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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
Message-ID: <jqbD0D9Bq.9Eq@netcom.com>
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References: <D03qpH.7C9@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <3bl2so$5u@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <jqbD05Ayq.JFp@netcom.com> <D0D12t.3Gs@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 01:55:01 GMT
Lines: 102

In article <D0D12t.3Gs@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <jqbD05Ayq.JFp@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>>In article <3bl2so$5u@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, Jeff Smith <smithjj@cat.com> wrote:
>>>In article <D03qpH.7C9@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>>|> In article <D01oB1.JG8@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>>>|> Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>|> >In article <Czzp43.2x7@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>>snip
>>>|> If you stick to your position about "gold", then you must be referring to 
>>>|> some "ideal" of gold which has properties about we even now do not know.
>>>|> BTW, which isotope of gold are you referring to?
>>>|> 
>>>For me, any isotope of gold is "gold"--the criteria I use to define "goldness"
>>>is the number of protons in the nucleus, not the electrons or neutrons.
>>
>>Well, this is the point.  For someone whose criteria are "shiny, metallic,
>>golden", pyrite is gold.  To say that they are mistaken is as absurd as to say 
>>that you are mistaken if, at some time in the future, it becomes normal to
>>reserve the term "gold" for gold-197 only.
>>
>>Jeff wants to say that gold is defined as "the stuff these coins in my pocket
>>are made out of". 
>
>No I don't.  For one thing, I'm talking about what one *could* mean
>by gold; it's also possible that other accounts are correct.  For
>another, the coins in my pocket aren't gold.  :-(

Excuse me; I should have said "... could usefully be defined as ...".
>
>> This appears to be some sort of Platonism where the ideal
>>forms are found in Jeff's pockets rather than in Heaven. 
>
>I talked about canonical / paradignatic examples.  How does that
>become ideal forms?

A paradigm of *what*?  We must already know what we mean by a word before
we can offer paradigms of it.  If I point to some coins and say "these are
paradigmatic examples", that's no definition.  They are examples of coins,
of gold things, of round things, of shiny things, or gold and/or pyrite things,
etc. etc.  This does no good whatsoever.  I claim one *could not* mean by gold
"that which is like these things"; certainly not any coherent communicable
meaning.

>> Of course, among its
>>other problems, this demands that we can only call "gold" that which has the
>>precise amount and type of impurities and isotope mix as what happens to
>>be in Jeff's pocket when he points to it.
>
>Not at all.  It remains open to discover what properties gold has
>and to formulate more precise definitions.  Meaning change is also
>possible; but then, so is continuity.

Of course meaning change is possible.  But you were talking about a *matter of
fact* about whether things are gold.  The matter of fact is about a single
definition at a single point in time, not a continuum of defintions.  We aren't
asking whether people were right about pyrite being "gold as defined some time
in their future"; no people of these past ever made such assertions.

When you say "it remains open to discover what properties gold has
and to formulate more precise definitions", what do you mean by "gold"?
Do you mean "stuff made of the element with atomic number 79"?  If so, then
yes we can discover more about its properties, but that has nothing with
refining the definition.  Once upon a time, the meaning of "animal" included
motile things and the meaning of "plant" included things containing chlorophyll.
When the euglena (a motile, chlorophyll-containing entity) was discovered, some
wanted to call it an animal and some wanted to call it a plant.  It is absurd
to claim that they were correct or incorrect, because the words "plant" and
"animal" were not precisely enough defined to make such distinctions.  What
was needed was not to decide whether to call the euglena plant or animal,
but to more carefully and precisely define the terms so that the finer
distinctions could be made.  To think that one can point to a bunch of plants
or animals and say "these are paradigmatic examples", and think that from
that could spring a matter of fact as to whether a given entity is a plant or
animal, is to be hopelessly confused about the nature of language.

>Moreover, when I say "the same kind of stuff as coins, etc",
>"same kind" can also become more precise.

What it can become has nothing to do with whether it is, at the time that
definition is held, an matter of fact of whether something is or is not gold.

>>>      My own belief is that every fact
>>>is ultimately verifiable.  Reality to me consists of everything that exists,
>>>whether I can know it or not, at all times.
>
>I'm inclined to agree with the latter statement.

What does it mean for something to exist?  Is there something that doesn't
exist?  (I think Russell said this is tantamount to a syntax error; existence
is not an attribute.  On the other hand, "unicorns do not exist" is equivalent
to "the set of things described by the word `unicorn' is empty".)

>For the former, it depends on how strong you take verificied to be
>and just what counts as a verification.

I thought you were opposed to verificationism?  For what sorts of "verified"
and "verification" would the statement be true for you?


-- 
<J Q B>
