X-Message-Number: 11710 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: To David Crevier, some answers Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 00:35:45 +1000 (EST) To Robert Crevier: One quite critical issue which your little story slides over is that of just how well we will ever be able to simulate a world. I am doubting that our simulations will do very well; sure, I believe in using them for various kinds of training, etc --- but the idea of living in a simulation, given the weakness of such simulations compared to the real world, seems quite ridiculous. The SHRDLU example you give actually supports me. It's fine to have a computer which talks like it lives in the real world, but so far using such simulations to make a device (part of which would be a computer) able to get around in the REAL WORLD have failed. I believe that by taking the right approach we can even solve that problem, but so long as we fail to solve that problem we have just what I said: a computer system running a program with no consciousness. (And even working in a REAL room full of blocks of various sizes is only a small start --- though as I remember SHRDLU it didn't even get that far). Please understand that I am not criticising SHRDLU itself. We learn how to do the big problem by first working on small ones. But SHRDLU is not a system which deals with reality as well as any 5 year-old. There are tons more things such a system must be able to do; and most of all, reality cannot be totally predictable and no one can really claim that he or she understands it completely. Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11710