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Article 1917 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: To MZ: 'private data' not necessarilly 'incomparable'
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Date: 3 Dec 91 20:05:03 GMT
References: <12538@pitt.UUCP> <1991Dec2.110629.6077@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec2.195705.12427@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Dec3.122946.6107@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1991Dec3.122946.6107@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
   It is completely clear to me that in writing these words I communicate with
   other people.  I assume that at least some members of my audience will
   treat my words as meaningful, and interpret them in a way that would
   result in certain mental states.  Since mental states are private, and
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   hence mutually incomparable, I assume that to the extent that I succeed in
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   conveying any meaning to these people, the nature of this meaning must be
   mind-independent. 

 Mental states may be private, but that does not mean that they are not
 mutually comparable; they are not DIRECTLY or COMPLETELY comparable, but
 since the machinery of MIND is an evolutionary product, it is not unreasonable
 to suppose that there is a certain primitive, generative class of mental 
 states, whose representations and agencies have a common character in
 most human minds.   The 'mind-independence' of the semantic FUNCTION is
 actually dependent on a common heritage of 'mind' in humans.  
 HAL's mental states may be incomparable with ours, or not, depending upon
 the "grounding architecture" of his mind machinery.


