Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.psychology,rec.arts.books,comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.sprintlink.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Chomsky on Consciousness and Dennett
Message-ID: <D9I8oK.5oA@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <JMC.95May27130706@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <3qcjke$lps@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca> <3qdjlf$sn7@pilot.njin.net> <3qf6ap$142i@locutus.rchland.ibm.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 17:31:32 GMT
Lines: 27
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:39676 sci.psychology:42373 comp.ai.philosophy:28505

In article <3qf6ap$142i@locutus.rchland.ibm.com>,
Scott Inglett <singlett@atticus.rchland.ibm.com> wrote:
..........
>And I do understand your point.  We can only describe 
>mathematically how it works.  I'm simply impatient with
>the notion that the turing test is sufficient.  It 
>certainly doesn't describe mathematically how awareness
>works.   It's asking me to have faith.
>
Isn't a view that it is possible, in principle, to "describe mathematically 
how awareness works" a pure, unadulterated, faith? Or perhaps you have some
evidence for it? 
Note also that, for instance, a high body temeperature has long been considered
as evidence for sickness, even though no one has been able to describe 
mathematically how the two are connected. Sticking to your standards would put
a lot of natural sciences out of business.

>-- 
>
>-Scott


-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
