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Article 5918 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <6748@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 26 May 92 19:50:06 GMT
References: <6862@pkmab.se> <6729@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992May21.164600.2622@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
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In article <1992May21.164600.2622@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>In article <6729@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>A good example of a difficulty of figuring out where you stand. Above you 
>suggest that you do not want to give a definition (say of understanding)
>because others might not agree with it.

I gave my reasons for not wanting to play the definition game
earlier in the discussion.  Why not look up what I said instead
of misinterpreting something else as if it were the reason.

> Here you give another reason.
>I see a possibility that you do not want to provide a definition, because you
>are afraid that it might be accepted and you will be stuck with it (i.e you
>will not be able to say: 'Look, that is not what I meant", ;-)).

I don't want to play the game because it functons only as a way
to avoid any discussion of the issues I think are interesting.

It's also pointless, because -- just for example -- some people
insist that the definitions must be in observational terms.
That is, they insist that we accept some equivalent of the 
Turing Test before they'll discuss anything further.

-- jd


