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.