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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar24.231518.10230@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 25 Mar 92 04:15:16 GMT
References: <1992Mar24.051654.18747@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Mar24.112548.10215@husc3.harvard.edu> <45390@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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In article <45390@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>In article <1992Mar24.112548.10215@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
> >...as I've said earlier, all
> >that remains to be done is to interpret the states of Putnam's automaton as
> >ordered pairs <state, input> of a FSA (cf. the relevant comments on p.124);
> >follow this by running through enough input/state combinations to exhaust
> >the finite combinatorial possibilities afforded by the machine's table.
> >Finally, you do the mapping.  In this way, there will be no counterfactual
> >possibilities left unaccounted for.  Just string all possible traces
> >together in a sequential order.  Given the original context of determining
> >the theoretical validity of functionalism, the requisite bound on input
> >length is easily obtained on the basis of temporal limitations on the
> >length of human life.

JO'R:
>First, I think that the need for truncating traces to a finite length
>is a serious flaw, in spite of your justification for this move.  It
>means that the rock doesn't realize the FSA: it realizes some other
>FSA which is equivalent on inputs of length < n.

That's all we need to show to arrive at Putnam's conclusion.

JO'R
>	But that aside, my second objection is that your scheme does
>not have the desirable feature that the rock behaves in different
>ways depending upon the input, as does the FSA it is supposedly
>realizing.  Because you have absorbed the inputs into states, which
>are spread out over time, the sense of a machine responding to variable
>inputs is totally lost.  Let's face it:  your rock doesn't realize or
>implement the FSA in an interesting sense.  It just sits there, whereas
>the FSA is active: it responds to the input.  I can't believe this
>nearly vacuous sense of realization has any philosophical implications.

I don't believe you are saying this seriously, but I'll bite.  Please give
me a precise definition of the essential difference between "just sitting
there", and "actively responding to the input".

JO'R:
>	What seems to be needed is a mapping of FSA states to the rock
>so that some physical parameter (say temperature) corresponds to the 
>FSA input.  I have thought about this a bit, but haven't seen a
>way to rescue Putnam.  If your patch is his only savings, the force
>is gone.

You could get fancy in any number of ways, but that is really unnecessary.
There is no identifiable difference between input and internal states, as
any such difference would depend on the identity conditions of material
objects, a classic piece of philosophical insolubilia.  Just say that the
rock that's "just sitting there" is busily manipulating virtual realities.


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