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<HTML>
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<TITLE>CDNE Chapter 11 - Artificial Intelligence</TITLE>
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<p align="center"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Times New Roman"></FONT> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Times New Roman"><B><font size="+2">Chapter
11<br>
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE</font></B></FONT></p>
<table width="620" border="0" align="center">
<tr>
<td>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Discussions about artificial intelligence
(AI) are frequent in many contexts, not least in those that are treated
in this book. That's why I've given AI a chapter of its own.</font><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">AI is a multi-disciplinary science, encompassing
electronics, computer science, psychology, sociology, philosophy, religion,
medicine, and mathematics. This is by no means an exaggeration; creating
AI entails knowing how "normal" intelligence works, which is
easier said than done - since the only object we know with certainty to
be intelligent is the human brain. AI ultimately concerns the study of
behavioral sciences in order to build models based on natural science.
Our intelligence, it has been discovered, is strongly connected to our
way of knowing the world, or our perception.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">AI research is a hot item at the universities,
and not without reason: for the first time in history, there is <i>money</i>
to be made in AI. Companies that are increasingly employing electronic
means for communication and administration are in need of computer programs
to handle routine tasks, like sorting electronic mail or maintaining inventory.
So-called intelligent <i>agents</i> are marketed, customized for various
standardized electronic tasks. From a cynical perspective, one could say
that industry for the first time can replace thinking humans with machines
in areas no one had thought could be automated. (I should add that it
can hardly be called <i>automation</i>, since the truly intelligent programs
actually <i>think</i>, as opposed to just acting according to a list of
rules).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">There is a number of approaches and orientations
within AI. Among the most prominent there are: <i>expert systems</i> (large
databases containing specific knowledge), <i>genetic algorithms</i> (simulated
evolution of mathematical formulas, for example, to suit a certain purpose),
and <i>neural networks</i> (imitation of the organizational structure
of the brain, using independent, parallel-processing nerve cells). As
information databases like those on the Internet become larger and more
numerous, agents can work directly with the information without having
to understand people. Why assign a person to do research when you might
as well let an agent do it, more quickly and for less money? (Whoever
has ever looked for information on the Internet will realize how useful
a more intelligent search tool would be).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">There is also research in the field of <i>artificial
life</i>, which really are "living" organisms that live and
reproduce in computer systems. Computer viruses constitute one form of
artificial life, albeit somewhat unsophisticated and destructive. Artificial
life has hitherto not achieved any substantial success. (Unless you want
to view computer viruses and all the companies and consultants that make
a living fighting them as a success - they have evidently boosted GNP). Research
in the field of artificial life began with a program called <i>Life</i>,<i>
</i>by <b>John Conway</b>, and was a mix between a computer game and calculated
simulation. <b>Bill Gosper</b>, hacker at MIT, became virtually obsessed
with this simulation. Later on, it was improved and renamed <i>Core Wars</i>,
the idea being that many small computer programs would try to expand and
fight over system memory (<i>core</i> memory), with the strongest ones
surviving. The programs are exposed to various environmental factors similar
to the demands put on real life: lonely or overcrowded individuals die,
programs are exposed to mutation risks, system resources vary with time
(daily rhythms), aging organisms die, etc. <b>Tom Ray</b> has been especially
successful in the field with his <i>Tierra </i>program. His artificial
life forms have, through simulated darwinistic evolution, managed to develop
programming solutions to certain specific problems that were better than
anything man-made.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">I have already mentioned that hackers have
a respect for artificial intelligence that is completely different from
that of people in general. A person growing up constantly surrounded by
computers does not see anything threatening in the fact that machines
can think. He/she sees the denunciation of AI as a sort of racism directed
towards a certain life form. If you criticize artificial intelligence,
saying that <i>it can never be the same, only humans can think</i>, etc.,
then consider the fact that there is no scientific basis whatsoever for
supposing that the human brain is anything but a machine, although it
may be made of flesh.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">These thoughts date back to <b>Ada Lovelace<i>
</i></b>and <b>Charles Babbage</b>, two of the progenitors of computers,
who discuss the subject in a piece called <i>Thinking Machines</i>, published
in the 19th century. However, these ideas did not become widely known
until the 1960's, through films such as the horror movie <i>Colossus -
The Forbins Project</i> (1969), in which intelligent military computers
take over the world. This notion also figures in the <i>Terminator</i>
films, with the only significant difference being that the computer's
name is <i>Skynet</i> - thus, not much new under the sun in popular sci-fi.
