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>From: peterson@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (james peterson)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle (was Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Comme
Message-ID: <19843@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Date: 6 Dec 91 21:07:12 GMT
References: <JMC.91Nov24194704@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <5689@skye.ed.ac.uk> <YAMAUCHI.91Nov25203631@indigo.cs.rochester.edu>
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In article <YAMAUCHI.91Nov25203631@indigo.cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>(Note that rec.arts.books has been removed from followups.)
>
>
>Could you (or anyone else on the anti-AI side) explain what you mean
>by a "causal connection" (or Searle's even-more-mystical term "causal
>powers")?  


I will take a stab at 'causal powers' since I think a great deal of
Searle's detractors simply misunderstand this.  Searle says:

	[Regarding our ability to understand English]

	...as far as we know it is because I am a certain sort of
	organism with certain biological (i.e. chemical and physical)
	structure, and this structure, under certain conditions, is
	causally capable of producing perception, action, understanding,
	learning, and other intentional phenomena.  And part of the present
	argument is that only something that had those causal powers
	could have that intentionality. (From "Minds, Brains, and Programs")

Most critics of Searle seem to think that there is some kind of special
physical arrangement of physical brain elements that Searle is referring
to here, and that is what he means by "causal powers."  I would
like to suggest a quite different account:  that the "causal powers" 
he means are the causal powers of a mind that makes decisions and
chooses, and is not compelled by physical necessity.  That is, he is
referring to the power of the mind to be an engine of cause independent
of nature.  I suggest he is referring to the mind's ability to "cause"
its own states and determine its own objects of "perception, action,
and understanding."   He is referring to the volitional aspects of
mind, to choose what it is interested in, what is important, what it
will, and will not do.  Give this to a machine, and it could have
"intentionality" too, for that is what intentionality, at base, is --
self-directed attention.  This is what allows a mind to "follow" rules,
while machines can only instantiate them.

I don't take seriously the second part of his argument, by the way,
that only a biological entity could have these "powers." But
his overall argument doesn't depend upon the truth of this assertion
anyway.


-- 
james lee peterson				peterson@CS.ColoState.edu
dept. of computer science                       
colorado state university		"Some ignorance is invincible."
ft. collins, colorado  (voice:303/491-7137; fax:303/491-6639)


