From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Mon Jul 25 2005 - 11:39:11 MDT
Mitchell wrote:
>To what extent AI
> theorists need to think about post-physicalist ontology is an
> open question;
> I suspect that there is room for division of labor, with some working on
> problems confined to the domain of
> algebraically/geometrically/dynamically
> describable phenomena, and others really looking at the complicated
> interplay between full-spectrum phenomenology, possible ontologies, and
> possible mind-like entities. It does seem unlikely that an AI designed
> solely to operate in that first domain will be much help with the broader
> problems, except negatively, by inadvertently demonstrating its
> limitations.
but I don't see the reason for the opinion you give in the last sentence.
I tend to think that if one builds a software program with the right
cognitive structures and dynamics attached to it, the qualia will come along
"for free". Qualia don't need to be explicitly engineered as part of AI
design, but this doesn't make them any less real or any less important. An
AI created with humanlike cognitive structures and dynamics will spawn
humanlike qualia; an AI constructed with other cognitive dynamics and
structures will have other sorts of qualia...
This fits in with the philosophy of qualia I've recently described at
http://www.goertzel.org/blog/blog.htm
- Ben G
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