5HC : Chinese boxes or tea chests?

Nathan Spears · 02 Feb 2005, 10:38 · from 2005-February.txt.gz

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From: spearofsolomon at yahoo.com (Nathan Spears)
Date: Wed Feb  2 10:38:48 2005
Subject: (urth) 5HC : Chinese boxes or tea chests?
In-Reply-To: <f5238c305020210297c5cc91c at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20050202183844.60183.qmail at web50303.mail.yahoo.com>

But are the similarities superficial?  That is, are they solving problems for
themselves using human methods, or for the same reasons humans would have?  Do they
believe that they are organic creatures dependent on oxygen and sunlight for
survival, or are they "aware" (even if that only means, "they factor into their
problem-solving the fact that they are machines") that they are machines mimicking
human thought-processes?

--- Maru Dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:

> What I meant was something along these lines: ' Suppose further that
> the robots ran into some difficult, advanced, hard-to-solve
> life-threatening problem. Let's call it X.  Then the robots solve X
> just like the humans would have, if they were still around (because
> the robots are so very good at imitating what humans would do). Then
> some advanced aliens come...' etc.
> 
> ~Maru
> Microsoft delenda est.
> 
> Nathan Spears <spearofsolomon at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure I get the "have to nuke the asteriod" bit.  If the computers ran
> off
> > solar energy than it would be a legimate problem, I suppose, although not for
> the
> > reasons they were aware of.  But don't you think that an entity which has
> > consciousness needs to be "self-aware" enough to make real decisions concerning
> its
> > own future?  Or were you saying that the computers destroyed the asteriod out of
> a
> > legitimate sense of self-preservation?
> > 
> > Chris, I would have gone with Platonic Plutonians: do the computers aspire to
> the
> > Form of Personhood?
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