From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!spssig.spss.com!markrose Mon May 25 14:05:31 EDT 1992
Article 5666 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!spssig.spss.com!markrose
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Comments on Searle - What could causal powers be?
Message-ID: <1992May14.225255.32545@spss.com>
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Date: Thu, 14 May 1992 22:52:55 GMT
References: <1992May12.003415.7383@psych.toronto.edu> <1992May12.194417.31787@spss.com> <1992May14.162236.21843@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Nntp-Posting-Host: spssrs7.spss.com
Lines: 33

In article <1992May14.162236.21843@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu 
(Michael Gemar) writes:
>As far as the Bolivian economy demanding a *cognitive* explanation
>(which I take to be the real question of interest), the answer seems to me 
>to be the same as that given for different brains above - if commonalities
>in behaviour (however defined) across entities with different *physical*
>makeups can be explained by postulating similarities in *abstract* properties
>(such as cognitive functions), then it's appropriate to do so.  In this
>way, the Bolivian economy should be treated in the same way that any
>other entity is -such as a Martian, or a primate, or even another human.
>If cognitive processes help explain its behaviour, then they are reasonable
>to postulate.

Well, that's a pretty loose rule, and to use your own terms, it reduces it
to an epistemic rather than an ontological problem, doesn't it?  Something
can "help explain" behavior and be merely a useful theoretical fiction.
(An example, from Feynman's _QED_: the fiction that glass surfaces reflect
light is extremely useful in optics-- but it's not true.  The photons are
scattered *within* the glass.)

>In any case, I don't want to quibble over what counts as the *real*
>economy of Bolivia, and what counts as merely a computer being acted
>out by Bolivian citizens.  To be honest, I don't see how a functionalist
>can assert that there *is* a distinction... 

To me it's not a matter of function but of philosophical import.  The 
output of the Bolivian Game might be the same as that of a fortuitous
instance of the Bolivian economy implementing an AI algorithm.  However,
the game is just a computer like any other, and bodes no ill for Strong AI 
and functionalism.  The fortuitous appearance of minds in complex systems 
would be a more troubling phenomenon.  But I've offered arguments that this 
is either too fleeting to worry about, or isn't really an implementation of 
an algorithm at all.


