The Computational Universe

Despite our class discussion of Searle’s article, I still think there is a clear conclusion in the article that computers can never think. I don’t really agree with the fact that Searle’s only objective is to show that the the Turing Test is not a good and reliable measure of “thinking”. The example with the Chinese room has a really convincing and deep meaning - it does not only ridicule the test consisting of (in our case) speaking with a computer on a few topics but it also says that “thinking” is not the ability to pick from a list or “a rule book” and combining theoretical principles. Thus, anything that has the ability to think doesn’t consist of rules only - what is then a computer - a program written with fictional symbols - 0s and 1s. If the human brain worked like this, there would be no sciences like psychology, biology, etc. Therefore, “thinking” is not at all an integral part of anything we have been able to construct so far. I don’t really like the way, however, Searle relates the terms “semantics” with the rest of his paper - it is not even necessary to use it in order to achieve the aims of the paper.

Now, I would like to address a few issues we talked about in class. The argument that the Turing test is a fair (no obvious way to cheat ) one is not really convincing. Although there are a lot of different combinations of topics, it is relatively simple to produce relevant databases which comprise of the variety of topics a “normal” person would talk about, and thus simulate a Turing test passing computer. It is in fact even possible to create a program which learns from the people it talks about and imitates ways of writing and stylistic patterns. There is, however, a “slight” difference in the word “thinking” - in my opinion, it should relate more to the class of feelings than to the class of actions.

In conclusion, although the matter is somewhat philosophical, it is, at the current level of science, impossible to program a computer to “think”. This is, however, not at all discouraging as computers can be programmed to do almost any task (including decision making, using algorithms or approximations) any human can do and, further, tasks which will require immense physical or intellectual work (computations and a lot more). Thus, we don’t really need the computers to be able to “think”.

As a mathematician, I can say boolean logic is one of the most important parts of Computer Science and Mathematics. The idea of using 0-s and 1-s is actually a way of using the binary (instead of decimal) system and the positive sides of it are that there are only two possible outcomes (instead of ten). Further, any statement which can have two outcomes and is dependent on statements of two outcomes can be expressed as a single equation using boolean variables. For instance, let’s consider the statement: I will do sth. if only John helps me and Peter doesn’t take part in it. So, if we presume J and P are variables depending on the appearance of John and Peter, my outcome variable A is equal to A = J . (1 - P). This expression is quite simple and gives a way to decide whether I should do the job automatically, that is without any thinking about the conditions. There are, however, statements that can be expressed in many different ways by variables like “I will do the job if either Peter or Jon helps me but I don’t want Monika to come”. Here A= (P + J) . (1 - M) (we use the equation 1+1=1 by definition). However, direct check shows that A is also equal to (P.J + P + J). (1-M) so there is no unique way to express a statement and thus shows that to be precise we need to use the shortest possible expression. Other ways to write an equation is using logic operators like AND, OR, XOR, etc. However, you will need to consult the specific tables for the outcomes of the operations and this way of writing is therefore inferior to the one using only . and +. It is easy to see that XOR, OR, AND, and all other operators, can be written using only the . and + operations. (or instance, a XOR b = a. (1-b) + b. (1-a) )

There are various problems with boolean logic - what is the algorithm for simpliying an equation; how to make sure the expression you’ve written is the shortest or the most compact, etc. However, it is a highly successul and necessary part of Mathematics and Computer Science.  

Well, it’s been two weeks since I got my Scribbler robot and my initial excitement is still with me. Although the robot has somewhat limited capabilites ( does not detect obstacles very well from distance; motors need frequent calibration, etc. ), I still like exploring its still numerous applications like avoiding obstacles while using a certain behaviour ( for instance, turning left on motor stall or obstacle detected or turning / spining every 10 seconds ). I would definitely like to know all the things the robot can do and how its whole system works.

A question I have: Is there an additional way of programming Scribbler - not necessarily through the software it comes with.

Hi. My name is Alex and I am currently a freshman. I come from Bulgaria and my primary interest is Mathematics. I am also interested in Genetics but as I am afraid I would not cope with the rest of the Biology stuff, I decided to be a math major. I have been participating in International Math Olympiads since 8th grade and have 3 gold and 2 silver medals.

I decided to take COS 116 as it would cover interesting topics - internet security, AI :), genetics, and would not require any knowledge of programming languages. Although I have some experience using C++, Pascal and Java, I am really not comfortable wasting my time writing programs. I am excited about the robots we would be getting at the first lab - not that I am going to play with them but just to see how they work and what they do.

Update 11 am on 2/14/06: I use HP Evo-316 Laptop but I will probably switch to Dell next year.