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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: <1992Mar29.144854.10432@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 29 Mar 92 19:48:50 GMT
References: <1992Mar26.034816.29572@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> 
 <1992Mar28.100350.10367@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar29.003736.25807@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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In article <1992Mar29.003736.25807@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes: 

>In article <1992Mar28.100350.10367@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes: 

MZ:
>>Irrelevant.  Although ideally we would like to get a trace that is both
>>Eulerian and Hamiltonian, this is only desirable for aesthetic reasons.
>>Your automaton needn't have a connected graph, for all I care: just pick a
>>selection of initial states and input strings exhaustive of all of its
>>combinatorial possibilities, and string their traces together.

DC:
>This won't work.  Between consecutive traces, there will be a
>discontinuity at which your "implementation" makes a state-transition
>that is disallowed by the table.

Not a big deal: given the original motivation for input limitation, we can
just shove in a terminal state for each trace, to separate the alternative
life-cycles. 

DC:
>>>See above.  I should note that even if such a sequence were possible,
>>>it still wouldn't provide an adequate correspondence of logical
>>>states to physical states.  e.g. take a 2-state, 2-input machine, such
>>>that we want the state/input pair (S1,I1) to lead to S1, and (S1,I2) to
>>>lead to S2.  Following the above means of construction, logical state
>>>S1 will correspond to the disjunctive physical state P1-or-P2.  The
>>>construction here will ensure that the combination (P1,I1) will lead to
>>>a state realizing S1, and that (P2,I2) will lead to a state realizing
>>>S2.  However, it ensures nothing about the behaviour upon the
>>>combinations (P1,I2) and (P2, I1) (which never come up in the actual
>>>sequence), and so cannot guarantee the appropriate transitions, i.e. 
>>>that (P1-or-P2,I1) leads to a state realizing S1, and that (P1-or-P2)
>>>leads to a state realizing S2.  So counterfactual sensitivity is still
>>>lacking.

MZ:
>>Once I actualize all state transitions in the machine's table, your
>>"counterfactual sensitivity" will be accounted for.

DC:
>I note that this doesn't address the substance of my objection.  It
>probably doesn't matter much, as that objection was made under the
>assumption that you, following Putnam, were mapping inputs to inputs
>and states to states ("the relevant remarks on p. 124" can only be
>read that way).  Your exchange with Joseph O'Rourke has made it
>clear that in fact you're mapping both inputs and states of the FSA
>simultaneously onto internal states of the rock, which may as well
>be entirely causally disconnected from the outside world.

This is just what I am proposing to do.

DC:
>This is an audacious strategy; if one allowed such mappings, then
>anything might follow.  But of course one cannot map inputs this
>way.  I quote Putnam himself, on p. 124:
>
>  The inputs and outputs have certain constrained realizations,
>  or at least their realizations must be of certain constrained
>  kinds depending on our purposes; usually we are not allowed
>  to simply *pick* physical states to serve as their realizations,
>  as we are allowed to do with the so-called "logical states" of
>  the automaton.
>
>As your argument violates one of Putnam's basic assumptions, there's
>no use trying to pretend that it's a version of his argument.

Not so.  Read on, and you will discover that Putnam allows to subsume
inputs into the state descriptions in a way wholly compatible with my
suggestion, by discussing an input-free machine behaving exactly as if it
had the inputs in question.

DC:
>As I said in a previous message, the required constraints on
>inputs and outputs are themselves a matter for debate, but at
>the very least they have to be *inputs* -- i.e. they have to
>supervene on a distinct region from that on which the internal
>states supervene.  Which your "inputs" manifestly fail to do.

You being a self-professed "reluctant dualist" might find a way around this
one, but for materialists like Dennett and Churchland, the very distinction
between inputs originating in the external world, outputs going into it,
and internal states, is altogether spurious.  Putnam, with his "internal
realism", will likewise be able to make the requisite distinction; yet he
is in no way obligated to grant it to his opponent.

DC:
>(In fact, your construction has the strange property that given
>the state and input at any given time, not only is the next
>state determined, but the next input is too.  Most unusual.)

I made it while wearing my fatalist hat.  If this really bothers you, feel
free to amend it by feeding the inputs one at a time.  Same difference.

MZ:
>>Again, I wish you had
>>addressed my modal objections instead of jumping to conclusions.

DC:
>If you wish to argue that strong conditionals can never have
>determinate truth values, then good luck to you.  If you succeed,
>it won't just be functionalism that falls.  (What was it that
>Einstein said about "*if* a body is traveling at half the speed
>of light..."?)  The conditionals invoked here are as innocuous
>as they come, being truth-functionally determined by simpler
>conditionals concerning the behaviour of objects whose maximal
>states and environmental conditions are specified; physical laws
>are enough to determine the truth-values here.  And the problems
>with haecettism are no worse here than they are with conditionals
>like "if I flip the switch on the lamp, then it will turn on".
>Pardon me for not being too worried about them.

It is my express policy never to ask anyone to go in too deep, while
lacking an adequate supply of oxygen.  Note however, that Einstein's
conditional depends only on physical necessity, whilst your own relies on
the mathematically contingent relation between logical and physical laws.
Moreover, your functionalist edifice calls into question the modal strength
of all human sciences.  You may recall Dummett's example of a man who dies
without ever having faced danger; Dummett concludes that the question of
his courage has no determinate truth-value.  Not so under your theory,
which calls for individuation of a certain class of *logically* possible
mental states, allegedly necessarily possessed by all human minds,
regardless of their (presumably contingent) individual personalities.  

Note that haecceitism is very much an issue here: you have to be able to
uniquely identify yourself in a possible world where your individual
characteristics are evenly distributed among any number of putative
counterparts.  

MZ:
>>For the third time, I ask that you
>>formally publish your answer to Putnam's argument, or cease claiming that
>>it has no force against functionalism.

DC:
>I'm not interested in publishing trivialities.  If I published a
>reply to every bad argument that I came across in the literature,
>it would yield nothing but a padded resume.  It's not impossible
>that I'll publish a substantial piece on computation and
>implementation one of these days, but if I do, it will need a
>lot more than a refutation of Putnam to justify its existence.

It's too bad you set a lower standard of excellence for Internet banter
than you do for formal expression.  To my uneducated mind, it appears as a
regrettable lack of commitment to your stated views.  If this is such a
trivial matter, why bother to say anything at all?

>-- 
>Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
>Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
>"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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