From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Wed Feb  5 11:55:38 EST 1992
Article 3339 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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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
Message-ID: <1992Jan31.190338.25107@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: panpsychism
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Jan28.153645.5237@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan28.164410.9509@psych.toronto.edu> <21879@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1992 19:03:38 GMT

In article <21879@life.ai.mit.edu> minsky@transit.ai.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>In article <1992Jan28.164410.9509@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>>When people say "I *think* consciousness is just tomfoolery" I begin to
>>wonder if they aren't simply being slying ironic.  Either that or completely
>>confused about the meaning of terms.  Minsky is reputed to have said
>>"I don't believe in belief." (I suppose, since he posts here, he can confirm
>>whether this is true.)  Such statements I find completely incoherent.
>
>>- michael
>
>Yes, because of being several times removed from their contexts.  What
>I've said about "belief" in a philosophical context was that the idea
>that "Jack believes X" is not a reasonable thing to discuss formally.
>(For example, in the context of "believes" vs. "knows".) Simply
>because the human mind is not a simple data-base plus processor, or
>axiom-set plus -rule(s) of inference.  Instead, the situation normally
>is much more complex, one part of your mind (one ensemble of agencies)
>maintaining one assumption, justification, protected-goal, etc., while
>other parts are denying , rejecting, suppressing, opposing, etc.
>corresponding positions.  Thus you can love/dislike, etc.  There isn't
>simply a person/homunculus inside your head, but a big
>self-conflicting organization.

Thank you for the clarification, and I apologise if I quoted you out
of context (that was the way I heard the quote).  I think that your conception
of belief is wrong, at least for many beliefs, but I'll leave that for another
time. 

>As for "consciousness" the situation is worse.  There are lots of
>mental phenomena sometimes called by that name, but so far as I can
>see, what they mostly share in common is
>_short_term_memories_about_recent_mental_states.  I don't believe that
>we are in any deep sense "self-aware"; we have virtually no sense of
>where our words come from, or how we walk, or how we see, etc.  We do
>remember that we recently smiled, etc., and this is very useful.  It
>keeps you, for example, from getting into wastefully repetitive loops.
>But "reflective" short term memories -- records of recent mental
>states that can be used as uinputs to other processes -- have many
>other uses, and (surely) many different mechanisms with different
>evolutionary histories and functions.  So as far as I'm concerned, it
>is the use of this word, as though it represents anything important,
>e.g., some irreducible attribute of mind -- that has kept philosophy,
>since the time of Kant, from contributing important insights to
>psychology.

But the whole notion of *mental* states (as opposed to physical or
functional states) *presumes* some sort of phenomenal component that
might just as well be call consciousness as anything else.  Otherwise
how do we know that they are mental, and how do we know what states
we are talking about?  My immune system has many states, and 
even has "memories" to an exent.  Yet I would not ascribe mental states
to my immune system, and only use the term "memories" metaphorically
(I know that some people, such as Dave Chalmers, might ascribe mental
states to my immune system, but then he doesn't deny the meaningfulness
of the term "consciousness").  It seems that to be able to even
*talk* of recent "mental" events  requires a notion of consciousness.

- michael




