From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!access.usask.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum Mon May 25 14:05:51 EDT 1992
Article 5702 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Subject: Re: Comments on Searle - What could causal powers be?
Message-ID: <1992May17.063530.27210@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
References: <1992May11.163332.27781@psych.toronto.edu> <1992May13.001033.14320@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992May14.164117.25016@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Sun, 17 May 1992 06:35:30 GMT
Lines: 84

In article <1992May14.164117.25016@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>>	In one case we are not interested in it because I can
>>not have a School of fish transplanted into me as a kidney
>>replacement. I think that you do not have to look very hard
>>to see the same kind of dichotomy between the school of
>>fish intelligence, and the real intelligence.
>
>Sorry, but I just don't see it.  What *could* cause a difference?
>They are functionally equivalent - the only difference is in what
>they're made of, which gives you Searle's explanation...
>
	The difference between the school of fish intelligence
and a "real" intelligence is just that the school of fish
cannot know anything about the real world. Therefore we are
not interested in it, because it is highly improbable, and
even then uninteresting. (Just as the fish kidney cannot do
what we require of it, so the school of fish intelligence
cannot be intelligent in the way we require of it! But there
are a whole class of machines that may have the required
type of intelligence.)

>>>>constitutes a mind. If you do not know this either then you
>>>>have no right claiming that symbol manipulation is not enough!
>>>
>>>Jeff Dalton I think has dealt with this issue sufficiently. 
>>
>>If you call hand waving sufficient! I would still like
>>you to breifly list in point form how you can claim
>>that shuffling symbols around is not sufficient for
>>the implimentation of thought, yet have absolutely
>>no idea what is sufficient! Lay it on me!
>
>I can know what properties my mind has, without knowing how these
>properties are produced.  If I can also demonstrate that some
>thing cannot produce those properties, then I've got my argument.

This is where I find a wad of tuff to swallow stuff!
You, nor anyone, can prove that something cannot have
a certain property by introspection (which is what you
are doing).

>I have semantics. The symbols that I use to communciate in the world
>have inherent meaning - I know, since *I* am the one using them.

I do not know what you mean by semantics? If you mean
the ability of your mind to connect symbols to other
symbols, then a computer can do that also.
>However, symbols in and of themselves *have* no inherent meaning - 
>they are just "marks".  If you shuffle these marks around based
>*solely* on their formal properties, then these marks *still*
>do not acquire *inherent* meaning (*I* be able to interpret them,
>but that is a different matter).  
>
>Sure, you may argue that I haven't *proved* that shuffled
>symbols aren't sufficient for the implementation of thought.  Fine.
>You haven't proved that thought isn't produced by angels dancing
>on pinheads.  It seems to me that it is up to supporters of this
>position to show how such a thing *could* be possible.  I believe that

Do you not see that you also are supporting a position,
which claims that something is not done in a certain way
without being able to prove it, or say anything about
the way it is done.
>this entails conceptual work, and *not* empirical work.
>
>In the end I think that, given the current state of things, this issue
>is unresolvable (at least if the functionalists insist on being
>pigheaded :-).  In any event, this has been batted about back and forth
>quite a lot, and I suppose I'm beginning to agree with Chalmers that
>we might as well let it drop for now.
>
OINK, OINK! (Anyhow, I'm not a true functionallist (at least
not in the shallow sense that everyone uses the term here!))
	Yes, I am willing to let the matter rest.
>- michael
>


-- 
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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
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