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Article 2258 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle's response to silicon brain?
Message-ID: <40869@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 91 22:05:55 GMT
References: <40822@dime.cs.umass.edu> <40825@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1991Dec18.173854.3551@spss.com>
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In article <1991Dec18.173854.3551@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <40825@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>What is it with the hatred of science expressed by so many of you AI types?
>>There is no evidence to suggest that silicon digital neuron simulators can
>>mimic real neurons or that mind is no more than than the product of
>>some quantity of digital computation. One might as well ask whether 
>
>Do you anti-AI types ever read each others' writings?  Searle has no 
>argument at all against the possibility of simulating everything in the
>brain-- he simply denies that such a contraption would be a mind.

Look, the claimed "counter-example" thought experiment began with an
assumption which was, in essence, the same as the conclusion. That is,
it was assumed that one could build digital computers which acted exactly
like neurons and connect these up to model exactly the connections which
are in the brain. Thus, it was assumed that one could build a silicon 
device which would behave exactly like a human brain. It should not come
as too much of a surprise, that one can conclude from this assumption that
the silicon device would behave exactly like the human brain.

>
>As for "hatred of science," this is meaningless rhetoric.  AI researchers
>are attempting to model what minds do, which is a nice scientific project.
>(The distinction between modelling and creating minds has no practical
>effect at this time.)

I suggest that  you read Feynman's essay "Cargo-cult science and Science"
in order to get an understanding of the difference between science and
superstition. 

>What is the experimental program of the anti-AI theorists?  What are their
>specific predictions, confirmable by experiment, which will support their
>theories and confound their adversaries?

And, what's the experimental program of the anti-phrenology theorists?
One does not have to propound an alternate theory in order to justify
pointing out errors. Perhaps there is no reasonable theory of thought
at present. It is perfectly reasonable to argue that until further progress
is made in neurology, linguistics, vision, etc.  constructing grand theories of 
the underlying mechanisms of human thought is a dubious exercise.



