Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
Message-ID: <1994Sep30.113858.6662@oracorp.com>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Inc.
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 11:38:58 GMT
Lines: 112

rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>
>>I'm not claiming that folk psychology is respectable. I only claim
>>that it is useful, and that everyone uses it, even if they are too
>>embarrassed to admit it.
>
>This sounds like proof by vigorous assertion, with no counter
>evidence being acceptable.

Well, you haven't actually given any counter evidence, or counter
argument, other than comparing folk psychology with flogiston theory
or by showing that it is ridiculous when applied to rocks. My point
was that you are completely wrong in saying

>>I would say that folk psychology has enormous explanatory power and
>>negligible predictive power, when applied to humans.

People use something like folk psychology every time they interact
with another human (including this time). You predict how people will
act all the time, and it is *not* based on "statistical reasoning", as
you claimed in an earlier post. You *know* that it is not based on
statistical reasoning, because it is applicable to new situations
never before encountered, for which you have no statistics.


>I certainly disagree.  However, I think I can see where the
>disagreement lies.
>
>In a preceding paragraph, you stated:
>
>>For example, if you are observing a computer chess program in action,
>>then (assuming the program is working well) one would describe the
>>resulting game using something like "The computer took the pawn so as
>>to open up a path for his rook".
>
>Yes, I might use such language.  But if I speak in that way, I am
>most certainly not attributing any desires or beliefs to the
>computer.

You misunderstood my point. I was not claiming that the computer
had mental properties, I was claiming that a proper level of abstraction
for discussing computer chess play is often in terms of high-level
goals, not in terms of low-level mechanisms. The low-level details
are mostly irrelevant (except when there is a bug in the program).


>I do not for one moment assume that the computer actually
>has any desire to do anything about the rook.  Nor do I assume that
>the computer has any beliefs that its move will assist in doing
>anything about the rook.  The computer may be acting as if what it
>does is for a purpose.

>But this is not in any sense a purpose of the
>computer.

Why not? What meaning do you give to the word "purpose" so that,
by definition, it seems, there is no such things?


>All that is happening is that I am using some shorthand
>language.

That is what I am disputing. Talk in terms of purposes is *not*
shorthand. It is a high-level description. There is a big difference
between "shorthand" and "abstraction". Shorthand can be expanded into
an equivalent, low-level description that would do just as well.
But an explanation of the computer's moves in terms of go-to's,
if-then-else, etc. (or even electronic processes) is not just as
good. If you don't understand the chess-meaning of a computer's
move, then you don't fully understand the move, and the chess-meaning
is not to be gotten from a low-level explanation.


>If I use similar language in reference to a human chess player, I
>again am not using folk psychology.

Yes, you are. You are reasoning about human behavior in terms of 
high-level abstractions, which is what folk-psychology is.

>I am not attributing any desire
>or belief or purpose to the human player, just as I was not
>attributing any desire or belief of purpose to the computer.

I don't believe you. Once again, I have to ask you what "belief"
or "desire" means if you think it is never applicable.


>I am still merely using a convenient shorthand language.

No, you are not. It isn't a shorthand for two reasons: (1) you don't
know how to expand the so-called "shorthand", which makes it, by
definition, not shorthand, and (2) the language of beliefs, desires
and purposes, is an *abstraction* from low-level details, not
shorthand.  The low-level details are irrelevant (for most purposes),
as long as they manage to implement a certain psychological profile.

Anyway, since you obviously don't use the same definitions of
"belief", "desire", and "shorthand" etc. as I do, I should probably
not get too bothered by the gulf of our disagreements. I should
probably just assume that by "I am not using folk psychology, I am
using a convenient shorthand language." you mean "I *am* using folk
psychology". What you call "shorthand" is what I call "folk psychology".

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY




