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Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Chomsky on Consciousness and Dennett
Message-ID: <DAA3uw.BGo@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <802988140snz@longley.demon.co.uk> <DA6q5p.6KJ@intruder.daytonoh.attgis.com> <803222477snz@longley.demon.co.uk> <803235165snz@chatham.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 18:40:08 GMT
Lines: 31
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:40321 sci.psychology:43308 comp.ai.philosophy:28918

In article <803235165snz@chatham.demon.co.uk>,
Oliver Sparrow  <ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk> wrote:
.............
>Elsewhere, I mentioned that one can prove that honey bees are intentional and 
>calibrate the degree to which they are so. Almost any measurement of societal 
>behaviour amongst animals proves intensionality, I believe: how is one to 
>understand pack hierarchicality, for example, if the alpha male is not seen as 
>a thing external to the subordinate male, possessed of mental states which have 
>to be guessed at and placated? 
>      ^^^^^^^
This is the crux of the matter, I believe.
So these mental states are ascriptions made by observers, aren't they?
On basis of what, may I ask? And how do we know if we made a right guess? Not
by any chance by observing  the subsequent behavior? 
The intensionality you are talking about may be viewed as a phenomenological
way of predicting behaviors of very complex systems. Actuarial methods can
apparently do much better.

>Empathy rules, ok? (If that's all right with you, of course.)     :)
>_________________________________________________
>
>  Oliver Sparrow
>  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk

Andrzej

-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
