X-Message-Number: 21349
From: 
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 11:09:56 EST
Subject: Rosetta etc

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1. Thomas Donaldson seemed to think that I deny the possibility of feeling in 
an inorganic system. Actually, I don't even deny the possibility that 
isomorphism is everything--I only say that it is unproven and highly dubious. 
Certainly there is a possibility that some anatomical/physiological feature 
analogous to the self circuit (or whatever it is that allows feeling in 
organic creatures) might allow feeling in an inorganic system. But this 
remains to be seen, and the obvious first requirement is that we understand 
what is happening in ourselves.

2. Thomas also seems to say that mere computation can never constitute 
feeling,  because we need semantics as well as syntax, and computer-generated 
numbers require interpretation. I have stressed this too, and recently--but 
in the past have also noted the (remote?) possibility that sufficiently large 
and consistent systems might be unambiguous, capable of only one 
interpretation.

The example I used was that of an artificial language for conversing by radio 
with intelligent aliens. In general, no one can learn or decipher a language 
without help--a Rosetta stone or some other hints, even with human languages. 
But various people have shown how one could build up an artificial language 
in such a way that eventually any intelligent being could interpret it 
unambiguously, although at each stage there would be limitations on the range 
of expression. 

Robert Ettinger

 

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