From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Fri Jan 31 10:26:32 EST 1992
Article 3217 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism (was Re: Virtual Person?)
Message-ID: <1992Jan28.155259.1621@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Jan22.213820.20784@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan23.015152.510@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Jan23.145612.154@lrc.edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1992 15:52:59 GMT

In article <1992Jan23.145612.154@lrc.edu> lehman_ds@lrc.edu writes:

>  Strong AI does NOT claim that just anything could be a mind as you seem to
>imply it does.  AI is the processes of reasoning that formulates a rational
>(or irrational depending upon your view of a given subject) response to
>a given premise.

I think you are confusing the *approach* of AI with the *philosophical
claims* that it makes.  I may very well be wrong, but *my* understanding is that
Strong AI argues that the *only* aspect of matter that is responsible for
consciousness/subjective experience/producing minds is the *functional*
relations present in that matter.  If this is the case, then the matter doesn't
matter, so to speak, only how it is "arranged".  This scenario does indeed
lead to the conclusion, as other Strong AI supporters here have agreed, that
*anything* (given the proper functional relations) could be a mind.

- michael 



