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Article 1369 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: john@publications.ccc.monash.edu.au (John Wilkins)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Commenting on the posting
Message-ID: <1991Nov18.025504.11295@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 18 Nov 91 02:55:04 GMT
References: <5639@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Nov15.003438.11323@grebyn.com> <1991Nov15.160741.5495@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1991Nov15.160741.5495@husc3.harvard.edu>, zeleny@walsh.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
> My guideline is very simple: if you see someone offer a reductive argument
> purporting to explain the properties of mind, such as consciousness,
> cognition, and intentionality, in terms of the alleged computational
> properties of the brain, you may conclude that he is a charlatan or an
> ignoramus.  This conclusion might be justified historically, by observing
> the earlier attempts to explain the functioning of human mind by reference
> to the capabilities of the dominant contemporary technology (e.g. clockwork
> mechanisms, chemistry, steam engines, etc.), or its behaviorally manifested
> properties -- by reference to observable physical properties of human
> organs (remember phrenology?).  If the brain can be seen as the seat of
> consciousness, why not the liver or the kidneys?  

This, of course, is exactly the same argument used by all those charlatans who
denied that any reductive argument of living processes could be given.
[There's an amusing passage in Durkheim about how it is self-evident
that life is not the properties of the chemical elements of life, since
the molecules don't have living properties, used to justify the sui
generis nature of social explanations, for example.]

What Zeleny is saying is - because we aint never had a good reductive
explanation before (because we used the best metaphors of the day to provide
us with what research targets we could get), we are never going to have
a reductive explanation for mind. As if we have made no progress in
brain and behavioural research over the past XXX years (an integer from
5 to 300)!

Until Crick and Watson, we were restricted to Durkheim's position regarding
the molecular foundations of life, and Zeleny's soulmates of the time
no doubt would not want further enquiry on the same principle.

This is Flew's Masked Man fallacy: we don't know what it is, so we know
what it is not.

> Moreover, there also
> exist sound theoretical reasons for rejecting any theory that purports to
> reduce human intelligence to the rank of properties of Turing machines.
> For those unconvinced by the arguments of Penrose, I have a challenge of my
> own making: develop an adequate semantical theory that would characterize
> the relevant relations of expressing and denoting, and could be implemented
> by a finite state automaton.  So far, John McCarthy has failed to come up
> with an answer; anyone who feels that he can do better, is hereby invited
> to try.
> 

Again, an argument from ignorance. We reject theories because they fail
for one reason or another, not a class of theories because we have
"sound theoretical reasons". *I* have sound theoretical reasons for
rejecting all theories that claim to limit what is theoretically possible.
[I think...]


