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Article 5695 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <1992May14.223956.23219@oracorp.com>
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Thu, 14 May 1992 22:39:56 GMT
Lines: 28

In article <6640@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
writes: (in response to something I wrote months ago)

>We will have an argument that looks like
>
>   <part 1>
>   therefore: if something lacks X, it lacks understanding
>   <part 2>
>   therefore computers lack X
>   therefore computers don't understand.
>
>Your complaint is _not_ that parts 1 and 2 fail to lead to their
>conclusions but rather that we need to show
>
>   humans have X

The problem is the following: in arguing for 1, one is proposing a
partial theory of understanding; that whatever understanding is, it
must include property X. If that theory is not to be complete
nonsense, then it should at least cover the one example of
understanding that we know of: human understanding.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY





