From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Thu Feb 20 15:21:01 EST 1992
Article 3759 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:3759 sci.philosophy.tech:2147
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Reference (was re: Multiple Personality Disorder and Strong AI)
Keywords: consciousness,functionalism,meaning
Message-ID: <418@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 92 21:00:43 GMT
References: <1992Feb12.040025.14716@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb12.063035.15857@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Feb13.045721.29805@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb13.201109.25439@psych.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
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In article <1992Feb13.201109.25439@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
|
|  I am a 
|*realist* with regards to intentionality.  I *know* that I possess it,
|and I believe that at least other humans possess it too.  I believe that,
|contrary to what is implied above, there is an actual *fact of the matter*
|whether information processing systems have it as well.  I *don't* believe
|that it is only a matter of "taking a stance."  Atoms are real, and so
|are minds, "regardless of whether anyone is taking any stance toward them."

In general I would say that I agree with this.

|I am *happy* to assert that whether or not computers have minds like
|us is a *fact*, and not merely a stance.

Yes, and now the question is 'can computers have minds?'

I say that right now the answer is wholly unknown, and in fact at
present it is entirely *undecidable* (Searle and Penrose to the contrary).

It is only by *trying* to make such a computer that the answer can be found.
-- 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)


