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Article 4597 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals
References: <1992Mar16.224536.2719@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> <1992Mar17.110436.9937@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar18.044516.28882@nuscc.nus.sg>
Message-ID: <1992Mar18.230046.22121@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 92 23:00:46 GMT

In article <1992Mar18.044516.28882@nuscc.nus.sg> smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
>In article <1992Mar17.110436.9937@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu
>(Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>>In article <1992Mar16.224536.2719@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> 
>>santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas) writes:
>>
>>>Relevant things can be said for a cloud: One rain cloud, under
>>>certain atmospherical conditions brings rain, otherwise it
>>>moves peacefully to another place. 
>>
>>A cloud is not an agent.
>>
>Appealing as this assertion is to the intuition, I would like to pursue an
>angle for questioning it.  My theme is basically a variation on the approach
>to models which Minsky took in "Matter, Mind, and Models" (which I recently
>cited and Marvin subsequently developed).  Just as the question of whether
>or not an entity A* constitutes a model of another entity A can only be
>resolved in the context of some postulated observer B, so I would argue
>that whether or not any entity X is an agent cannot be resolved in terms
>of necessary and sufficient conditions on the attributes of X.  Rather,
>one can only address whether or not a given observer Y is attributing agency
>to X.
>
>The case of the cloud is a great example.  As far as anyone who seriously
>practices Hopi religion is concerned, a cloud is MOST DEFINITELY an agent;
>and much of Hopi ritual and ceremony is based on different aspects of agency
>attributed to clouds (particularly those clouds which are disposed to bring
>rain).  Since it seems a bit ethnocentric to dismiss the matter simply by
>asserting that the Hopi mind cannot grasp the concept of agency (just as
>others have misinterpreted Hopi behavior to assert that they could not grasp
>the concept of time), the problem seems to reside in whether or not the agency
>of a cloud has anything to do with its being a cloud.  Consequently, we can
  This is a good arguement and I am quite sympathetic to it.  However,
I think a clearer question of the Hopi indians, not contesting their 
notion of agency, is whether or not a cloud is capable of questioning or
attributing agency to the indians, or anyone in general, themselves.  IF you
would please give me an argument along these lines, I would appreciate it.
It seems that the necesary precondition for agency is its identification of
a patient.  Further, the necessary precondition for noetic agency is the
ability to question the ability for a thing to be an agent or a patient.

>Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                  P.O. Box 2386
Undergraduate in Philosophy              Stillwater, Ok  74076
Oklahoma State University                onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu


"The most abstract system of philosophy is, in its method and purpose, 
nothing more than an extremely ingenious combination of natural sounds."
                                              -- Carl G. Jung
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