The fear of artificial intelligence actually dates all the way back to
<b>Mary Shelley's</b> <i>Frankenstein</i> (1818), and perhaps even further
back in history.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In the fiction of Frankenstein, the fear
of AI is personified. This story, about a scientist who creates a lethal
intelligence, has become one of the new symbols of the industrialized
world, in the same class as early Greek mythology. There is a connection
between the Bible and Frankenstein, in that the creation (mankind in the
Book of Moses, the monster in Frankenstein) rebel against its creator
(God and human, respectively). In Judaic mythology there is a corresponding
myth about the clay-man <b>Golem</b>, who runs amok when its master forgets
to control the creature. It has occurred to me how far ahead of its time
this myth was: Golem was made of clay, and computers are made of silicone,
which is made from sand. The maker of Golem, <b>Rabbi Löw</b>, feeds
a piece of parchment with the name of God on it into the creature's mouth,
in order to make it "run". This is comparable to the engineer
"feeding" software into the computer. To stop the runaway Golem,
the Rabbi removes the parchment from its mouth, whereupon the creature
collapses into a pile of dried mud, robbed of its spark of life.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Thus, the fear that mankind - like God -
will create intelligent life from dead matter is found as early as in
the two 19th-century myths described above. This rather unfounded fear
of <i>rebellion against God</i> makes up the foundation of much of the
hostility directed towards AI research. The fear is based in the Biblical
myth of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, and the possibility that
another creation will follow in our footsteps. I will, however, overlook
these myths, and instead focus the argument on the philosophy underlying
AI-research: <i>Pragmatism</i> with its heritage of Fallibilism, Nihilism,
and Zen-philosophy. (Don't let these strange word discourage you from
reading on!)</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">One could ask <i>why</i> scientists promptly
have to try to create artificial intelligence. After all, there are already
people, so why attempt to create something new, better, something alien?
Asking this question of a scientist in the field is akin to asking a young
couple why they promptly want to have children. Why raise a new generation
that will question everything you have constructed? The answer is that
it's something that simply just happens, or is done: it is a challenge,
a desire to create something that will live on, an instinct for evolution.
This is perhaps also what partly motivates hackers to create computer
viruses: the pleasure of seeing something grow and propagate.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Our entire society and our lives are so
interlinked that they cannot be separated. Society, machines, and humanity
- everything has to progress. Evolution doesn't allow any closed doors,
and AI is, in my view, only another step on the path of evolution. I see
this as something positive, while others are terrified. At the same
time, one shouldn't forget to note the <i>commercial</i> interests underlying
the expansion of AI. Computers reading forms, sorting information, and
distributing it, is obviously simply another way for the market to "rationalize"
people out of the production chain, automating clerical work, and making
the secretary and the accountant obsolete. The board of directors of a
corporation is, as usual, only interested in making money and accumulating
capital. <i>Wouldn't you?</i> What is the hidden nature of this complex
entity (or as I would refer to it, <i>superentity</i>) that we call <i>"the
market"</i>, and which constantly drives this process of development
forward?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">If you are interested in knowing more about
AI and its philosophical aspects, it is to your advantage to read a book
called <i>The Intelligent Age of Machines</i>, by <b>Raymond Kurzweil</b>
(1990). To learn more about the inner workings of AI, read <b>Douglas
Hofstadter's</b> <i>Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid</i>,
which is both an elevating and depressing work. In one respect, it is
a scientific validation of Kafka's thesis: <i>to correctly comprehend
something and at the same time misunderstand it are not mutually exclusive</i>,
which is an observation that (fascinatingly enough) is akin to the paradoxes
within Zen Buddhism, a religion that in some aspects border on pure philosophy.
To explain some of AI's mechanisms, I need to explain some things about
the part of Zen that is associated with philosophers like <b>Mumon</b>,
and which has less to do with sitting around in a lotus position and meditating
all day. Zen, in itself, is a philosophy that can be dissociated from
Buddhism and viewed separately. Buddhism is based on respect for life,
in all its forms, Zen, by itself, makes no such demands, being a non-normative,
non-religious philosophy.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <b>Zen, or the Art of Breaking Out of Formal
Systems</b><br>
Zen has also become one of the most influential "new age" philosophies
in the West during the 80's and 90's. Books like <i>Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance</i> sell amazingly well, among other things, Zen
Buddhism suggests that the entity that Western tradition calls God (and
what the Buddhists call the Brahma of the Buddha) is in fact a sum of
all the independent processes in the universe, and not a sentient force.
