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Article 4422 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar12.024720.16482@u.washington.edu>
Date: 12 Mar 92 02:47:20 GMT
References: <1992Mar6.194405.22939@oracorp.com> <6388@skye.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <6388@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Mar6.194405.22939@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>It certainly seemed to arrive in a rather ad hoc way.  There's 
>Searle's original argument, the systems reply, Searle's memorization
>reply to that, and then finally up pops this idea that there would
>be two minds...

I'm not sure "that there would be two minds" has finally popped up.

>On the other hand, I think you're right in saying it's a necessary
>consequence of (a) Strong AI (anything that runs the right program has
>a mind), plus some other things.

As I have always understood Strong AI, a mind is caused by a brain doing
what brains do.  By functionalism, if one can find something functionally
equivalent to a brain that is doing what brains do it will also cause a
mind.  I have never believed that a thing that runs the right program has
a mind.  I could be in left field in as much as I am not a player in the
AI community.

It only follows that if a mind is doing what a brain does and a mind is
functionally equivalent to a brain then it will cause a mind (a second
mind).  This is usually known as epiphenominalism.

--gary forbis@u.washington.edu


