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From: David E. Weldon, Ph.D. <David.E.Weldon@DaytonOH.ATTGIS.COM>
Subject: Re: Chomsky on Consciousness and Dennett
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Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 22:25:47 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:40188 sci.psychology:43214 comp.ai.philosophy:28862


}==========David Longley, 6/12/95==========
}
}In article <3relmg$o3q@usenet.rpi.edu>
}           turtom@goya.its.rpi.edu "Michael Andrew Turton" writes:
}
}> In article <802633231snz@longley.demon.co.uk>,
}> David Longley  <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
}> >In article <3r4ukm$t6f@usenet.rpi.edu>
}> >           turtom@cortez.its.rpi.edu "Michael Andrew Turton" 
}writes:
}> 
}> 
}>         [Longley post with Skinner quotes in response to Turton 
}post 
}> about social cognition theorists and evolutionary psychology]
}> 
[Deletion of stuff on the knowledge gained about cognition from anthropology
and Psychology]

}What the above *may* provide is some interesting 
}anthropological or sociolog
}ical data on the variation of human behaviour, but it will provide 
}nothing
}else. The basic issue being discused in this thread is whether 
}computers
}should/can be programmed to have beliefs, or ascribe beliefs. I 
}am saying
}1) we can't do that because we have no clear idea how we use 
}the notion of
}belief and 2) from the notion we do have, it would seem 
}inadvisable as from
}a system with inconsistent premises (beliefs) just about anythig 
}can be 
}inferrred. I have also suggested that this is almost exactly what 
}empirical
}psychology over the past 20 years has shown (cf. Tversky and 
}Kahneman 1982).

Are you suggesting that a computer programmed with beliefs might appear
erratic, even irrational, or, God forbid, operate as if it had "free will."
 
}> 

