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Article 2015 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu (Franklin Boyle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle, again
Message-ID: <wdFE=Di00UhB01vbZ3@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 91 18:09:19 GMT
Organization: Cntr for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 21

Joseph O'Rourke writes:

> In article <gdExS2K00WBMA4ccBG@andrew.cmu.edu> fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Franklin > Boyle) writes:
>>Joseph O'Rourke writes:
>>
>>> 	I fail to see Searle's claim that symbols have no causal
>>> power.
>>
>>He doesn't say they have no causal powers. ...
 
>Searle: "...formal symbols have no physical, causal powers."
>p. 30, col. 3, Sci. Am., Jan. 1990

Thanks for pointing that out.  However, he goes on to say in the next
sentence that: "The only power that symbols have, qua symbols, is the
power to cause the next step in the program when the machine is running."
Seems causal to me.  Without it, we would be hard pressed to get our
programs to run.

-Frank


