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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
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Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 22:56:53 GMT
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In article <jqbD05Ayq.JFp@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>In article <3bl2so$5u@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, Jeff Smith <smithjj@cat.com> wrote:
>>In article <D03qpH.7C9@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>|> In article <D01oB1.JG8@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>>|> Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>|> >In article <Czzp43.2x7@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>snip
>>|> If you stick to your position about "gold", then you must be referring to 
>>|> some "ideal" of gold which has properties about we even now do not know.
>>|> BTW, which isotope of gold are you referring to?
>>|> 
>>For me, any isotope of gold is "gold"--the criteria I use to define "goldness"
>>is the number of protons in the nucleus, not the electrons or neutrons.
>
>Well, this is the point.  For someone whose criteria are "shiny, metallic,
>golden", pyrite is gold.  To say that they are mistaken is as absurd as to say 
>that you are mistaken if, at some time in the future, it becomes normal to
>reserve the term "gold" for gold-197 only.
>
>Jeff wants to say that gold is defined as "the stuff these coins in my pocket
>are made out of". 

No I don't.  For one thing, I'm talking about what one *could* mean
by gold; it's also possible that other accounts are correct.  For
another, the coins in my pocket aren't gold.  :-(

> This appears to be some sort of Platonism where the ideal
>forms are found in Jeff's pockets rather than in Heaven. 

I talked about canonical / paradignatic examples.  How does that
become ideal forms?

> Of course, among its
>other problems, this demands that we can only call "gold" that which has the
>precise amount and type of impurities and isotope mix as what happens to
>be in Jeff's pocket when he points to it.

Not at all.  It remains open to discover what properties gold has
and to formulate more precise definitions.  Meaning change is also
possible; but then, so is continuity.

Moreover, when I say "the same kind of stuff as coins, etc",
"same kind" can also become more precise.

>>      My own belief is that every fact
>>is ultimately verifiable.  Reality to me consists of everything that exists,
>>whether I can know it or not, at all times.

I'm inclined to agree with the latter statement.

For the former, it depends on how strong you take verificied to be
and just what counts as a verification.

-- jeff
