, and then calibrate your pressure scale using that as a reference pressure (which is 611.73 Pascals). In fact, you could reverse-engineer Newton - and thus kilogram - from said pressure directly.
It's obviously all those nukular reactors turning mass into energy. The only responsible action would be to go to a mass-neutral system like fossil fuels for energy.
Fossil fuels are not mass-neutral. All fuels work by converting mass to energy. Nuclear reactions simply convert a far greater proportion of the mass of the fuel than chemical ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, duh. That's the definition of "computing power". And it increases exponentially, not linearly as you stated.
Really? So Deep Blue didn't beat Gasparov in chess, Stanford robot didn't beat the DARPA Grand Challenge and this very program didn't beat Jeopardy? None of that counts as "breakthrough" to you? And that's not even counting all the automation that has gone into place in the last few decades.
What, exactly speaking, would you count as "breakthrough"?
Except, of course, human body is not able to store information that way. In fact, having cells differ by their DNA usually causes all kinds of complications, such as rejection by immune system.
Now I have even less confidence on the apparently completely nonsensical article.
The fine article claims that "Our total storage capacity is the same as an adult human's DNA". Yet human DNA has been sequenced and is available for download (link to chromosome 1, increase the number (3502, 3503 etc) to get the rest), totalling a few gigabytes as uncompressed text files. So I find the articles other claims somewhat dubious.
Actually, computing power grows exponentially.
Then perhaps you should look harder. Both are examples of problem-solving, which is pretty much the definition of intelligence.
But then again, AI Winter was over a long time ago, if it ever even really existed in the first place. All of our society runs on AI, from our logistics systems to our power grid to our manufacturing plants to the very Internet itself. Automation is what drives increases in production nowadays, and arguably have since the start of Industrial Revolution.
There's something in human psychology that tries to make intelligence seem mystical (see Chinese Room nonsense for a good example). The unfortunate result is that if you understand how something works, it becomes de-mystified, and gets disqualified as an example of "true" intelligence - even if the task performed is actually beyond human capabilities, such as simulating a nuclear explosion, beating Gasparov in chess, or finding a relevant Web page from a sea of crud.
Of course it takes a huge computer: the task is very, very, very demanding. The reason why human births are so painful and risky is that human heads are so big; and the reason they are so big is that they need to house human brains. There's an evolutionary pressure towards growing them larger still, which balances against the chances of dying at childbirth, and the fact that the balance has stabilized at the point of a significant risk shows that humans could actually use more processing power.
Of course, as a side note, this also means that with C-sections being pretty much routine medicine nowadays, human heads should evolve larger. Is there any evidence of this happening?
True. Deep Blue, on the other hand, did understand chess - that is, it had a mental model of the game, which it could manipulate to see the potential consequences of its choices before making them.
Natural language processing is very important, because it allows computers to build such models by themselves. Natural language allows the transference of a model of any complexity between two entities, and the negotiation of special-purpose languages - such as matemathics - for more efficient transfer of certain kinds of models. Since it allows the transfer of such models, it can also represent them within a hardware system, even if said hardware system lacks a "native" functionality to perform such manipulation; for example, human brain doesn't have neural pathways for integration, but can perform it nonetheless through language processing.
So no, Watson is not a general purpose AI, but it's an important step that way.
Technically speaking, it's a gravitationally contained nuclear explosion, and the containment has just suffered a partial failure.
And I'm using one as a desktop right now. Sure, they existed before, but AMD began the march to the desktop.
And replaced that baggage with more baggage as soon as the next-gen chip hit the market. There's not much point in that.
Now, if I was designing a processor today, I'd probably abstract away even more internals, such as registers (why not just let the processor's cache manager map memory addresses to internal registers, rather than have two namespaces?) since those vary from model to model; but the x86 virtual machine that's a modern processor does a good enough job that it's not worth it to change it.
The big loser in this would be all of us. Removing AMD as a competitor for both Intel and NVidia would slow the development of top-end CPUs and GPUs both, and make them more expensive. It's not like Dell is going to invest in further R&D, seeing how they make their profits by peddling cheap shit - or, if we're kind, mid-range market.
Without AMD, we wouldn't even have 64-bit computers now. Intel's IA-64 wasn't backwards compatible - well, early models could run x86 code, but the support was dropped when it turned out that a software emulator was faster - and also required very high-end compilers for efficient code, thus becoming a market failure. With AMD eliminated and its carcass repurposed to produce cheap processors for Dell, who's going to keep Intel from getting lazy? And with ATI similarly eliminated as a serious competitor for NVidia, what's going to keep progress going?
