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Article 3347 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: djoslin@jade.tufts.edu (David E. Joslin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism (was Re: Virtual Person?)
Message-ID: <1992Jan31.210153.3063@jade.tufts.edu>
Date: 31 Jan 92 21:01:53 GMT
References: <1992Jan23.015152.510@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Jan23.214130.27931@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Jan26.174822.12526@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA
Lines: 24

In article <1992Jan26.174822.12526@psych.toronto.edu> Michael Gemar writes:
>In article <1992Jan23.214130.27931@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> David Chalmers writes:
>>Strong AI predicts that *if* the functional organization is right, then
>>the system will have a mind.  But given the enormous complexity of this
>>functional organization, the probability that such functional organization
>>could be realized by chance is miniscule.  Extremely miniscule. 
>
>As I point out to Drew McDermott, I'm not so sure that such systems *would* be
>so improbable, given the enormous number of descriptions under which a given
>physical system can be described, and the infinite possibilities for grouping  
>matter into different groups.

Has anyone mentioned Putnam's proof that every finite automata is
realized in every physical system?  The proof is in the appendix to
Representation and Reality.  This may be something like what you have
in mind when you say "the enormous number of descriptions under which a
given physical system can be described."

I'm finishing up a paper critiquing Putnam's proof and the implications
he claims for it.  I would be very interested in pointers to anything
already published.  Or in discussing it further here.

David
djoslin@jade.tufts.edu


