From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Tue Apr  7 23:24:32 EDT 1992
Article 4961 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr6.224129.7406@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Apr7.205221.3728@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:52:21 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.224129.7406@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:

>  I believe that all natural concepts are fuzzy at the edges.  For
>prototypical exemplars presence and absence are clear, but there
>are always doubtful exemplars where presence or absence is a
>matter of degree.  

But where does this lead us?  To entities that only have a "part" of a belief,
or a "bit" of an experience, a "portion" of qualia?   I want to be a realist
about mental states, and so therefore believe that it is not simply a matter of
"deciding" whether rocks have beliefs, like one would decide whether glass is
a liquid or a solid.  There is, from my perspective, a *fact of the matter*
whether or not rocks, or thermostats, or SHRDLU, has mental states.

>  I like to think of SHRDLU as having mind to a very small degree,
>and a thermostat as having an "atom" of mind.  A rock, because it
>contains no representation of the world and does not communicate
>or act purposefully, has no mind at all.
>

I see no way in principle from distinguishing between a rock and a thermostat.
Both react to the external world.  Both exhibit "behaviours".  And both can
be described as being "purposeful" under some description.  It is a mistake
to think that merely because we build thermostats to carry out actions 
we require that they are somehow more special than other objects which also
respond to the environment.  Of course, *all* objects respond to the environment
which may make things a *bit* problematic for your view...


- michael


