From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Mon May 25 14:07:18 EDT 1992
Article 5857 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <26@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 23 May 92 00:04:30 GMT
References: <6641@skye.ed.ac.uk> <5@tdatirv.UUCP> <6687@skye.ed.ac.uk> <6854@pkmab.se>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 36

In article <6854@pkmab.se> ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson) writes:
|I would suppose that Stanley Friesen is complaining about a lack of any
|empirical testing (or empirical connection) at all of Searle's argument,
|and not about a lack of absolute certainty as you seem to believe.

And you would suppose correctly.  That is indeed what I am saying.
[especially as I do not believe absolute certainty is possible].

Your comments about not accepting a new scientific theory just because
it is internally consistant are quite cogent.  It does indeed take several
attempts to falsify a theory before it becomes accepted (sometimes many
attempts, if the theory is sufficiently unusual).

All I am asking is that Searle put his arguments on a scientific, rather
than a philosophical, basis.

|That is,
|to him, it is unclear that Searle's argument talks about anything in the
|real world, even if it happens to be logically and internally consistent.
|Arguments that "prove" something or the other, but that do not apply to
|the real world, or were it is unclear whether they do apply or not, are
|not uncommon.

That is *exactly* what I was trying to say.  Thank-you for such a clear
statement of the issue.

|Is Searle's argument falsifiable?

My guess is that as it is presently formulated it is not.  It seems to
be insufficiently specified in certain areas (such as just what constitutes
'understanding') to allow empirical testing.
-- 
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sarima@teradata.com				(Stanley Friesen)
or
uunet!tdatirv!sarima


