From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Tue Mar 24 09:54:38 EST 1992
Article 4374 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Mar6.185522.18137@oracorp.com> <1992Mar9.163303.2313@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar10.003936.6240@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Message-ID: <1992Mar10.170402.5689@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1992 17:04:02 GMT

In article <1992Mar10.003936.6240@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>In article <1992Mar9.163303.2313@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>>In article <1992Mar6.185522.18137@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>>>Right off the bat, Searle gets it wrong: no AI proponent believes that
>>>a computer (however programmed) is a mind.
>>
>>This is contrary to everything that *I* have heard or read, and is certainly
>>opposed to the general tenor of discussion in this group.  Any AI types care
>>to comment? 
>>
>Certainly,
>All AI types claim is that the running of the program
>on a computer produces a mind! Notice the difference,
>the computer and the program is not the mind, it is 
>the process of running it that produces a mind!
>
>It is like claiming that dead people have no minds,
>but they do have all the chemical and physical
>characterstics in their brains that live people have
>It is the actual process of running the brain that
>produces the phenomenom of mind.
>
>The computer can never be a mind, or even a mind
>simulation, the computer can be a brain simulation
>and it can HAVE a mind!
>
>Clear (as mud?)

Yes, and it has *always* been clear to me.  I apologize if my comments weren't
phrased appropriately.     

Now, what difference does this make to the discussion at hand?

- michael




