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Article 4126 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: <1992Feb27.234426.15268@ida.liu.se>
Date: 27 Feb 92 23:44:26 GMT
References: <1992Feb24.175920.16996@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb25.105322.24546@norton.com>
Sender: news@ida.liu.se
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
Lines: 43

brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:

>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?   

>This is nonsense. Arbitrary positions such as the one that rocks are intelligent
>should not be considered "possible"...they should be tossed out as meaningless.
>Of course I can't prove that there are not intelligent processes going on inside
>rocks, but then you can't expect me to prove negatives like that anyway. Where's
>your evidence that rocks have any intelligence?  Until you can come up with some,
>you have no business claiming that they might have some.

Yes, this is essentially the argument I supported. We should limit terms such
as "intelligence" to be valid only for entities we can interact with.

> 
>> It
>> >reminds one of the idea of there being "parallel" worlds (as in QM 
>> >many worlds/global wave-function) which are equally inaccessible.
> 
>It is very important to differentiate between epistemological "worlds" and 
>metaphysical ones.  It's the same difference as that between a pink elephant
>in my imagination and one in reality.  Don't get the two confused.

Confusing them, I think, is exactly what I am *not* doing. I am arguing
metaphysical apartheid (!).
--
/-------------------------+-------- 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.    |
\-------------------------+-----------------------------/


