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Article 3086 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Cargo Cult Science
Message-ID: <1992Jan23.235349.14811@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
References: <1992Jan22.181811.23990@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <16979@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan23.205220.23402@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1992 23:53:49 GMT
Lines: 22

In article <1992Jan23.205220.23402@aisb.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>I've said that the demands for definitions are a waste of time.
>And they are.  We have to remember that this is a philosophy
>group, not maths or physics.  And the demand to define is very

 Ah!  You confirm our suspicion that philosophers are intellectual
wimps who hide their ignorance behind elegant language :-( .

>What I find strange in all this is that anyone should find it
>a mystery what "understand Chinese" means.  Can these people

 There is fairly common agreement as to what constitutes understanding,
and as to how we might measure understanding in another person.
But when somebody asserts that the exact same measure of understanding
would not measure any understanding at all if applied to a machine
rather than a person, we have every right to demand a definition.

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


