(urth) 5HC : Unbound Simulator

[Chris]

>Given infinite processing capacity could a machine
>simulate humanity? It has been observed elsewhere thet
>M. Million seems the most humane member of the
>household...

Most sentimental, perhaps, although it's hard to get a handle on Five's 
sentimentality with the way he writes; such things may be systematically 
omitted, from embarrassment or whatever reason. It certainly does seem that 
Five has passions under the surface of what he writes, and he is certainly 
capable of profound hatred.

With regard to simulating humanity, I would suggest that the question is 
purely grammatical. Can you pretend to think? Well, it would seem like if 
you really went through the motions you would *be* thinking, not just 
pretending. "But couldn't I do everything else I normally do when thinking, 
but not think?" -- well, you could perhaps scrunch up your eyes and make a 
face without thinking (much), such that it would fool an outside observer. 
But is scrunching up your eyes and making a face necessary to thinking at 
all - I mean, you are not pretending to *think*, you are just making faces, 
and making faces has nothing to do with thinking.

Similarly "humanity" - I assume we're not talking about the trivial 
biological sense of the term - is not something that can be simulated. If we 
grammatically allow that machine is the kind of thing which *can* simulate 
humanity, then if it behaves in such and such a way it is not *simulating* 
humanity, it is *being* human. And on the other hand if you assume that a 
machine is not the kind of thing which can do that, then its behaving in 
such and such a way is not simulating humanity *or* being human, it is 
simply a meaningless conjunction of circumstances.