Therefore, God is equally present in the souls of humans as in the circuits
of a computer or the cylinder shafts of a motorcycle. Put simply, Zen
is one long search for the connection between natural processes, in the
cosmos or the microcosmos, and this search in itself constitutes a process
that interfaces with the others. Zen Buddhism is <i>the search in itself</i>,
the point being that Zen (an abstract term for "the answer")
will never be found. Searching for Zen means that one continually come
to a point where one answers a question with both <i>yes </i>and <i>no.</i>
For example:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Q: Is the ball in the bottle?<br>
A: In one way, yes, if the bottle's inside is its inside, and in one
way, no, if the bottle's outside is its inside.</font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Zen constantly toys with our way of <i>defining</i>
our environment, our method of labeling things as well as people. Zen
teaches us to see through the inadequacies of out own language and assists
us in dismantling fallacious systems, as in when, for example, we've gotten
the idea that all criminals are swarthy (or that all hackers break into
computer systems!). Zen is the thesis that no perfect formal systems exist,
that <i>there is no</i> perfect way of perceiving reality. Kurt Gödel,
the mathematician, proved that there are no perfect systems within the
natural sciences, and the fact that there are no perfect systems within
religion should be apparent to anyone who isn't a fundamentalist.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Zen could be said to be based on the following
supposition: <i>The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute
truths. </i>A paradox! - which is, naturally, a perfect starting point
for the thesis that reality cannot be captured and all formal systems
(like human language, mathematics, etc.) must contain errors. Even the
proposition that reality is incomplete is incomplete! <i>Truth cannot
be fully expressed in words</i> - hence the necessity of art and other
forms of expression. I will end the discussion of Zen now, but hopefully
you understand that many become confused and annoyed when one tries to
explain Zen, given that the explanation is that there is no explanation.
For example, note a quote by <b>William S. Burroughs</b>: <i>"language
is a virus from space"</i>, expressing his frustration with the limitations
of human language. Even Nietzsche criticized language, finding it hopelessly
limited, and feminist <b>Dorothy Smith</b> has a theory concerning the
use of language to control the distribution of power in society.<sup><a href="#FTNT1">(1)</a></sup>
In the Western philosophical tradition, the equivalent of Zen is called
<i>Fallibilism</i>, a philosophy based on the theory that all knowledge
is preliminary. This has subsequently been developed into a philosophical
theory called <i>pragmatism</i>, which views all formal systems as fallible,
and thus judges them based on function rather than construction. Gödel's
Incompleteness Theorem is probably the most tangible indication that this
conception of the world is correct.<sup><a href="#FTNT2">(2)</a></sup></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">A lot of modern mathematical theory of so-called
<i>non-formal systems</i> are associated with both Zen and Chaos theory.
A non-formal system creates a formal system to solve a problem. In order
to have a chance of understanding a (superficially) chaotic reality, we
must first simplify it by creating formal systems on different levels
of description, but also retain the capacity to break down these systems
and create new ones. For example, we know that humans are made up of cells.
We also know that we are made up of atoms, and as such, of pure energy.
Nature invites to so many levels of description that we have to sift through
them to find those that we need to complete the tasks we have selected.
This is called intelligence.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">There are also other philosophies that draw
on parts of Zen: for example, <i>Tao</i> views contradictory pairs such
as right/wrong or one/zero (the smallest building blocks of information)
as holy entities, and focuses on finding the "golden mean" between
them (the archetype is <i>Yin </i>and <i>Yang</i>, a kind of original
contradictory pair). Our Western concept of thesis-antithesis-synthesis
also belongs to this group. The strength - and weakness - in these approaches
are that they instill in their followers a belief that <i>moderation is
always best</i>, which can be both true and false according to Zen (depending
on how you view it). All such attempts to force reality into formal systems
are of course interesting, but definitely temporary and constantly subject
to adaptation. Another philosophical system using this mode of thought
was the pre-Christian Gnosticism, where the original opposites are <i>God
</i>and <i>Matter</i>. These become intertwined within a sequence of <i>Aeons</i>
(ages of time, imaginary worlds, or divine beings). Gnosticism probably
originates (in turn) from an old Persian religion called <i>Parsism</i>,
created by the well-known philosopher <b>Zarathustra</b>, who initially
claimed that the world was based on such opposites.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Zen's way of thinking is partially a confirmation
of the so-called <i>nihilistic</i> view of reality, in which objective
truth does not exist, and partially a denial of it: it is simply a matter
of point-of-view. Objective truth exists <i>inside</i> formal systems,
whereas <i>outside </i>them, it does not. By breaking out of a formal
system in which reality is described in terms of right and wrong, or intermediate
terms such as <i>more right than wrong</i>, one finds a part of the core
of intelligence. Being intelligent means being able to build an ordered
system out of chaos, and thoroughly enough to be able to view one's own
system from the inside and adjust one's own thoughts according to its
rules. AI research has - in an amazing fashion - shown that this ability
is completely vital to <i>any intelligent operation whatsoever</i>.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The difference between the real world and
the one pictured inside the formal system of one's own creation has ruffled
the feathers of such grandfathers of philosophy as Plato, Kant, and Schopenhauer.
