From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Sun Dec  1 13:05:28 EST 1991
Article 1631 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca rec.arts.books:10714 sci.philosophy.tech:1148 comp.ai.philosophy:1631
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff
>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Philosophical Foibles of John McCarthy
Message-ID: <5704@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Nov 91 18:14:04 GMT
References: <1991Nov25.164015.13499@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1991Nov25.194234.10663@convex.com>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 21

In article <1991Nov25.194234.10663@convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
>The project of AI becomes much more muddled when it is seen as the attempt
>to duplicate human beings in more general--and therefore vaguer--ways.

Perhaps we should file that stuff under Cog Sci.

>If one asks, "Can a machine think?", then the question has become
>controversial (and philosophical). But why is it controversial? I think the
>question is controversial because it is--as Francis Muir notes--"improperly
>posed". The assumption that underlies this question is that the cognate
>question--"Can humans think?" is clearly understood and uncontroversial.
>But that is a mistake.

I would agree with that in the following sense.  I don't think we're
yet in a position to answer the question whether computers can think
and that part of the reason we are not is that we don't yet know
enough about what human thinking involves.

But I would disagree if "improperly posed" is meant to imply that
the question will never make sense and should be abandoned as a
non-question.


