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Article 5714 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Comments on Searle - What could causal powers be?
Message-ID: <1992May17.225236.3588@oracorp.com>
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Sun, 17 May 1992 22:52:36 GMT

In article <1992May5.204157.23037@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu 
(Michael Gemar) writes:

> While I agree that a computer program is, in itself, not a physical
> entity, it is hard for me to see how implementation changes things.
> Remember that,in order to counter Searle, *all* implementations of the
> same program must generate semantics or have the appropriate "causal
> powers" [...]  However, what do all possible implementations of a
> program have in common *except* the abstract structure?

A specification of a real-world system should really involve a
program, together with a specification of the interface, which is the
real-world interpretation of the inputs and outputs. The program
itself is a purely mathematical object, but the interface
specification grounds the system in the real world. With this notion
of a specification of a system, different implementations of the same
specification share causal properties, in addition to abstract
structure. Two implementations are affected by the world in the same
way (or in analogous ways), and in turn affect the world in the same
way.

> Remember that the same program can be implemented on a computer,
> with beer cans and string powered by windmills, by the Bolivian
> economy, by a school offish directed appropriately, by the interaction
> of galaxies, etc.

I don't think that an electronic computer and the Bolivian can both be
implementations of the same specification, because they don't provide
the same interface. However, if there is a translation device that allows
me to communicate with the Bolivian economy in terms of alpha-numeric
characters, then I will admit the possibility that the combined system
might be a perfectly good implementation.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


