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Article 4318 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar6.175338.6099@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: 6 Mar 92 17:53:38 GMT
References: <1992Mar5.171258.11467@oracorp.com> <44388@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Sender: news@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
Lines: 22

In article <44388@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>In article <1992Mar5.171258.11467@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>
>>For example, suppose that every once
>>and a while we lose consciousness for a fraction of second (all our
>>qualia disappear). But during the period of non-consciousness, our
>>bodies keep moving right along, behaviorally unchanged. When we come
>>to our senses a fraction of a second later, our memories have been
>>updated with whatever sense impressions our bodies received while we
>>were "out", so we have no memory of losing consciousness. If you admit
>>that possibility, ...
>
>	This description of a hypothetical situation closely resembles 
>the very real phenomenon of a petit mal epileptic seizure. 

  No -- during a petit mal seizure the victim shows something like
"absence" -- freezing, staring blankly ahead, not talking.  The
change in behavior is often subtle enough to not be noticed,
but there is definitely a change in behavior.   And there is
also usually loss of memory for what happened during the seizure.

	-- Bill


