Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!ames!killer!usl!usl-pc!jpdres10 From: jpdres10@usl-pc.usl.edu (Green Eric Lee) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: The difference between machine and human intelligence (was: AI and Intelligence) Message-ID: <131@usl-pc.usl.edu> Date: 2 Dec 88 17:39:34 GMT References: <401@uwslh.UUCP> <960@dgbt.uucp> Reply-To: elg@killer.UUCP Organization: Univ. of Southwestern La., Lafayette Lines: 24 In article <960@dgbt.uucp> thom@dgbt.uucp (Thom Whalen) writes: >From article <401@uwslh.UUCP>, by lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Fish-Guts): >> I propose that a machine without human-like senses cannot "understand" >> many ideas and imagery the way a human does, simply because it will >> not be able to perceive its surroundings in the same way as a human. >Do you believe that Helen Keller "understood many ideas and imagery the >way a human does? She certainly lacked much of the sensory input that >we normally associate with intelligence. Actually, she didn't. Her world was bounded by touch, taste, and smell. She became adept at putting together words to make it seem that she had the same perceptions as a "normal" person, but that was more a sad attempt to "fit in". Another interesting thing is that the knowledge that things like "blue" existed came via her existing sensory inputs (touch), specifically from reading books... which seems to imply that one sensory input can, to large extent, substitute for others, when there is some convention of information interchange. Note, though, that even Helen Keller's sensory input was greater than that of today's AI systems... -- Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 {ames,mit-eddie,osu-cis,...}!killer!elg, killer!usl!elg, etc.