From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Thu Apr 16 11:33:25 EDT 1992
Article 4983 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!christo
>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Apr6.224129.7406@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr7.231721.2684@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Apr8.155719.10215@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 15:57:19 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.231721.2684@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>>
>>What you "like to think" has little bearing on the question. Surely
>>whether SHRDLU, thermostats, and rocks have minds is an empirical
>>question.
>
>  A precise, complete and unambiguous definition of "mind" please.  You
>obviously have such a definition, since you declare the question to
>be "empirical".
>
No, you most certainly do not. In fact, if you'll recall your Hempel, 
there would be no need for science at all if we simply defined things
in advance. Do you honestly believe that the question of whether some  
object has a mind is a logical question? That seems to be you primary
alternative. And if you gave a strict a priori definition of mind, as you
seem to want, a logical question is exactly what you'd have. I always thought
that psychology was an empirical science.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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