From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Thu Apr 16 11:33:39 EDT 1992
Article 5010 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: The Challenge
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <511@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Apr7.222046.16470@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr8.074316.29941@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Message-ID: <1992Apr9.200513.15480@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 20:05:13 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.074316.29941@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.222046.16470@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>>What *empirical* evidence would count?  Remember that we are arguing over
>>whether having the appropriate behaviour is sufficient evidence for
>>having a mind.  I may be wrong, but I see *no* way in which this is
>>amenable to empirical investigation.  
>
>It can be investigated using the same techniques we use
>to determine whether a newborn infant has a mind, or not.
>Let us make the supposition that a alien lands in your yard
>now, how would you determine whether this being has a mind?
>Or do you still insist that there is no way to make this
>determination?

What we were originally arguing about was the sufficiency of the Turing Test.
If you wish to merely *assert* that behaviour is all there is to minds, then
fine, but we can't talk....


>>brain produces meaning.  We *don't* know that computers do.  Even if we
>>don't know *how* the brain does it, we *can* rule out ways in which it
>>doesn't, e.g., angels dancing on pinheads.  The claim being made is that
>>we have independent reasons for ruling out functionalism as well, namely,
>>that syntax is insufficient of itself to yield semantics.  The truth of this
>>claim is independent of whether we *do* know how the brain does what it does. 
>>

>Every time someone says something like this it makes me
>a little queasy. What you want to say in the above is
>"I KNOW *MY* BRAIN PRODUCES MEANING. Fuck your brain,
>because I have no evidence that it produces meaning!"
>Another thing, we cannot rule out angels dancing on
>pinheads as the cause of minds.

Well, if *you* can't rule out angels, then I don't know why you bother to
discuss the issue.  *I* can rule them out for any number of reasons (e.g.,
ontological problems). 

>	You have been accused of Solipsism in the extreme!
>How do you plead?

One does *not* have to be a solipsist to hold this position.  I am quite happy
to believe that other entities *really* have minds.  That is why I am concerned
about how one would determine such a thing.  On the other hand, those who are
happy merely to *interpret* a thing as acting *as if* it had a mind seem not
to be all that committed to the reality of minds.  

- michael




