Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
Message-ID: <CzsJoI.EJs@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <vlsi_libCzHB5I.Fn7@netcom.com> <3aj4a9$9ct@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3b0o42$i2g@news.u.washington.edu> <1994Nov24.123227.27677@oxvaxd>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 21:29:05 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <1994Nov24.123227.27677@oxvaxd>,  <econrpae@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
.........
>One necessary condition for something to be running a program is that it
>contains a constituent which...
>
>1. We as external observers naturally interpret as a data-structure
>signifying some facts or proposition
>
Shape of the rock may easily be such a data structure.
Note that "naturally" is a subjective term. Or can you give "an objective"
definition of "natural interpretation"?

>2. Independent of that external semantic attribution, plays a causal role
>in the object's activity.
>
Rocks' shapes play causal role in rocks' behaviour on different surfaces 
(which could be interpreted as input data for the program).

>(taken from Brian Smith's Knowledge Representation
>Hypothesis).
>
I am afraid this looks like full of holes big enough to run a long program 
through :-).

>Now a rock has no such constituent which we could interpret as a
>data-structure. This is why we cannot see it as running a program.
>
As indicated above, a rock has such a constituent. You are just not looking
at it in a right way.

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
