From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Sun Dec  1 13:06:04 EST 1991
Article 1692 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff
>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Animal Intelligence vs Human Intelligence
Message-ID: <5730@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 27 Nov 91 20:51:41 GMT
References: <1991Oct30.091241.9820@cs.bham.ac.uk> <1991Oct30.222202.23889@aisb.ed.ac.uk> <5681@skye.ed.ac.uk> <15251@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 36

In article <15251@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <5681@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>In article <1991Oct30.222202.23889@aisb.ed.ac.uk> cam@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>
>>>Smart dogs and cats can certainly lie ...
>
>>> ... All you [they] have to be able to do is to
>>>pretend to be doing one thing as a cover for an action which is actually
>>>contributing to the achievement of something else which another animal
>>>would stop you from doing if it realised what you were up to.
>
>>Misleading behavior isn't the same as telling lies, except
>>metaphorically.
>
>I was talking about _deliberately_ misleading behaviour. Is that not
>lying?

Assuming that it is deliberate in the relevant sense amounts to
begging the question.  Indeed, all you know is that the animal
exhibits certain behavior.

>For example, suppose you are about to attack me, and I say "Hang
>on, there is a big fierce animal behind you." This is a lie, intended to
>get you turn round, whereupon I will attack you. On the other hand, I
>can accomplish exactly the same lying communication by feigning an
>expression of terror while looking past you. My intention and my
>accomplishment is the same: to make you believe something not true. What
>is the special difference that attaches to using words to do it?

Ah, but where did you get the idea that words were what I thought
significant?

Suppose I am about to attack you and some defect in my nervous system
causes me to look terrified while looking past you.  Now my intention
and my accomplishment are not the same, yet to you it would seem that
they were.  You'd call it a lie, and be wrong.


