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From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Subject: Re: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
References: <1994Sep30.113858.6662@oracorp.com> <36hm06$n39@mp.cs.niu.edu>
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Organization: University of Edinburgh
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 03:47:08 GMT
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In article <36hm06$n39@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>We all know that the ether was bad science.  So is folk psychology.

The ether theory was intended to be a scientific explanation. Folk
psychology is not meant to be a scientific explanation.  Folk
psychology is a tool which we use to predict one another's behaviour
in an interactive social environment in which we negotiate, persuade,
scheme, pretend, cajole, argue, exhort, and so on. It does well at the
job af helping us to change the mind of others (i.e. their beliefs).
Whereas a scientific explanation of mind tries to explain why a
particular mind is like it is rather than like something else, in
terms which a mind builder (with appropriate tools and technology)
could use to make one. That is quite a different kind of task.

I see no a priori reason why folk psychology (an explanatory and
predictive tool for social inter-mind negotiation between particular
minds) should necessarily be cast in the same terms as a science of
mind (a tool for those who want to know how minds in general have come
to be the way they are). Similarly I do not expect an X-windows manual
to throw light on the Church-Turing hypothesis, and do not regard it
as a failing that it doesn't.  Thus I see no good reason why the
failure of folk psychology to be a science of mind is a legitimate
criticism of folk psychology.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
"The mind reigns, but does not govern" -- Paul Valery