I'm not that young anymore, I need a superhuman computer to upload my mind to within the next hundred years !-) Preferably one that could rewrite Slashdot HTML on the fly to nullify the latest changes. Sure, Greasemonkey can do that, but it requires manually updating the script whenever the latest "update" hits the site.
Egypt is not remote by any stretch of imagination. And the article linked to is evidence. Not proof, of course, but evidence.
Unless it's "obscene" (in the judge's arbitrary opinion), copyrighted, trademarked or patented. Or unless someone claims it is by filing a false DMCA notification and you don't have $10,000+ in spare cash to contest it. Or unless someone with more money than you says it is. Or unless your rulers decide it is.
But besides that, yes, it's illegal^Hlegal.
Prove, illustrate, show, demonstrate, whatever. It's Searle's entire argument. It's what "Chinese Room" was supposed to show. It's the conclusion he set out to reach.
Yes, it does, according to Searle himself. His whole argument is that minds have semantics (A2), and syntax is insufficient for semantics (A3), and programs are syntax (A1), thus programs are insufficient for minds. I consider A3 a completely arbitrary claim with no evidence for it whatsoever, however it has everything to do with consciousness or minds. It's the cornerstone of Searle's argument.
(A3) "Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics."
(A2) "Minds have mental contents (semantics)."
Whether or not "semantics" is the correct word for "mental content" Searle uses them as synonyms (A2). Searle also argues that semantics/mental content is necessary for minds (A2). Thus A3 has everything to do with minds and mental contents - specifically, it's arguing that a program is insufficient to generate them.
As I noted, this is unprovable under Searle's assumptions, since behaviour is not evidence for mind. It could be the anti-tachyon field generated by my hair that's causing my mind, and my brain is simply "simulating thinking" by running a program, and the disturbances in the field are "actual" thinking.
Absurd, yes, but that's what you get when you try to separate actual understanding and simulating understanding, as Chinese Room does.
Yes, he does. His argument is just the good old "I and my kin have souls, but these other beings don't, even if they act like us" all over again. He has absolutely no evidence whatsoever for his assumptions (and can't get it, since they specifically forbid observations from counting as evidence), nor does any philosophical reason back his assertions. His "logic" is just one big argument from incredulity.
Either mind is distinguishable from a "mere program" through behavior or not. In the former case, the Chinese Room argument falls flat on its face, since people outside the room could distinguish between the Room and a genuine Chinese speaker. And in the latter, "mind" is entirely superfluous to the function of the brain. Why would evolution produce neurons with capability of producing a mind, if that capability results in no behavioral difference and thus no selective advantage? And if there's no selective advantage, why would I assume that this capability is widespread in humanity, rather than assuming that I'm a mutant and the rest of you are philosophical zombies?
Humans have been social animals for so long now that it's almost as difficult to ignore mean words from someone you're supposed to have a somewhat friendly relationship with - especially an authority figure - than pain nerves firing. It's especially unreasonable to expect the young to have mastered this skill.
More generally, it might not be such a good idea to train people to ignore what other people think. Society is already falling apart as psychopaths and hard-line individualists squeeze it dry. The last thing we need is our young to learn to ignore negative feedback.
No, because the products and services end up leaving the country rather than staying in and increasing the wealth of Americans. Yes, it stimulates the economy and provides people with jobs; but it would be even better if the wealth generated by these jobs stayed in the country.
A3 (Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of nor sufficient for semantics). Not only is this what Searle set out to prove in the first place, and not only is it quite unprovable (how would you go about proving something is not conscious, if behaviour isn't a trustworthy clue?), but it also doesn't imply that the Chinese Room doesn't have what it takes.
My brain causes a mind. I have no way of knowing if yours does. It certainly doesn't seem any more intuitive that a kilogram or so of gray wet noodles would cause mind than a computer might.
A1 isn't an axiom, it's just defining a term. I'd say it's a correct definition.
A2 is unclear: what is meant by "mental content"? A program that doesn't assign meaning to its symbols/bit patterns - such as machine instructions - isn't going to do anything. And a program that does can perform all the operations on them that I could, at least in the Chinese Room universe (since otherwise the output would differ). In other words: how does "mental content" differ from "data structure"?
A3 depends on the concept of "mental content" defined in A2, and is thus actually a conclusion, but since A2 failed to show any difference between "mental content" and "data structure", A3 remains unproved.
C1 is just restating A3 in different terms and runs into the same problem.
A4 is unprovable. I know that I have a mind, but I can't possibly know that you do, except from your behaviour - which, according to Searle, is insufficient to judge the matter. I also can't prove it's my brain giving me conscious experience: maybe the magic is really in my hair, and the next time I get a haircut I'll lose it, with no one being the wiser since my brain continues running its program (which is sufficient to cause conscious behaviour but not consciousness), and besides other people are actually philosophical zombies unable to really know anything.
