X-Message-Number: 8089
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: CRYONICS Re: CryoNet #8080 - #8083
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 23:56:33 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

To Bob Ettinger: interesting extension of the Chinese room (say, you've put
on a bay window). 

One of the problems with making an ordinary computer alive and intelligent in
the same way we are alive and intelligent, I think, is that of also imitating
ERRORS. As human beings, we can sometimes be wrong, confused, etc etc. If we
really wanted an emulation, we'd have to someone arrange that the emulation
is also wrong, confused, etc etc on the same occasions and the same way. Doing
that raises much harder programming problems than just giving perfect answers
every time. 

I'd even suggest that one very good way to tell that you are conversing with
a computer (in the classic Turing test) is to watch what happens when things
don't come out right. The misunderstandings, mistakes, blunders, etc that
people sometimes make says a lot more about how they work than when everything
is done correctly.

I make these comments as part of carrying forward the line of thought you 
presented, not as criticism at all.

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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