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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
Message-ID: <Cw6pzp.B0q@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <357e2u$f8k@mp.cs.niu.edu> <357ket$j9k@search01.news.aol.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 18:57:24 GMT
Lines: 74

In article <357ket$j9k@search01.news.aol.com>,
DrewDalupa <drewdalupa@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <357e2u$f8k@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
>writes:
>
>>I did not claim that was the only possible characterization.  It is
>>one such characterization.  My point was that, under any objective
>>characterization, one traces behavior back to causes, and these
>>causes are in turn traced back to their causes.  Purpose will never
>>show up in such an analysis, for purpose in not an objective
>>property.
>
>Well, why didn't you say so?  Purpose is not an objective property.  And
>what you mean is not simply that it is not objective, but that it is not
>part of a chain of causes, isn't that right?  Perhaps by "objective" you
>mean "part of a chain of cause and effect".  Well now *that* claim seems
>much more interesting to me.  Our purposes, it seems to me, cause our
>actions.  They are, at any rate, an factor of the cause.  Capacity is
>another factor.  If you ask what caused me to walk to the store, the
>answer will be a desire to shop.  If we exclude that answer because it is
>not objective, then we are left trying to explain why my body moves
>towards that structure (the physical store) every seventh day (Friday) at
>the same time of day.  You can ask why the atoms of the universe are
>organized so that there is this astonishing regularity in the motion of my
>body.  By denying yourself the explanation in terms of desire, you leave
>yourself with that much less understanding of the world around you.  Many
>regularities will be a mystery to you.  Maybe they are.
>
Why did a rock slide down a hillside? Perhaps it had a desire to lower
its potential energy? Are you saying that "By denying yourself 
the explanation in terms of desire, you leave yourself with that much 
less understanding of the world around you"? 
The claim you seem to be making is that one needs to accept objectivity of
notions like desires (or beliefs) to understand behavior of other people.
This would make sense if one had some reasonable way of determining what
these beliefs or desires are. In another place, referring to authorities
(Freud and Wittgenstein), you claim that people may have purposes (desires)
they are unaware of, which are apparent to other people. And how do these
other people know about person's desires (he/she is unaware of)?  I am
sure that the only way is from person's behavior, is it not? Then, however,
what is the explanatory power of these notions? Desires explain behavior, but 
we know just from behavior what the desires are! Isn't this sadly circular?

Let me take an example of your shopping habits. You claim that the only way
for me to explain this strange regularity in your behavior (going to the shop
every seventh day) is to assume that you have a belief that there is food
in the shop to be purchased.
First of all, I do not see how this belief explains the regularity. 
Secondly, for this to be an explanation, I have to have some way of 
determining that you really have this belief, other than you going to the
corner shop. In fact I may construct another theory: you fancy a young lady
who works a cash register every Friday. Please tell me how can I find out
what your belief is which would help me to predict your behavior (in 
particular if you may be unaware of it, for instance that you fancy this
young lady).
Now I am sure that one can construct a robot powered by batteries, which it 
from time to time has to recharge from an electrical outlet in the lab walls.
Assume also that the robot memorizes the position of the outlet when it 
wanders around the lab in its 'free' time. Now you could of course say 
that the robot 'believes' that there is electrical current in the outlet,
since every time its batteries are low it would go to the outlet. In case of
robot this is not necessary, since we know well how its system works and can
explain its behavior without invoking  the 'belief'. In case of humans we
do not know workings of the brain very well, so we stick to the vague 
notion of belief. However, do we have reasons to think that human 'beliefs'
which you invoke to explain behavior, are any more objective that the belief
we could ascribe to the robot above?

Andrzej 
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
