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Article 3581 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: MUST Philosopy be a Waste of Time?
Message-ID: <1992Feb07.025609.4820@norton.com>
Date: 7 Feb 92 02:56:09 GMT
References: <1992Feb4.212941.6125@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
Lines: 69

christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
> >In article <1992Feb01.030627.520@norton.com> brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:

> >>Excuse me, but why should anyone care about "possiblities" which you can't
> >>demonstrate are possible?  
 
> You a sorely equivocating on the meaning of "possible".  Possible, as used
> by the philosopher has to do with *logical* possibility, not whether or not
> something is likely to happen.

Actually, I have some disputes over the use of "possible" as it relates to the
alleged difference between either truth & falsehood (as proposed by those who
say that all knowledge is probabilistic) or between analytic and synthetic
statements.  I would be interested in defling into this issue further if you 
are.
 
> >>You are saying here that the purpose of
> >>philosophy is to study things that never come up in reality (chinese
> >>rooms, duplicator machines for people, time machines, etc.). 

> Not to put too blunt a point on it, you completely misunderstand the purpose
> of philosophy.  It is not to discuss the non-actual for its own sake, but
> to consider the implications of various ideas in order to determine if
> they are (or even might be) true.  

I'm not opposed to an occasional hypothetical situation to illuminate a point
and if anything, I probably do this more than I should myself.  In Peter's
case however, he explicitly claimed that his discussion doesn't lead to the
illumination of any real questions and that there is no practical use for his
discussion (look it up if you don't believe me).

> For instance, we talk about Searle's
> "Chinese room" not because we want to, or even think it likely that we
> could, build one (aside: people who argue against the possibility of
> a set of rules that would allow one to speak Chinese like a native
> miss this point; if you think its impossible, then you're already
> committed to Searle's conclusion), we study it becuase if he's right,
> then it is false -- a priori (i.e., before even having to examine evidence) --
> to believ that a computer can be considered to be a mind. THAT'S the
> important point; not whether a "Chinese room" is a likely eventuality.

I don't consider the chinese room example to be outside consideration as an
interesting way of explaining what computers do (although I think that this 
has taken on a life of it's own and has already been beaten to death, and suffers
from Searle's general limited view of what a computer is which is a problem that
deserves more attention than the composition of the chinese room).
 
> >> I have to
> >>ask...why should someone with such a definition want to bother with
> >>philosophy?  I certainly don't accept your idea of the purpose of
> >>philosophy and therefore I see good reasons to study it.  You on the other
> >>hand don't have any such excuse.

> I have no idea what you're on about here. Unlike the (good) philosopher,
> you seem to equivocate woefully on the words you use. What might "I don't
> *accept* your idea of the purpose of philosophy" mean. 

This is because of Peter's earlier comment that I should leave this news group
if I thought that philosophy had to bring some benefits since philosophy (in
his view) has none.  My response was that on this view (that philosophy is
useless) he himself should give up philosophy.  Since I don't share that idea
I have nothing to gain from studying philosophy, I (until and unless someone
proves to me I am wrong) have no reason to leave.  Does that make sense to you now?

-- 
-- Brian K. Yoder (brian@norton.com) - Q: What do you get when you cross     --
-- Peter Norton Computing Group      -    Apple & IBM?                       --
-- Symantec Corporation              - A: IBM.                               --
--


