From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Thu Jan 16 17:21:44 EST 1992
Article 2719 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle and the Chinese Room
Message-ID: <5980@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Jan 92 21:56:43 GMT
References: <1991Dec5.210724.12480@cs.yale.edu> <1991Dec8.192843.6951@psych.toronto.edu> <1991Dec11.170157.27053@cs.yale.edu> <1991Dec11.203452.9419@psych.toronto.edu> <317@tdatirv.UUCP> <5913@skye.ed.ac.uk> <364@tdatirv.UUCP> <5942@skye.ed.ac.uk> <366@td
atirv.UUCP>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 50

In article <366@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <5942@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>|In article <364@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>|>In article <5913@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>|>|Is that really suppose to be all there is to a person, a set of
>|>|behaviors, memories, and attitudes?
>|>
>|>That is really all that can be *verified* to exist from the outside.
>|
>|Memories are verified from outside?
>
>Yes.  In school we called this process 'taking exams' or 'taking tests'. :-)

All that shows is that certain behavior can be produced.  Whether
it's produced with the aid of memories or by some other means is
not shown.

>I am not talking about whether bodies are somthing that needs to be studied
>to understand people, I am talking about whether the body is part of what
>makes a 'person' an individual.  If my memories, attitudes and behavior
>patterns could be transfered to another body, would I still be me?
>
>If so, then the body is not part of what it means to be a person.

What if the body you're transferred to has to be another human
body?

>|>Thus that is all that has any scientific relevance.  Anything else
>|>is, at present, merely unfounded speculation or philosophical bias.
>|
>|I see.  So if it can't be verified, it must be unfounded
>|speculation or bias?
>
>Hmm, I was having a hard time finding a good terminology here.  I am trying
>to express the idea that it is not *scientific*.  What is the opposite
>of 'scientific'?

Evidently you think that, whatever it is, it must be pretty losing
stuff.  You might also want to consider why Positivism is no longer
considered a viable philosophical position.

>|>It may exist, but there is no way of telling.
>|
>|And so, what, exactly?
>
>So, if it is not verifiable even in theory, it has no place in a scientific
>discipline, like AI research.  Science must restrict itself to the verifiable,
>since that is what it is competent at dealing with.

You may have noticed that there is a newsgroup called comp.ai.philosophy.


