Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!jqb
From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
Message-ID: <jqbD02nnr.C1n@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <3b0176$hu8@mp.cs.niu.edu> <D000q2.8pn@spss.com> <3bdqsd$7r6@news1.shell> <3bedah$7qf@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 08:31:02 GMT
Lines: 63

In article <3bedah$7qf@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <3bdqsd$7r6@news1.shell> hfinney@shell.portal.com (Hal) writes:
>>markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>
>>>                                             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.
>
>>It seems like by this reasoning you can never meaningfully say that
>>anyone is wrong about anything.  Am I wrong to think that fool's gold is
>>gold today?  No!  Once the error of my ways is pointed out, I am merely
>>using a different definition of "gold".
>
>This is really a question about meaning.  Do we each have private
>meanings for our vocabulary, or is meaning an attribute of the usage
>of the linguistic committee as a whole.  If the latter, then it is
>clearly possible to be wrong.  If the former, you can never be wrong,
>but you had better come up with a good explanation as to how language
>can be used in communication if we all use private meanings.
>
>>Or would you say that people are wrong to think that the earth is flat
>>today, but they were not wrong to think so 1000 years ago?
>
>That is a tricky question.  It depends on the meanings of "earth" and
>"flat" as those meanings were 1000 years ago.

This is complicated by the fact that it was well known at the time of Columbus
and long before that the Earth was round; the myth to the contrary was invented
by Washington Irving in his fanciful biography of Columbus.  If you simply want
to speak of those people who do think the Earth is flat, there is no need to
go back in time; just inquire at the Flat Earth Society.

The real problem is that we have people here, notably j.d., who refuse to
define terms and at the same time treat those terms as if their definitions
were universal.  This applies to "conciousness", "idea", "intelligence", and
"gold".  If (no historical accuracy claimed here) at one time the definition
of "gold" was something like "shiny solid with gold color commonly found in
the ground", then both pyrite and au were gold.  Once people dig this stuff up
and start playing with it, they discover that sometimes it is malleable and
sometimes it is flaky; this and other characteristics allow categorization
into two different substances, and the more desirable one gets the label
"gold", with the new definition "shiny malleable solid with a certain weight
and gold color (commonly found in the ground)", and the less desirable one is
called "fool's gold".  Eventually, with the discovery of chemistry, the
definition becomes "element with atomic number 79"; anything else, regardless
of how much like that stuff it is, and regardless of whether it was once
called "gold", is no longer called "gold"; that is, it isn't gold, *given the
modern definition of "gold"*.  When one asks whether people are wrong to call
pyrite "gold", it depends upon whether you mean "gold-present-definition" or
"gold-past-definition".  People calling pyrite gold now are calling it
"gold-present-definition".  People calling pyrite gold in the past were
calling it "gold-past-definition".  Thus it is obvious (that is, it should be
obvious; and no, I'm not going to try to explain why many people cannot grasp
the obvious) that the people of the past could be correct while the people of
the present could be incorrect.

Once upon a time, stupid people were considered nice.  Was that a mistake?

-- 
<J Q B>
