From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Wed Feb  5 11:56:20 EST 1992
Article 3410 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <1992Feb2.193357.24635@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <5009@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil>
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1992 19:33:57 GMT

In article <5009@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil> ntm1836@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil (Ken Burch) writes:


>The point is that some day we probably _will_ discover how intelligence
>and consciousness work.  If you feel that there is something inherently 
>unknowable about the mechanisms of intelligence and consciousness, or
>that intelligence and consciousness are not based on mechanical processes,
>then please elaborate.

Well, I'm happy to share *my* views.  I don't about "intelligence", because
no one seems to agree on what it means, but as for consciousness, I don't
have any confidence *at all* that it will be explainable in terms of
mechanical means.  I believe this because I don't think we have the
slightest idea what it would mean to "explain" consciousness (the term
seems to me to mean something rather different than when applied to
explanations of more traditionally physical phenomena), *and* we will have
*no idea* how to judge our success (there is no way of *testing* an
explanation).     

A simpler way of putting it is that 1) I see no way of getting the
subjective into the objective, and 2) no way of knowing when you have.

- michael



