Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Chinese Room debunked
Message-ID: <DAn5op.F8H@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <3s9vdq$bru@news.tamu.edu> <3sceu9$4d6@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <DALH90.7oM@spss.com> <3sd7e6$kpa@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 19:48:25 GMT
Lines: 56

In article <3sd7e6$kpa@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,
Gary Forbis  <forbis@cac.washington.edu> wrote:
............
>I'm not sure I claimed implementation independence introduced immaterial 
>substances.  Rather I was suggesting that implementation independence 
>introduces material indeterminacy.  How can we deduce we are made of 
>hydorcarbon molecules if there are no mental differences between being made of
>hydrocarbon molecules and silicon molecules?  

Maybe in a somewhat analogous way that a material of which weights are made
does not make any difference to their functioning? Why do we need to be made
of carbon molecules to be able to differentiate between them and silicon
molecules? Could you explain a reasoning behind this requirement?

>............................................Why even propose there are these
>different substances unless there is some phenomenological difference?  Maybe

??? If being made of carbon molecules we can propose that there are different
substances, presumably we could also do it if we were made of silicon 
molecules, couldn't we? And if we were made of something yet something else,
is there any reason to think that we would not be able to propose that there
are diffeent substances? Consequently, I do not see how being made of 
molecules of a specific type is relevent to being able to differentiate
between different substances. Could be more explicit how you arrived at 
the above query?

>we suppose that substances external to the system experiencing the world
>are distinguishable but substances internal to the system are 
>indistinguishable.
>I don't know.  It's hard for me to believe that the matierial most intimate
>to me is inconsequential to my mental existance but more remote material has
>effects.  What is being proposed here?
>
What is proposed is the same that makes it largely irrelevant for a person
with an artificial limb what substance it is made of, as long as it functions
the same way.
............
>What's being proposed is that there is a formal system that defines me such
>that I cannot tell the difference between being implemented as a brain
>in a body in the world and being implemented as a program interacting with
>other programs in a computer.  How does this differ from solipsism?  Is
>solipsism compatable with materialism?
>
You seem to understand solipsism in a way different than (I think) it is
usually defined. Even if you were a program running on a computer and 
interacting with other programs, there would be a world outside yourself,
over which you would not have control. 
>-- 
>--gary forbis@u.washington.edu

Andrzej
-- 
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