C2 is fair enough: two devices doing the same thing could be considered "equivalent" in some sense.
C3 doesn't follow from the premises. Even if we assume that it takes special magical powers to cause a mind (as Searle suggests), there's no way of knowing that these are the only way of causing a mind (even if there were someone besides you capable of knowing anything. Braaaainnnssss...).
C4 is just C1/A3 all over again.
Sure. It's always fun watching what kind of mental gymnastics someone will end up performing in defence of a ludicrous argument. That's why I always read the Intelligent Design stories when they pop up :).
The one that is also the conclusion: that it takes special "causative powers" to cause a consciousness, or, in other words, that you can act conscious without being that. Not only is that circular logic, but its also completely illogical: why would evolution produce these "causal powers", if exactly identical behaviour can be created without them (as it must, for Chinese Room to work)?
Searle provides absolutely no reason whatsoever to presume that something that acts intelligently isn't inteligent, yet he wants me to assume it at face value.
The very Wikipedia article linked to provides several disproofs.
Of course all his conclusions follow from his premises: he's assuming the very thing he's trying to prove!
Searle is assuming that the Chinese Room simply can't understand Chinese, since there's no component to be pointed to which would; he's then drawing the conclusion that the Chinese Room doesn't understand Chinese. This conclusion only follows if one accepts Searles intuitions as valid axiom; however, that axiom is assuming the very thing it's trying to prove. Furthermore, there's many examples in nature of things being more than just the sum of their parts; the very computer you're reading this message in or your own body are very good examples.
I'm sorry, but Searle simply is wrong. And he's wrong in so many and so obvious ways that he's either an idiot or in denial. I'm trying to be generous by assuming him to be a genuine idiot rather than a purposeful liar, but I could of course be wrong at that.
Even if your assumptions about the human mind were correct - which they probably aren't - your conclusion wouldn't follow.
The "Chinese Room" argument to which you linked doesn't prove that computer mind is impossible. It could only prove such a thing if a system could not have qualities its components don't have, yet that's untrue for almost any system. Also, the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up your brain don't have sentience, at least any more so than those that make up a computer system.
In short, Searle is an idiot, his "Chinese Room" argument is nonsensical, and your claim is false.
Yes, for the reason the article itself notes: my solution bases the kilogram on a physical quantity that can be measured various ways, some more accurate than others, while averaging two experiments that should but do not agree means you can't make more accurate measurements since that would require changing the experiment yet you can't do that since you don't know what you're actually measuring, since your model is apparently wrong since the results disagree with it.
I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, here. The system is at the triple point when all three phases are present, and their proportions stay the same. At this point, you can simply measure the pressure of the gaseous phase.
Whatever temperature and gravity happen to be present at your lab?
Take some pure water in liquid, gaseous and solid phases and put them into a thermally insulated container with a pressure gauge at its side. If any of these phases runs out, add it. The system will eventually stabilize into the triple point, assuming the amount water and thermal energy were near enough. At that point, simply read the pressure off the gauge.
Did you perhaps mean "calculate"?
You can use a centrifuge to separate isotopes by weight, you know, and tell them apart by quantities produced. And at least time and quantity already depend on being able to produce chemically pure substances.
Why would you need to measure the temperature?
Well, if you can't, you need to redefine Kelvins as well.
Leave it alone for a week?
User laser interferometry to measure the stress on the cell wall?
Of course there are sources of inaccuracies, that is inevitable. H
Nobody likes the "new Slashdot", but somebody in charge made the decision and now we're stuck with it. Quite appropos.
All of them do, unless you have a perpetual motion engine. The mass of a system - such as fuel - is equivalent to its total energy content times lightspeed squared, so when a fuel gives energy, it must lose mass.
Chemical bonds don't release energy when broken, they require energy to break and release it when they form. And two atoms so bound weight less than the same atoms unbound.
Specific relativity, first published in 1905, or a bit over a century ago.
There is no such thing as non-relativistic energy change. It's all relativistic.
It doesn't. However, the change in mass is directly related to energy release, which for chemical fuels is so small that it usually makes sense to ignore it.
Why would you need to? You can find the triple point of water experimentally, measure the pressure, and then calibrate your pressure scale using that as a reference pressure (which is 611.73 Pascals). In fact, you could reverse-engineer Newton - and thus kilogram - from said pressure directly.
You do know what triple point is, right?
You could use the pressure and temperature at the triple point of water. It's accurate enough for Kelvins, so...
Fossil fuels are not mass-neutral. All fuels work by converting mass to energy. Nuclear reactions simply convert a far greater proportion of the mass of the fuel than chemical ones.