It has made them decide, after languishing analysis, that the real world
is defective and incapable of approaching their own perfect, mathematical
world of ideas. (Please note my mild insolence; as a 24-year-old layman
I shouldn't be able to claim the right to even speak of these great philosophers.
The alert reader would notice that I'm very busy questioning traditional
authorities ;-). In science, this conflict is known as the subject-object
controversy. Even in such "hard" sciences as physics this conflict
has proved to be decisive, especially in <i>Bell's Theorem</i> (well-known
among physicists), which has puzzled many a scientist. (I'm not going
to go into the details of Bell's Theorem, but I'm employing it as a reference
for those who are familiar with it).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">When AI researchers sought the answer to
the mystery of intelligence, they came into conflict with scientific paradigms.
We need to use intelligence to understand intelligence. We need a blueprint
for making blueprints; a theory of theoretical methods, a paradigm for
building paradigms, etc. They found a paradox in which a formal system
would be described in terms of another formal system. This is when they
took Gödel's theorem to heart - a proof that all formal systems are
paradoxical. The solution to the problem of creating a formal system for
intelligence was self-reference, just like a neuron in the brain will
change its way of processing information by - just that - processing information.
The answer to intelligence wasn't tables, strict sets of rules, or mathematics.
Intelligence wasn't mechanical. For intelligence to flourish, it would
have to be partially <i>unpredictable</i>, <i>contradictory</i>, and <i>flexible.</i></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Many hackers and net-users are devoted Zen-philosophers,
not least because many of the functions within computers and networks
are fairly contradictory. The section of computer science concerned with
AI is self-contradictory to the highest degree. <i>Programming</i> is
also the art of creating order from an initially chaotic system of possible
instructions, culminating in the finished product of a computer program.
If this section has been hard to understand, please read it again; it
is worth comprehending.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <b>Humans as Machines - The Computer as
a Divine Creation<br>
</b>Most hackers view people as advanced machinery, and there's really
nothing wrong with this; it is simply a new way of looking at things,
another point of view within the multi-facetted science of psychology.
Hackers in general are futurists, and to them the machine (and thus the
human) is something beautiful and vigorous. I'll willingly admit that
to a certain extent I also view humans as machines, but I'd like to tone
that statement down a bit by saying that we (like computers) are <i>information
processors</i> - we are born with certain information coded in our genes,
and in growing up we assimilate more and more information from our environment.
The result is a complex mass of information that we refer to as an <i>individual</i>.
The process by which information is handled and stored in the individual
is known as intelligence. The individual also interacts with the environment
by symbolically absorbing and emitting pieces of information, and thereby
becomes a part of an even larger process, which is in itself intelligent.
(If you're of a religious persuasion, this could be taken as an example
of hubris) But what about the <i>difference</i> between computers and
humans?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Two things: the computer knows who has created
it, and human life is clearly time-limited. It has been proposed that
the uniqueness of a human "soul" is a product of just these
two factors, and that it's therefore only uncertainty and finitude that
makes life "<i>worth living"</i>. Of course, the theory could
be challenged by proposing that its two premises are negotiable from a
long-term perspective. Hereby the reader will have to draw his or her
own metaphysical conclusions; the subject is virtually interminable, and
the audience inexhaustible. <br>
</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><i>"I have seen things you humans
can only dream of… Burning attack cruisers off the shoulder of
Orion… I saw the C-rays glitter in the Tannhauser Gate… All
these moments will now be lost in time, like tears in the rain."</i></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">(The android Roy Beatty in <b>Ridley Scott's</b>
<i>Blade Runner</i>, understanding some of the meaning of life
in his final moments)</font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman">By delving
deep into psychology, the subject becomes simpler. An intelligent system,
whether artificial or natural, must be checked against a surrounding system
(what we might term a <i>meta-system</i>) in order to know the direction
in which to develop itself. In an AI system designed to recognize characters,
"rewards" and "punishments" are employed until the
system learns how to correctly distinguish valid and invalid symbols.
