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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Penrose & Banach-Tarski/Axiom of Choice
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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 19:33:42 GMT
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In article <3aite3$7fe@nnrp.ucs.ubc.ca> constab@unixg.ubc.ca (Adam Constabaris) writes:
>Jeff Dalton (jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk) wrote:
>
>: In article <jqbCynrnE.LoG@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>
>: >*My* intuition tells me that all these anti-strong AI arguments are so obviously
>: >and trivially flawed as to barely deserve a response.
>
>: If they're so obviously and trivially flawed, then why do so many
>: people not see the obvious and trivial flaws, expecially when
>: comp.ai.phil is full of people who ought to be able to point out
>: the flaws and explain why they're flaws?
>
>: I don't mean this as a rhetorical question; I'd like to know
>: what you think the problem is.
>
>I can't resist: Isn't it obvious why some people think certain claims are 
>obvious and others don't? =)
>
>Humans are not entirely rational beings; by and large, maybe, yes.  But 
>AI touches some pretty deep nerves.  We seem to have this culturally 
>ingrained belief that "mind" is just plain different from "body" -- it's 
>just *obvious* (check out, for example early objections to the mind-brain 
>identity theory of Smart and Place -- "mental events are not locatable in 
>space and time, physical events are, so how could mental events be 
>*identical* to physical events?").

So you think it's basically dualism that's behind it?  Is that right?

But if mind is different from body, why couldn't machines have
minds?  OTOH, if mental events are identical to physical events,
maybe it has to be physical events of the right sort: maybe
it's not possible to have a mind on different "hardware".

-- jeff
