Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!ub!news.kei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!festival!edcogsci!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
Message-ID: <Czu580.2Fv@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (C News Software)
Nntp-Posting-Host: bute-alter.aiai.ed.ac.uk
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
References: <3aukr2$t3h@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1994Nov23.184324.27664@oxvaxd> <CzsIwC.DFv@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 18:11:59 GMT
Lines: 48

I don't understand why people have so much difficulty with that
"Platonic" view.  Calling it Platonic seems a bit prejudicial to
me; I prefer "realism" (a common term for it in philosophy).
It's similar to realism about the physical world: e.g. that stars,
etc existed before there was anyone around to observe them.

Certainly the idea that something might be the case even though
I can't tell doesn't bother me; moreover, there must be many things
of that sort.  E.g. did Napoleon have an egg for breakfast 3 days
after his 7th birthday?  (I'm trying to pick something that won't
be in any records -- substitute a different example if there's one
you prefer.)

>or whether there have to be (at least in principle) a method for others to
>determine unambigously if x is conscious for the question of conciousness to 
>make an objective sense. It seems that you take the former stance whereas 
>Neil Rickert takes the latter and observes that no such method seems available
>(and I agree with him).

The idea of methods "in principle" is rather tricky in itself.
Could I in principle know the truth about Napoleon's egg?  Is
time travel acceptable?  If so, I'm not sure why mental states
are wupposed to be less accessible.  Or what about historical 
records.  If having someone tell me is succifient, then perhaps
it's sufficient for mental states as well.  Anyway, I'm not
sure how we should determine what's allowed in principle.

BTW, your view sounds like verificationist to me.  Perhaps
we can at least determine whether it is verificationist.  

I'd like to understand your view even if I don't agree with it, 
and we seem to be off to a fairly "friendly" start.

>I do not think there is a unique way of deciding between these two 
>philosophical positions, except perhaps Occam's razor which favors the second
>one.

Why do you say Occam's razor favors it?  I could see Occam's razor
working against, say, physical objects, if we could explain our
experience without bringing them in.  But we still ordinarily allow
that physical objects exist.  So if Occam's razor isn't always a
decisive factor, why would it be so effective when it came to
realism about mental states (which doesn't, after all, involve
any extra entities per se).

-- jeff


