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Article 1433 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Commenting on the posting
Message-ID: <9740@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 91 06:39:10 GMT
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In article  <1991Nov18.224139.21896@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> John Wilkins writes:
]In article <9653@optima.cs.arizona.edu>, gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes:
]> So I would like to see an honest response to Zeleny's challenge
]> --either show us this world-shaking theory that explains how
]> intelligence can arise from physical processes, or just admit that
]> such a theory does not exist and may not be possible.
]
]Such a theory does not exist, so why may it not be possible? That we
]have not YET modelled or recreated consciousness (and we are a hell of
]a lot closer now than we were in Descartes' day) in NO WAY implies that we
]cannot, or that AI and neurophysiological research will never deliver it.

True enough.  I find Zeleny's "historical argument" rather
unconvincing.  However I am quite persuaded that my own consciousness
is not the product of physical processes.  What it is, I cannot say,
but no motions of molecules and ion-transfers in my brain could
account for my self-awareness or my power of denoting.  There is just
no connection between the two things --they have no properties in
common.  As to memory, vision, language parsing and such I am
undecided.

]Still, it may not be possible - YOU show ME why it isn't, rather than all
]this semantic crap about intentionality being irreducible.

Actually, that was someone else's crap.  Until this message I didn't
express my own opinion on the subject, except for the opinion that
people ought to be aware of it when their beliefs are based on
assumptions such as philosophical materialism and/or reductionism.  My
own assumptions might be described as reductionist-but-not-materialist,
since I believe that all processes and events, material or otherwise,
are reducible to other processes and events.  Of course this leads to
an infinite reduction --to which I see no alternative other than
magic.  Like most of my metaphysical opinions, I'm not particularly
wedded to these assumptions, but they seem better than the
alternatives.

] So much of
]what used to be irreducible about mind has been reduced - language
]learning, visual recognition, emotion - or is promising to be, that...

I must have missed paper on the electro-chemical mechanisms of
language learning.  Seriously, although there is a great deal known
about how people do cognitive things, this knowledge is all
descriptive in nature.  It tells us that statistically a person is
more likely to identify a sound as the the word W if they have been
primed to expect W.  It does not tells us that "priming" is in fact a
concentration of chemical C on one side of membrane M --much less how
that concentration developed in response to sensory stimulus or how it
effects the recognition of words.

Although I strongly deny that there has been any significant progress
at reducing language or vision to physics (the case for emotion is
less clear), I do not deny that the reduction exists.  Language and
vision may well be physical processes, but consciousness is not.

]a believer in Occam's Razor has every reason to be confident that the
]obscurantism of occult properties such as "Consciousness" have no real
]future.

Hmmf.  One might as well say that the magic by which material objects
gain self-awareness is more to be called "occult" than is a frank
acknowledgement that there is some material that has non-physical
properties.  One might also argue that Occam's Razor mitigates
_against_ postulating peculiar processes that are unlike anything
known, such as the process by which chemicals become aware.

]... And biologists can "explain" a lot more about life as a physical
]process than they can as a sui generis domain of non-physical (as opposed
]to physical-neutral) phenomena.

Progress in the effort to reduce biology to physics is not evidence
against anti-reductionism unless some process is reduced that
anti-reductionists claimed could not be reduced.  No one ever denied
(to my knowledge) that chemistry played a part in biology or that this
chemistry could be understood.  Therefore, gaining an understanding of
biochemistry does not surprise anyone.  The claim of the
anti-reductionists is that _some_ biological processes are not
reducible.  Note the importance of the quantifier "some".  This has a
different meaning from "all".

One class of processes that were thought irreducible were those that
involve spontaneous chemical differentation --which seemed to violate
the second law of thermodynamics.  The demonstration that non-living
chemical systems can undergo this reaction _is_ in fact an argument
against anti-reductionists.  Not because it was simple progress in
biochemistry, but because anti-reductionists said it could not be
done.  By the way, I'm not a biologist, but if I were, I would almost
certainly be a reductionists.

]Whoa! Why do you want to reject a theory that violates thermodynamics?
]Because you accept the theory of thermodynamics, of course. Does that give you
]reason to reject a theory that violates, say, evolutionary laws of biology?

Good question.  Have evolutionary biologists described a mechanism
whereby an organism can evolve without violating the second law?
(I honestly don't know the answer.  I'm not even sure how one would
calculate the entropy of an evolutionary change, which occurs in an
open system to make matters worse.  But the question does give me
pause now and then...)

]No, it is a different case. So you are not rejecting a class of theories
](the set of theories that violate established scientific canons) for "sound
]theoretical reasons" of a global kind, but on an ad hoc basis - A' violates A;
]B' violates B ... n' violates n.

Fine.  And likewise, I deny the possibility of any true theory that
purports to describe consciousness as a physical process on the basis
that it violates my theory that consciousness cannot arise out of
purely physical processes.  You can argue the merits of my ontology,
but you cannot claim --as you seem to above-- that such reasoning is
illogical.  Given a true premise, my conclusion is true.  Of course,
if anyone claims to have produced a theory that violates my
ontological theories, I will be willing to consider it more-or-less
objectively.

]Sigh. It was a joke. No theoretical justification possible [df "joke"].

Ahh.  Perhaps you were unaware that the charter of this newsgroup
specifically prohibits "witicisms, japes, jokes, or any other form of
jest or waggery, or any form of speech intended to relieve the subject
matter of its accustomed weight of solemnity and gravity."  You also
forgot the smiley.
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman


