From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Tue Feb 11 15:26:03 EST 1992
Article 3614 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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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: Strong AI and panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Feb10.164653.15748@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb7.013657.9690@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Feb7.223611.5980@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb10.042237.4622@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Distribution: world,local
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1992 16:46:53 GMT

In article <1992Feb10.042237.4622@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <1992Feb7.223611.5980@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>>And a Kalihari bushman might have the pretheoretical notion that
>>a wind-up toy is more causally complex than a Cray (after all, the
>>one moves and the other doesn't).  Why shouldn't we accept *this*
>>intuition as equally valid?  If all we are going to do with our formal
>>systems is confirm our intuitions, and reject systems which generate
>>conclusions contrary to our intuitions *solely* because they
>>are non-intuitive, then it seems to me that a lot of science is
>>in trouble.  (Of course, it is possible that I am missing the
>>point here.) 
>
>It's just obvious that there is a real sense of causal organization
>in which a brain has more complex organization than a simple clock.
>To deny this, you'd have to be in the grip of an ideology.  It's this
>notion of causal organization that's being formalized in the notion of
>implementation of an FSA.  As with any formalization, if a first stab
>at the definition of implementation doesn't capture the distinctions
>that we want it to, then we try again.

I have to disagree here.  Whenever I see someone say "It's just obvious that..."
I worry about *them* being in the grip of an ideology.  What we are arguing
about are intuitions.  My point is that someone who is less tutored that
us might very well have different "intuitions", which makes "intuitions"
obviously contingent upon what we already know. My question is simply why 
we should we accept one *narrow* definition of states as the *right* one?
It seems to me that the only answer offered so far is that "Well, it just
feels right...".   This is fine if we only constructing formal systems to
play around with, but is mighty suspicious for someone like me who wants to
be a realist about consciousness.  If there *is* something really out there
called consciousness, I want to know how it is produced.  To rule out the
possibility that time-dependent states can yield consciousness simply on
the basis that it makes things "cleaner" or "more intuitive" seems to me to
be working the wrong way 'round.


>>But my question is what principle a functionalist can use to 
>>distinguish between virtual environment and entity.  
>
>I don't see that any principle is needed.  Obviously, one will sometimes
>want to construe the "virtual environment" as part of a larger system,
>in which case one will draw the boundary widely.  When one wants to see
>the virtual environment as being outside a smaller system, one draws the
>boundary narrowly.  The choice is yours: there's no answer to the
>question "which is the real boundary?".

My interest in this issue comes about precisely because I *don't* see
any way in principle to separate "environment" from "entity" for
functionalism, which seems to me to be a difficulty, as how does one pick out
individual conscious entities if everything is just a mass of interacting
functions?  I certainly *feel* that I am a separate entity from the rest
of the world.  (I am speaking here only of the phenomenal experience, and
not of some absolute physical separation.)  What I would like to find out is
*how* one determines the limit of a conscious system from a purely functionalist
perspective.  

- michael
 




