From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Thu Feb 20 15:20:31 EST 1992
Article 3705 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Reference (was re: Multiple Personality Disorder and Strong AI)
Message-ID: <1992Feb13.201109.25439@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: consciousness,functionalism,meaning
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb12.040025.14716@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb12.063035.15857@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Feb13.045721.29805@cs.yale.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1992 20:11:09 GMT

In article <1992Feb13.045721.29805@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott) writes:
>
>
>Clearly, there has to be a sense in which atoms are real regardless of
>whether anyone is taking any stance toward them.  And information
>processing is just as real, in spite of the attempts by people like
>Searle (and Gemar, I think) to argue that whether a system is an
>information processor is purely up to human observers (who confer
>derived intentionality on it).

Wait just a minute here!  As the "Gemar" referred to in this quote,
I want to make sure that my position isn't mispresented.  I am a 
*realist* with regards to intentionality.  I *know* that I possess it,
and I believe that at least other humans possess it too.  I believe that,
contrary to what is implied above, there is an actual *fact of the matter*
whether information processing systems have it as well.  I *don't* believe
that it is only a matter of "taking a stance."  Atoms are real, and so
are minds, "regardless of whether anyone is taking any stance toward them."

I am also not so sure that I would agree that it is simply up to human
observers to decide whether a system is processing information.  If
we are talking about Shannon and Weaver-type "information," sans
semantic content (heck, without any content of any kind), then I 
think that "information processing" can be objectively defined
independent of observers.  It's when semantics creeps in through
the back door that I begin to complain.

I am *happy* to assert that whether or not computers have minds like
us is a *fact*, and not merely a stance.  Indeed, it seems to me that it
is the *functionalists* who insist on stances and description-relative
truths when talking of minds.

(As far as I understand him, Searle seems to hold a similar view.  At
least, he is a realist about mental states.)

- michael



