From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!hri.com!noc.near.net!nic.umass.edu!dime!orourke Tue Mar 24 09:54:22 EST 1992
Article 4353 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!hri.com!noc.near.net!nic.umass.edu!dime!orourke
>From: orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <44548@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 9 Mar 92 13:41:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: dime.44548
References: <1992Mar5.171258.11467@oracorp.com> <44388@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Mar6.175338.6099@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu
Reply-To: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Lines: 18

In article <1992Mar6.175338.6099@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> 
bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:

  >In article <44388@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
  >orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

  >>	This description of [Daryl's] hypothetical situation closely resembles 
  >>the very real phenomenon of a petit mal epileptic seizure. 

>No -- during a petit mal seizure the victim shows something like
>"absence" -- freezing, staring blankly ahead, not talking.[...] And there is
>also usually loss of memory for what happened during the seizure.

	Perhaps this varies from individual to individual, but a friend
who suffers from epilepsy tells me (and he is informed by his
neurologist) that he is conscious during his seizures, that he does
not miss what is going on.  His motor functions do freeze, however, just
as you describe.


