From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Thu Feb 20 15:21:05 EST 1992
Article 3766 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: Reference (was re: Multiple Personality Disorder and Strong AI)
Message-ID: <1992Feb15.162918.3699@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: consciousness,functionalism,meaning
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb13.045721.29805@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb13.201109.25439@psych.toronto.edu> <418@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1992 16:29:18 GMT

In article <418@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>
>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.

No, it's not the only way. One can prove that that computer could not
have a mind, because they are lacking some necessary feature, just as
one can prove that some substance is not, say, water, because it does
not do something that any substance containing water must do. This is
what Searle and Penrose have attempted, and it's at least as legitimate
(and twice as interesting) as all the block-moving robots in the universe.

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