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 14:05:53 EDT 1992
Article 5706 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <6862@pkmab.se>
Date: 15 May 92 22:55:55 GMT
References: <6692@skye.ed.ac.uk> <60668@aurs01.UUCP> <6699@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Peridot Konsult i Mellansverige AB, Oerebro, Sweden
Lines: 30

In article <6699@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <60668@aurs01.UUCP> throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:

>> First, background definitions:
>>
>>   - Minds are processes
>>   - Understanding is a property of mental processes
>
>I do not think "minds are processes" is noncontroversial.

You said people were free to suggest their own definitions, in stead of
demanding definitions from others. You did not say that the definitions
had to be ones you would agree on, though.

Saying that some definition is noncontroversial is no argument (at least
not about the validity of that definition). How would you feel if people
tried to say that Searles argument is controversial, as an argument against
Searle?

If you don't like the definitions given, and don't have any specific short-
comings you want to point out in them, why don't you take your own advice
and provide your own definitions? Just dismissing the definitions given,
seems to me like just another form of the "definition game" you complain
about. It is not far from demanding additional definitions from your
opponent, before you want to accept his arguments.

-- 
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


