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Article 4502 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals (was re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <1992Mar16.224536.2719@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 16 Mar 92 22:45:36 GMT
References: <1992Mar15.170938.9882@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar16.005137.13005@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar16.003442.9891@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1992Mar16.003442.9891@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>
>We have observed two cases of natural signs: one originating from the
>events occurring in the inanimate realm, and another originating from
>the actions of an animate being.  Clearly, we do not wish to classify

I suspect that we will have problems with the definition of life.

>the occurrence of a rain cloud as an instance of communication; on the
>other hand, we are accustomed to saying that the actions of the
>influenza virus communicate a particular disease.  Unlike a rain cloud,

Let's face it: 1 virus does not bring a disease. It is the combination
of viruses in a certain human body, with certain chemical structure
of the blood cells, etc. The viruses on a rock do not communicate anything.

Relevant things can be said for a cloud: One rain cloud, under
certain atmospherical conditions brings rain, otherwise it
moves peacefully to another place. 

All these phainomena are supposed obey to certain natural laws, which 
are partly modelled in physics.

The same holds for computer viruses.

>the virus is an agent; however the nature of its agency is purely {\it

I am wondering why, according to your definitions, a rain cloud does not
communicate rain.

>somatic}, sufficient for volition, but not for intention, and hence
>bereft of non-natural, semantic meaning; in other words, the
>communication effected by it is natural, rather than expressive.  Thus
>the necessary condition for an occurrence of expressive meaning is
>intentional action, which depends on {\it noetic} agency.

What causes the intentionality?

Philip Santas

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email: santas@inf.ethz.ch				 Philip Santas
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