This requires two functions within the system: the ability to exchange
information, and the ability to <i>reflect</i> on this exchange. In
an AI system, this is a controlled, two-step sequence: first information
is processed, then the process is reflected upon. In a person, the information
processing (usually) takes place during the day, and the match against
the "correct" pattern occurs at night, in the form of dreams
in which the events are recollected and compared to our <i>real</i> motives
(the <i>subconscious</i>). The similarity is striking.</font></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman">Through this
line of reasoning, we can draw the conclusion that people have an internal
system for judging correct action against incorrect action. As if this
wasn't enough, we also know that we can alter the plans by which we act
- i.e., we are not forced to follow a specific path. In this sense, humans
are just as paradoxical as any informal system, since we have the ability
to break out of the system and re-evaluate our objectives. However,
the great philosophers of psychology, <b>Sigmund Freud</b> and <b>Carl
Jung</b>, found that there was a set of symbols and motives that <i>were
not</i> subject to modification, but rather common to all persons. Freud
spoke of the overriding <i>drives</i>, mainly the sexual and survival
drives. Jung expanded the argument to encompass several <i>archetypes</i>,
which referred to certain fundamental notions of what is good and what
is evil.<sup><a href="#FTNT3">(3)</a></sup> These archetypal drives, which
seem to exist in all animals, appears to be the engine that propels humans
into the effort of exploring and trying to understand their environment.</font></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman">This is the
most fundamental difference between persons and machines. There is nothing
that says that we should have to let intelligent machines be driven by
the same urges as we are. Instead, we can equip them with a <i>drive</i>
to solve the problems for which they were constructed. When the machine
evaluates its own actions, it is then constantly driven towards doing
our bidding. <b>Isaac Asimov</b>, the science-fiction writer, suggested
such things in his robot novels through the concept of the laws of <i>robotics</i>,
by which robots were driven by an almost pathological desire to please
their human masters. This relationship is also found in the modern film
<i>Robocop</i>, in which an android policeman is driven by his will to
indiscriminately uphold the law.</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333"><b><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Towards
an Artificial Age - AI and Society<br>
</font></b></font><font face="Times New Roman">Aspects of AI is mirrored
by the media of our time - <i>Blade Runner </i>is about the difference
between man and machine, AI figures heavily in cyberpunk novels, music
and film, and in 1995 the movie Frankenstein makes a comeback in the theaters.
Coincidence? Hardly. An exciting example of this trend is Arnold
Schwarzenegger's role as the robot in <i>Terminator 2</i>. In the film,
the artificial intelligence holds human characteristics, as a result of
being programmed by a human rebel instead of a brutal military force.
It also touches upon aspects of the consequences of carelessly handling
technology (as when Rabbi Löw lost control of his Golem). Of particular
interest is the scene in which the robot, being machine, simply follows
its programmed instructions to obliterate people standing in its way as
opposed to finding peaceful solutions. The lead character, John (which
incidentally happens to be a skilled hacker), discovers a dangerous "programming
bug" in the robot's instruction set, which he corrects. The message
of the film is that technology and AI are good things - if used properly
and supervised by human agents. The real danger is people's ignorant nonchalance.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The Swedish movie <i>Femte Generationen</i>
("The Fifth Generation") again deserves being mentioned in this
context. Fifth-generation computer systems are simply another name for
artificially intelligent systems.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Lars Gustavsson</b> makes a strong impression
with his beautiful sci-fi novel, <i>Det Sällsamma Djuret Från
Norr</i> ("The Strange Beast from the North"), which treats
the metaphysical aspects of AI in a thorough and entertaining manner.
