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Article 4680 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar24.042009.12510@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: 24 Mar 92 04:20:09 GMT
References: <92Mar18.182726est.14357@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <1992Mar19.000544.22634@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <92Mar23.003224est.14362@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <1992Mar24.025128.9379@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
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Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
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  This is not really an original point -- Putnam says the same
thing, I think -- but bringing counterfactuals into the
picture only muddies it.  The problem, as Hofstadter very
adroitly shows in "G\"odel, Escher, Bach" and "Metamagical
Themas", is that making the condition (the "If not X" part)
of a counterfactual true requires changing some aspect of
the world, but it is often not obvious what aspect or aspects
to change.  As Hofstadter puts it, it is not obvious which
things are "slippable" and which are not.

  Consider the aphorism, "If wishes were horses, beggars
would ride."  A clever aphorism, no doubt, but is it
true?  Is is *objectively* true?  I think most people would
agree that the question is nonsense.  Nevertheless it is
a well-formed counterfactual.  If some well-formed counterfactuals
are capable of being objectively true and others are not,
how do we tell the difference?  

  This is a problem you must deal with before you can get
away with requiring counterfactual conditions in order to
attribute intelligence or consciousness.

	-- Bill


