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Article 4271 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Mar05.023618.5197@norton.com>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
References: <6306@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1992 02:36:18 GMT
Lines: 30

jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
> In article <1992Feb25.105322.24546@norton.com> brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:
> >> How do you know that rock-based FSAs don't manipulate *virtual* worlds?   

> > This is nonsense. Arbitrary positions such as the one that rocks are
> > intelligent should not be considered "possible"...they should be
> > tossed out as meaningless.  Of course I can't prove that there are not
> > intelligent processes going on inside rocks, but then you can't expect
> > me to prove negatives like that anyway. Where's your evidence that
> > rocks have any intelligence?  Until you can come up with some, you
> > have no business claiming that they might have some.
 
> So is this the official Objectivist view?

In essence yes.  Do you disagree with it?
 
> (Clues for Rand spotters: the claim that w/o evidence a position
> is "arbitrary" and not possible.  Reliance on "can't expect me to
> prove a negative".)

"Arbitrary" as used by objectivists does not exactly mean "not possible", but
something more like "non-cognitive", "empty", or "useless".

--Brian

-- 
-- Brian K. Yoder (brian@norton.com) - Q: What do you get when you cross     --
-- Peter Norton Computing Group      -    Apple & IBM?                       --
-- Symantec Corporation              - A: IBM.                               --
--


