From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Tue Nov 26 12:31:22 EST 1991
Article 1485 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Daniel Dennett
Message-ID: <15112@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 21 Nov 91 23:50:52 GMT
References: <1991Nov18.083024.5560@husc3.harvard.edu> <15019@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1991Nov19.210047.5646@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 80

In article <1991Nov19.210047.5646@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <15019@castle.ed.ac.uk> 
>cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:

>>In article <1991Nov18.083024.5560@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>>>In article <OZ.91Nov17172508@ursa.sis.yorku.ca> 
>>>oz@ursa.sis.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) writes:

OY:
>>>>Your charge that Dennett has been intellectually dishonest is a
>>>>serious one.  You are no doubt prepared to substentiate this charge,

MZ:
>>>I am sorry, but I was making a general statement about the AI field, as
>>>exemplified e.g. in the Boden anthology, "The Philosophy of Artificial
>>>Intelligence", which starts out from an unconvincing and fallacious ...
>>> .... implicitly assuming that man is a finite 
>>>being in every relevant aspect ...

CM:
>>Since it is possible to generate an infinite number of sentences from
>>the 26 letters of the alphabet perhaps you can make explicit this
>>implicit assumption (that man is finite in every relevant aspect) which
>>you impute to Boden?

MZ:
>I meant
>not the introduction, but the first paper in the book, written by McCulloch
>and Pitts; the finiteness assumption is already implicit in the quaint
>title, "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" ...
> ... pay attention to ... page 37 ... ignoramus or a charlatan.

So, the intellectually dishonest Dennett and his ilk turns out not
really to be well exemplified by Dennett so much as those in general
collected in Boden's anthology, who turn out to be best exemplified by
McCulloch and Pitts -- whose paper is arguably the oldest AI paper in
existence. Well, I suppose we should be thankful for that -- you can't
really go any further back than McCulloch and Pitts!

On the way I have also managed to collect some idea of what you think
is wrong with the ideas of these foolish AI supporters: it has
something to do with an implicit assumption that Man is finite, based
on some presumed relationship between Man and a Turing Machine.  Your
answer is not entirely clear, ignores my illustration of the infinite
capability of Turing Machines and seems to me to suggest, as before,
that you assume that a Turing machine has finite capabilities.

If this is what you think, Mikhail, can you explain why? And can you
please clarify what your case for intellectual dishonesty and
charlatanism is? I'm quite happy to begin with the McCulloch and Pitts
paper, if that's where you think it is most clearly manifest. I've
consulted page 37, and found nothing redolent to me of charlatanry or
ignorance.

CM: ... ad feminam ...
MZ:     ^^^^^^^^^^?

It's a Latin PC joke: "ad hominem" arguments -- but Boden is a woman,
so "ad feminam". I thought someone who reads Descartes would get that
:-)

>The implications of Searle's argument are painfully obvious: semantical
>knowledge must be represented in, and accessible by, the mind of any
>intelligent being.  Pray tell, where are these issues adequately addressed?

I don't think anybody is yet capable of addressing them. They are
generally recognised as serious issues in the AI community (which is
precisely _why_ the Chinese Room gets anthologised and debated so
much), and some people are working on them, despite being handicapped
by intellectual dishonesty :-) As it happens, there is still plenty we
can do before the lack of resolution of this issue becomes an obstacle
to further progress, so we (AI researchers) don't actually have to sit
around twiddling our thumbs until someone manages to address them
properly.
-- 
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


