From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert Mon Jan  6 10:30:21 EST 1992
Article 2475 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert
>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Ignore Searle and be happier
Message-ID: <1992Jan2.175438.20066@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
References: <1991Dec30.205355.12606@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> <1991Dec30.234440.1645@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Jan2.161407.20515@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1992 17:54:38 GMT
Lines: 39

In article <1992Jan2.161407.20515@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> petersow@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Wayne Peterson) writes:
 [Quoted very-long-line text reformatted into multiple lines]
>What does it mean for a tree to have knowledge.  Does it have will and
>wills itself toward the sun.  Does it will itself towards the water.  Or
>does this happen because of natural forces.  Would you also say that
>these natural forces have knowledge.  Gravity knows that two masses must
>attrack (or is it the masses that know there is gravity).

 The natural forces could be considered a form of knowledge, just as could
the fixed source program of a computer program.  But if so, it is a fixed
knowledge with no learning.  It was not what I was referring to in the
comment you are responding to.

 The tree has a memory.  Its growth averaged over one growing season gives it
the starting point for the next season's growth.  Using this it can generate
most of the new spring leaves where they will probably have plenty of light
in mid summer, instead of wastefully growing according to the light levels
of early spring which where the new leaves would soon be starved for light by
the growth of adjacent trees.

>I think that you have a strange concept of knowledge. But I would say that
>since you know about the tree and its behavior, you are a conscious
>being, and if the tree 
>know about its environment and its behavior then it to would be a
>conscious being.

 Well the tree has stored up knowledge about its environment and about
its optimal behavior.  I seriously doubt that it is a conscious being.

 Perhaps you don't consider that knowledge.  But then what about the
knowledge in a library?  Does it become non-knowledge when the last conscious
being leaves for the evening, and then turn back into knowledge the next
morning?  Or does the library possess its own consciousness?

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940


