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Article 3933 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: petersow@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Wayne Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Aristotelian Ontology and AI
Message-ID: <1992Feb22.191412.4446@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com>
Date: 22 Feb 92 19:14:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: saifr00.1992Feb22.191412.4446
References: <436@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Feb21.143640.13134@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> <1992Feb21.213124.3895@a.cs.okstate.edu>
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Charles Onstott III = CO3
Wayne Peterson = WP

CO3:
  In this way there are operating here two types of "is."  An ontological
'is' and an epistemological 'is.'  I think that it is these ises(wow) that
get confused and conflated, even equivocated, frequently in CERTAIN 
research programs. 
>
WP:
I have another is for you it is the existential is.  This is the most 
dangerous is of them all.  It can negate both the ontological and the
epistemological is with an is not.  It is this is that makes truth
so elusive because what is may only exist relative to what is
not.

I dreamt that my brother was a vampire.  I stood over his body
lying in a coffin with a mallet and stake.  I debated "Should I
kill my own brother, or let a vampire run loose (exercising
of course my free will)." I choose the existential is not and
woke up. There is no vampire and there is no decision to make.

Now in the existential is not, all ontological and epistemological
ises are possible for in the end they are not.

So yes there can be other shadows on the wall that seem intelligent
just like our shadow, yet not be intelligent, but how intelligent
are we to stay in the cave content to follow the shadow, or debate
about the existance of the shadows for the existential is not (chaos)
shall make what is, not.

CO3:
Also to our comment above about my pursuing the biological approach:
I am a philosopher and not a research scientist, and do not intend
to pragmatically research AI.  Rather I am trying to ensure that AI
as a science remains as such.  The most scientific approach that AI
can take is a biological one where we go from the brain itself to 
a model of intelligence not the reverse (ie from a model of intelligence,
like Newell, to the brain.)

WP:
I am glad that you know who you are.  I dont have the slightest idea
who I am.  I once thought that I was a philosopher, the government
then decided that I was a soldier.  Then first chance I decided that
I was a teacher (who will pay a philosopher?).  Students were
eventually replaced by computers.  It is easier to teach a computer
than a student. Computers do what they are told--eventually.  But these 
are only my ontological and epistemological identities which shall
soon be undone by my existential what is not.

Where is the brain in all this.  I have a brother who IS a
neural surgeon.  He has disected the brain and has yet to
find the mind.  He is starting to believe that it doesnt exist.
What is more he has no inkling where consciousness is (perhaps it
is because all his patients are unconscious).  He would not
presume to assert that intelligence is found in the brain
nor would he say that it is not.  

If we wait for science to tell us the answer to fundamental
questions, we better live a long time and be very patient.  For
science can never find the existential is and discern the is not.
It is hopelessly lost in the shadows.

Wayne Peterson

"What good is science, It does not even know what happens to you
when you die."   Bob Prokup  Science Student


