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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
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References: <3b0176$hu8@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1994Nov24.121032.27675@oxvaxd> <CzsKqx.Gon@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <Czu6C4.30z@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 22:20:25 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <Czu6C4.30z@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>><econrpae@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>Was the property of being made out of gold a subjective property
>>>until chemists formulated scientific tests of goldhood?
>>>
>>Yes. This is exactly the point. When chemists formulated scientific tests of
>>goldhood, they at the same time changed the content of the term. Before 
>>"gold" was something which had such and such properties and other substances,
>>as long as they showed these properties, were "gold" too. 
>
>That's one way of seeing it.  But why can't we also see it like this:
>
>(a) People thought the other substances were gold (or perhaps we cay
>    they called them "gold"), but those substances turned out not to
>    be gold after all.
>
>I'd find it odd if we *couldn't* legitimately say (a).  Suppose
>people counted "fool's gold" as gold in the past.  Surely it's
>possible to meaningfully say they were wrong.

Surely it's not.  What does it mean to say that they were wrong?  That
they were mistaken in their beliefs, right?  But if they thought that
fool's gold was the same as what we would call gold (the element Au),
there is no belief of theirs which was incorrect; they were correct in
applying the term "gold" according to their definition to both substances;
and as they were not aware of our definition it cannot have entered into
any of their beliefs-- it wasn't in their heads to be wrong about.

(All this is assuming that people really had no way of distinguishing 
fool's gold from the element gold, which I suspect is false.  After all,
an interest in the detection of forgery must have been long-standing,
and produced practical tests.  For instance, gold doesn't tarnish, and can
be beaten into gold leaf, and has a certain density and malleability;
I don't know if fool's gold shares any of these properties... but someone
back then would have known.  In that case a belief that fool's gold was
gold would have been wrong both by contemporary and modern standards.)
