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Article 5028 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Message-ID: <9zsjc3f.kmc@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 10:02:04 GMT
Organization: Moderan: No Cracks or Sagging
References: <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr6.224129.7406@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu>
Lines: 52

In article <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

>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.  

>
>I believe this is a notion borrowed from Rosch, who borrowed it not
>entirely accurately from Wittgenstein.  Moreover, I believe it is
>fundamentally misguided, for reasons that I borrow from Stevan Harnad.
>They go, roughly, like this: the simple fact that we have trouble
>definitively classifying some objects does not imply that they are
>not definitively classifiable. 

Are you saying that a correct classification always exists, but some
people don't know it, or that it is possible to _make_ the classifying
concept complete by assigning a classification as needed?

>Nor does it imply that they have some
>sort of graded classification. It simply means that we have trouble
>classifying it.  When we say that we're not sure, e.g., whether a
>preist is a bachelor, we are not saying, a la Rosch, that he is 80%
>bachelor or some such nonsense.

What are we saying then?  That there is One True and Correct
classification, but we just aren't sure what it is, or that if need be
some suitable 'expert' can simply decide one way or another in order
to have the question settled?

With regard to this notion of 'having a mind', do you believe that

1) A gamete has a mind?
2) A human being (call her Jane) who can read and write has a mind?
3) If the answers to 1) and 2) were no and yes, that there is some
   specific point in time in the history of Jane between 1) and 2) 
   at which Jane acquired a mind she didn't used to have?

The answers I would give are 1) no 2) yes 3) no.  Not only do I have
difficulty deciding whether Jane has a mind at every time t, I suspect
that question has no good answer. My difficulty is not just with lack
of any effective means to make a determination in Jane's particular
case, but with the very notion that there can be a well-defined
two-valued function of time.

Would you please walk through this argument from Harnad a little more
carefully?
-- 
Kevin McCarty                   kmc@netcom.COM
                                {amdahl,claris}!netcom!kmc


