From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!manuel!arp.anu.edu.au!gar Sun Dec  1 13:05:37 EST 1991
Article 1649 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca sci.philosophy.tech:1158 comp.ai.philosophy:1649
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!manuel!arp.anu.edu.au!gar
>From: gar@arp.anu.edu.au (Greg A. Restall)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness (was Re: Daniel Dennett)
Message-ID: <1991Nov26.211823.20295@newshost.anu.edu.au>
Date: 26 Nov 91 21:18:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: newshost.1991Nov26.211823.20295
References: <1991Nov17.190935.5546@husc3.harvard.edu> <YAMAUCHI.91Nov26024948@indigo.cs.rochester.edu> <1991Nov26.135953.5926@husc3.harvard.edu>
Sender: news@newshost.anu.edu.au
Organization: Philosophy Dept, University of Queensland
Lines: 59

I'm not sure *why* I'm wading into this debate - but, there was
a rather swift move by MZ that caught my eye, in the midst of 
all the name-calling that was going on.

The move was made in the following:

In article <1991Nov26.135953.5926@husc3.harvard.edu> 
zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

* I'll suggest a reductio ad absurdum of the AI view.  Assume that
* the mind is reducible to the functioning of the brain.  Then we may
* conclude that the mind shares the computational limitations of an FSA.
* Consider the fact that, in contrast with Turing Machines, there is no such
* thing as an Universal FSA.  
* 
* In other words, why aren't you an Ultra-intuitionist, denying all but
* practically "feasible" numbers?

The swift move was the `in other words'.  Unfortunately
for a logician like myself, I'm not sure of any inference
that can take one from the first paragraph to the next.  
This is probably due to my limited acquaintance with the 
theory of FSAs.  However, I'm prepared to accept that there
is a legitimate inference from the claim that the mind is 
"computationally isomorphic" to an FSA, and Ultra-intuitionism,
if such a move were demonstrated to me.

Whatever it could be, I have no idea - for it seems to me
that the first claim is one in the philosophy of mind, and
the second, in the philosophy of mathematics.  And while
the philosophy of mathematics espoused by Ultra-intuitionists
is intimately tied to the philosophy of mind, it is not
clear that the latter could in any way follow from *any*
particular philosophy of mind.  After all, on most realist
views, numbers exist independently of minds - and independently
of what *kinds* of minds there are.

Of course, Mikhail's inference might be enthymematic, but 
it's pushing it to express an enthymeme with the phrase 
`in other words', and also, one is open to reject any 
suppressed premises, instead of being forced into Ultra-
intuitionism.

So it seems that unless the move is sketched out a lot
more thoroughly, this suggested reductio fails.

Best wishes,

Greg





-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Restall	 	 | Philosophy Department, University of Queensland.
gar@lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au | Queensland, 4072.  Australia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


