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MacKAY
Operationally it is as if the automaton is conscious only of
the features of the world symbolized by its own internal matching-responses,
and only indirectly of the error-signals evoking them. It is the quantal
pattern of the response-process that determines the way in which its
"experience" is broken down into a succession of "known events". We can
thus give operational meaning to metaphorical talk of the "changing
contents of consciousness" of such an automaton.^
If, however, the first type is regarded as an extreme case of
the second, in which the error-signal has been enlarged and the internal
response-system eliminated, the operational correlate of such concepts is
missing. The distinction may be worth pondering by those to whom the
question of consciousness in automata is a live issue.
7 - Conclusion
Our conclusion is that an automaton designed on statistical
principles, which can evolve an internal organizing routine to respond
adaptively to regularities of its sensory input, is capable in principle
of developing its own symbols for concepts of any order of abstraction,
including metalinguistic concepts, without prior instruction.
Any resemblance between such an automaton as described and the
human brain is scarcely coincidental, but is logically inadmissible as
evidence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] PITTS, W. and McCULLOCH, W. S., "How we know universals", Bull. Math.
Biophys . 9 , ]2k-]krj, 1 9^7 -
[2] MACKAY, D. M., "Mindlike behaviour in artefacts", Brit. J . for Phil. of
Sci. 2, 105-121, 1951 •
[3] MACKAY, D. M., "Quantal aspects of scientific information", Phil. Mag.
4 1 , 289-311, 1950.
[k] SHANNON, C. E., "Mathematical Theory of Communication", Bell Syst.
Tech. J . 2 7 , 379-^23; 623-658, 19^8.
[5] ASHBY, W. R., "Design for a Brain", Electronic Engr. 20, 379-3 83, 19^8.
It is perhaps unnecessary to discuss here the various types of non-
veridical "perception" and "imagination" possible in such an automaton.
Reference 7 contains some indications of the possibilities.
THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEM FOR AUTOMATA
251
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[6] MACKAY, D. M., "On the Combination of digital and analogical techniques
in the design of analytical engines",(May 20, 19^9), mimeographed.
[7 ] MACKAY, D. M., "Mentality in Machines", Proc. Arist. Soc. Suppt. 1952,
61-86.
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[8] MACKAY, D. M., "Generators of Information", Communication Theory
(ed. W. Jackson), Butterworths, 1953, ^75-^85.
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