From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!gatech!bloom-beacon!eru.mt.luth.se!lunic!sunic2!seunet!kullmar!pkmab!ske Mon May 25 14:05:19 EDT 1992
Article 5644 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!gatech!bloom-beacon!eru.mt.luth.se!lunic!sunic2!seunet!kullmar!pkmab!ske
>From: ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <6854@pkmab.se>
Date: 12 May 92 07:01:59 GMT
References: <6641@skye.ed.ac.uk> <5@tdatirv.UUCP> <6687@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Peridot Konsult i Mellansverige AB, Oerebro, Sweden
Lines: 60

In article <6687@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
 >We look at <part 1> to see if it has flaws.  We don't find any.
 >So far as we can tell, it's a perfectly good argument.
 >But, according to you, it's still in doubt.
 >
 >But is it in more doubt than all kinds of other things we're
 >usually willing to rely on, such as, say, scientific theories?
 >
 >Since scientific theories are generally falsifiable, there is
 >generally some discovery that would show they were wrong.
 >So long as this remains possible, they are in doubt.
 >
 >>I have seen too many 'proofs' of things that turned out to be false to
 >>put much trust in a 'proof' without objective evidence to back it up.
 >
 >There have been lots of things backed by objective evidence
 >that turned out to be false too.
 >
 >Look, if the most you can say agains Searle's arguments is
 >that maybe some day we'll discover something that's inconsistent
 >with them, then the same could be said against all sorts of
 >other things that we rely on all the time.  It's no more a
 >reason to reject Searle's arguments than it is to reject
 >those other things.

We don't start believing in a scientific theory as soon as it has been
formulated just because it is internally consistent and has not yet been
falsified. It has to survive some number of actual attempts to falsify it,
before it is of any use.

I would suppose that Stanley Friesen is complaining about a lack of any
empirical testing (or empirical connection) at all of Searle's argument,
and not about a lack of absolute certainty as you seem to believe. That is,
to him, it is unclear that Searle's argument talks about anything in the
real world, even if it happens to be logically and internally consistent.
Arguments that "prove" something or the other, but that do not apply to
the real world, or were it is unclear whether they do apply or not, are
not uncommon.

 >Since scientific theories are generally falsifiable, there is
 >generally some discovery that would show they were wrong.

Is Searle's argument falsifiable?

Is Searle's argument a theory of empirical science?

If it is falsifiable, I expect it should be possible to point to some
experiments that could be done to resolve the question of its correctness.
(Real experiments, not thought experiments.) In fact, why don't we start
detailing the empirical observations that support or disconfirm it?

Is it possible to design an experiment for Searle's argument?

You know, sometimes I get the suspicion that you are confusing empirical
science and mere logical argumentation.

-- 
Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Hagagatan 6, S-703 40 Oerebro, Sweden
Phone: +46 19-13 03 60  !  e-mail: ske@pkmab.se
Fax:   +46 19-11 51 03  !  or ...!{uunet,mcsun}!mail.swip.net!kullmar!pkmab!ske