His thoughts on decentralized intelligence are especially exciting, which
suggest that a society of ants could be considered intelligent, whereas
a single ant could not - and in this manner, all of humanity could be
viewed as one cohesive, intelligent organism. This view is taken from
sociology, which has become very important to AI research.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Flows of information are an indication of
intelligence. This is confirmed in the model of society as a unitary sentient
force. The intelligence of individuals and societies are undoubtedly related;
the ability to store and process information through the construction
and dissolution of formal systems is a sign of intelligence. Society is
an organism, but at the same time it is not (yes, this is very Zen). These
ideas go all the way back to the founder of sociology, <b>Auguste Comte</b>.
I have myself coined the term <i>superindividuals</i> as a label for these
macro-intelligences known as <i>corporations, the market, the state, the
capital,</i> and so on. I will return to this subject further ahead.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Again, it is possible to emphasize the relatedness
of chaos research and intelligence; intelligence can be seen on many different
levels, each constituting a formal system in itself. One system is akin
to another, and they form as strangely coherent pattern. Our intelligence
seems to be united with our ability to enforce chaos.<br>
<br>
</font> </p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#333333"><b>Alan Turing
and the Turing Test<br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman">Alan Turing was one of the very
first people concerned with making machines intelligent. He proposed a
test that could decide whether or not a system was intelligent - the so-called
Turing Test. It consisted of placing a person in a room with a terminal
that was either connected to a terminal controlled by another person,
or to a computer that pretended to be a person. If the test subjects couldn't
tell the difference between man and machine, i. e. that they couldn't
make a correct judgment in half of the cases, the computer could be said
to be intelligent.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">This test was rather quickly subject to
criticism by way of a theory called The Chinese Room. This entailed running
the Turing Test in Chinese, with a Chinese-speaking person at one terminal
and a person that didn't speak Chinese at the other. For the non-Chinese
person to have a chance to answer the questions posed by the Chinese-speaker,
he/she was to be presented with set of rules consisting of symbols, grammar,
etc., through which sensible answers could be formulated without the subject
knowing an ounce of Chinese. By simply performing lookups in tables and
books it would seem like the person in fact spoke Chinese and was intelligent,
although he or she was just following a set of rules. The little
slave running back and forth, interpreting the Chinese-speaker's questions
without knowing anything, was compared to the hardware of the computer,
the machine. The books and the rules for responding constituted the software,
or the computer program. In this way, it was argued that the computer
couldn't be intelligent, but rather only capable of following given instructions.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">However, it turned out that this objection
was false. The one that the Chinese-speaker is communicating with is not
solely the person sitting at the other end, but the entire system, including
the terminal, books, rule sets, etc., that the poor stressed-out fellow
in the other room used to formulate answers. Even if the person sitting
at the other end of the line was not intelligent, the system as a whole
was intelligent. The same goes for a computer: even if the machine or
the program is not intelligent in itself, the entire system of machine + program
very well could be. The case is the same for a human - a single neuron
in the brain is not intelligent. Not even entire parts of the brain, or
the brain itself, are intelligent, since they cannot communicate. The
system of a person with both a body and a brain, however, can be intelligent!<sup><a href="#FTNT4">(4)</a></sup></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">From this follows the slightly unpleasant
realization that every intelligent system must constantly process information
in order to stay intelligent. We have to accept sensory input and in some
way respond to it to properly be called intelligent. A human without the
ability to receive or express information is therefore not intelligent!
A flow of information is an indication of the presence of intelligence.
From this stems the concept of brain death - a human without intelligence
is not a human.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">We might finish this chapter by defining
what intelligence really is (according to Walleij): Intelligence
is the ability to create, within a seemingly chaotic flow of information,
systems for the purpose of sorting and evaluating this flow, and at the
same time incessantly revise and break down these systems in order to
create new ones. (Note that this definition is paradoxical, since it describes
the very process by which the author was able to formulate it. You can't
win… :) <br>
</font> </p>
<hr>
<b><font color="#666666"><a name="FTNT1"></a> </font></b><font color="#666666">1.
</font> <font face="Times New Roman" color="#666666"> Probably a form of
structuralism.</font> <font face="Times New Roman" color="#666666"><br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT2"></a> 2. "Correct" is always a vague term in the
field of philosophy. Don't take it too literally, and keep in mind that
this is popular science... <br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT3"></a> 3. Theories which are now out of favor with the established
authorities. Oh well. Enimvero di no quasi pilas homines habent.<br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT4"></a> 4. Or maybe not. It is impossible for a person to become
intelligent without the society that surrounds her, and therefore it is
the system of human + society that is intelligent… etc. etc</font><b><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></font><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"></font></font></b></td>
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