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Article 4144 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism
Message-ID: <6306@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Feb 92 20:14:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: skye.6306
References: <1992Feb24.175920.16996@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb25.105322.24546@norton.com>
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In article <1992Feb25.105322.24546@norton.com> brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:

>> How do you know that rock-based FSAs don't manipulate *virtual* worlds?   
>
> This is nonsense. Arbitrary positions such as the one that rocks are
> intelligent should not be considered "possible"...they should be
> tossed out as meaningless.  Of course I can't prove that there are not
> intelligent processes going on inside rocks, but then you can't expect
> me to prove negatives like that anyway. Where's your evidence that
> rocks have any intelligence?  Until you can come up with some, you
> have no business claiming that they might have some.

So is this the official Objectivist view?

(Clues for Rand spotters: the claim that w/o evidence a position
is "arbitrary" and not possible.  Reliance on "can't expect me to
prove a negative".)


