From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon May 25 14:05:43 EDT 1992
Article 5687 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Comments on Searle - What could causal powers be?
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992May12.194417.31787@spss.com> <1992May14.162236.21843@psych.toronto.edu> <1992May14.225255.32545@spss.com>
Message-ID: <1992May15.193215.458@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 May 1992 19:32:15 GMT

In article <1992May14.225255.32545@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>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.)

I agree that it's purely epistemic.  Heck, it's instrumentalism, which
I don't adhere to ontologically speaking (I'm a realist about the existence
of mental phenomena).  My response above was an attempt to get at an
earlier question of when we would attribute mentality to Bolivia.  My
response is intended to say that we would when it meets
the above conditions, which, as far as I can see, are the reasons given
for postulating a cognitive level in humans (oh, yeah, there's introspection
too ;-).  I am not saying that Bolivia would *be* conscious, but merely that
if we are going to maintain that humans have mental states because they
are explanatorially useful, and such states would be also useful to 
postulate in Bolivia, then I see no reason why we wouldn't, from a 
functionalist perspective.  

>>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.

I don't see why a fortuitous appearance *wouldn't* be an algorithmic
implementation, but that's a different matter.  In any event, I take it
that you're happy with a thinking Bolivia, at least in principle
and if manipulated appropriately.               

- michael



