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Article 4125 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: c89ponga@odalix.ida.liu.se (Pontus Gagge)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Feb27.234044.15194@ida.liu.se>
Date: 27 Feb 92 23:40:44 GMT
References: <1992Feb21.162210.29101@oracorp.com> <1992Feb23.231152.17186@ida.liu.se> <1992Feb24.175920.16996@psych.toronto.edu>
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michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:

>In article <1992Feb23.231152.17186@ida.liu.se> c89ponga@odalix.ida.liu.se (Pontus Gagge) writes:

>[in response to "Rocks may implement FSAs, but we can't interface (communicate)
> with them]

>>The concept of there being vast universa of intelligences "locked up" 
>>in common rocks; unable to communicate with or affect the physical world, 
>>is somewhat staggering. We are truly priviliged to belong to that class
>>of intelligences which can manipulate the world. 

>How do you know that rock-based FSAs don't manipulate *virtual* worlds?   

And how do I know that solipsism is false? I do not. It is merely
not a very useful philosophy. Likewise, why should I care about the
virtual worlds of rock DFA:s?

>>I think you have the correct way of dealing with it: as we cannot 
>>communicate with them, or even detect their existence, it is best to 
>>ignore them, and constrain our definition of existence accordingly. 

>This is just putting your head in the sand, or (to use another metaphor)
>having your cake and eating it too.  If we are to take the implications of
>functionalism seriously *and* if we accept Putnam's proof as sound, then
>we seem to have no choice but to believe that there are minds which exist
>which we can't *currently* contact.  To say that we can therefore, however,
>disregard their possible existence is morally questionable.  I can't
>communicate with a mute quadraplegic, yet it is certainly the case that
>I have an ethical responsibility to treat such a person as at least a
>*potential* moral agent, since I have good reason to believe that the
>person has a mind.  Similarly, *if* I believed that rocks and computers and
>ecosystems and bunches of galaxies all instantiated minds, I would be
>just as obligated to view these things as moral entities as well, even if
>I am unable to communicate with them.

How do you treat an entity as a moral agent? By interacting with it/him/her.
But we are fundamentaly (not just currently) unable to interact with
the infinitudes of rock DFA:s; we can merely affect *our* world. If
I split a rock in two, does it mean that the DFA:s disappear? No,
since by Putnam's argument, there will exist mappings from the 
halves to any DFA:s that were mapped from the original rock. Thus, 
how have I interacted with it?

>Just as an editorial aside, it seems to me that AI supporters for the most
>part only want to attribute either "minds" or "moral importance" to 
>computers, and not other functionally equivalent entities.  It is important
>to realize that if one is truely committed to functionalism, it doesn't
>matter whether the functions are instantiated in a fancy collection of
>silicon or a big lump of granite.  

But it does matter. I cannot query (at least not get answers) from the
lump of granite; whereas I could talk to a silicon AI. We must remain
in our own world.

The rock DFA:s are as removed from us as are the "parallell" worlds,
or other possibilities in the universal wave-function, according to
that interpretation of QM.


--
/-------------------------+-------- DISCLAIMER ---------\
| Pontus Gagge            | The views expressed herein  |
| University of Link|ping | are compromises between my  |
|                         | mental subpersonae, and may |
| c89ponga@und.ida.liu.se | be held by none of them.    |
\-------------------------+-----------------------------/


