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>From: zeleny@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <1992Feb27.215555.9240@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 92 02:55:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Feb27.215555.9240
References: <1992Feb27.185327.2687@oracorp.com>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 51
Nntp-Posting-Host: brauer.harvard.edu

In article <1992Feb27.185327.2687@oracorp.com> 
daryl@oracorp.com writes:

>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

JD:
>>> To the extent that causal connections and correlations can't fix
>>> reference, it doesn't get fixed, either in humans or in table-lookup
>>> programs.

DMC:
>> And you'd be happy with that? That it doesn't get fixed?

JD:
>No, I just think that the problems with reference that Putnam (and
>others) point out apply to more than just machines, they apply to
>every thinking being, as well.

Perhaps you don't appreciate the fact that the problems with reference that
Putnam (and humbler others, like myself) point out, mean that, to the
extent that causal connections and correlations can't fix reference, it
doesnt *exist*, insofar as reference that doesn't get fixed is no reference
at all.  The implications of that are as follows: functionalism about
semantics implies eliminativist semantics, including the notion of truth
itself.  Hence, no functionalist theory can claim to be true.  This is well
understood by Churchland, who is currently looking for a "successor notion"
to truth; unfortunately he lacks the intelligence or the integrity to
realize that his notion of "sensory vectors" ("Matter and Consciousness",
Second Edition, p.146) is dependent on stolen concept of reference.

Homework: find two internal inconsistensies in your above statement.  Hint:
one involves an intentional predicate, while the other involves an semantic
predicate.  Now paraphrase it in a way that would allow it to retain its
folk-semantical content, yet wouldn't use any stolen concepts.

>Daryl McCullough
>ORA Corp.
>Ithaca, NY


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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