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>From: kaufman@eecs.nwu.edu (Michael L. Kaufman)
Subject: Re: Daniel Dennett
Message-ID: <1991Nov22.001554.24682@eecs.nwu.edu>
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University
References: <1991Nov18.083024.5560@husc3.harvard.edu> <9111184448@mwc.com> <DAVIDMC.91Nov21100802@fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1991 00:15:54 GMT

Sorry if this shows up twice.

zeleny@walsh.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>                         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.

I maintain that an argument such as this one has no place in a group under
the "sci" hierarchy.  You are not making a scientific statement, you
are making a religious one.  I don't believe in ghosts, but if I state that
there is no way to prove to me that ghosts exist, that I have left the realm
of scientific exploration.  Just as you have here.  You are, in effect, saying
"I have this belief system, and no mater what evidence I am shown, I will
throw out the evidence before I throw out the belief system."  Sure sounds
like a religion to me.

>           This conclusion might be justified historically, ...

You cannot use the fact that no one has come up with a good theory yet to 
show then no one ever will.  Before we could make accurate observations of 
the heavens you might have said that since no one had ever come up with a 
good theory removing the earth from the center of the universe, that no one
ever would.  You would have been wrong then, just as you might be wrong now.

>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.

Do you maintain that science is a closed field? Do you really believe that 
there is no possibility for further reaserch?  I suppose you would have told
Babbage to give up his playing around since he couldn't actually build anything
that worked. Of course, if you had done so, we might not be having this 
conversation now.

Michael


-- 
Michael Kaufman | I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on
 kaufman        | fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in
  @eecs.nwu.edu | the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be
                | lost in time - like tears in rain. Time to die.     Roy Batty 


