From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Mon Mar  9 18:32:49 EST 1992
Article 4038 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb26.170232.8676@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb25.011840.24663@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1992Feb25.184610.5199@psych.toronto.edu> <43956@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1992 17:02:32 GMT

In article <43956@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>In article <1992Feb25.184610.5199@psych.toronto.edu> 
>	christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>
>>If you really want your argument to rely wholly on the very dubious 
>>assumption that there are, somehow, two minds running around inside
>>the man's head, feel free, but the utter tendentiousness of the claim
>>is patently obvious to everyone not committed a priori to the belief
>>that computers JUST GOTTA have minds.
>
>	It is not patently obvious to me, and I don't *think* I have
>committed a priori to that belief.  Can you explain why it is patently
>obvious to you, or is it so obvious that it is beyond explanation?
>	Let me give you three reasons why it is not absurd to me that
>the system might have different properties than the mind that memorized
>and blindly executes the rules:

You have misread me. What is obvious is the tendentiousness of the claim.
And I did explain it. It falls as clearly as any claim I've seen put forward 
into the category described by Lakatos.

>
>	1. The mind that memorized is not at all like the mind
>	of a normal human.  It is vastly more powerful in several
>	ways.  

You beggeed the question by using the phrase, "the mind that memorized".

>	2. Our own minds house capabilities of which we have little
>	direct awareness.  Language formation is one example.  Thus
>	the language-formation subsystem of my own mind might be said
>	to possess properties that my mind as a whole does not.
>
But we can never understand languages that we don't think we undersrtand.

>I don't claim that these points establish Hoftsadter's position.  But
>nor do I see why your position is patently obvious.

Again, you misread the post.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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