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Article 1217 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: khan@oxy.edu (Onnie Lynn Winebarger)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Animal Vs. Human Intelligence
Message-ID: <191674@tiger.oxy.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 91 22:00:42 GMT
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Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA  90041
Lines: 116

map@u02.svl.cdc.com (Mark Peters) writes:

>In <1991Nov05.084137.29880kmc@netcom.COM> kmc@netcom.COM (Kevin McCarty) writes:

>>map@u02.svl.cdc.com (Mark Peters) writes:


>>>The concept of "lying"
>>>presupposes the concepts of honesty (lying is NOT being honest), virtue

>>Not at all.  Any dolt who can understand and use words will tell the
>>truth for no other reason than it does not occur to him not to, not
>>because he "has the concept" of honesty (whatever that means) or
>>strives toward virtue.  People usually tell the truth because that's
>>what comes naturally.  To lie requires significant mental effort of
>>imagination and calculation.

>But then you are agreeing with me.  The "dolt" you describe clearly
>does not have any grasp of the concept "lying," nor of the concept
>"truth."  As you say, in such a person, "it does not occur to him"
>to tell other than what *we* know is the truth - because he doesn't
>know what truth, honesty, or lying are.

>What I said is exactly correct.  Nobody can tell a lie (and know he is)
>unless he already has some grasp of what honesty is, simply because
>lying *is* one form of NOT being honest.

  It seems to me this argument is invalid.  This isn't about Washoe being able
to conceptualize that she's not telling the truth.  It's about the fact that
she conceptualized an event which didn't happen.  What's more, I doubt either of
the assistants she claimed to be responsible for the "doodoo" had ever decided
to break toilet training, so she had never even seen the act which she
described.  So she couldn't have based this story on something she had seen
happen.  So she must have imagined it.	Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always
thought the ability to imagine entails an ability to conceptualize.


>I didn't say there was "epistemology about it," I said simply that
>the concepts "volition," "reason," "logic," "value," "virtue," and
>"honesty," have to be grasped in that order (in some terms) *before*
>any grasp of "lying" is possible.  A human child who does know what
>lying is also knows:
>
> 1) That he has the power to choose one course of behavior over another
>    (volition)
>
> 2) That thinking is what ought to guide his choices, not whim
>    (reason)
>
> 3) That thinking requires identifying facts
>    (logic)
>
> 4) That there are things in the world that are important to him,
>    some more than others, which he therefore acts to obtain
>    (values)
>
> 5) That obtaining values demands a certain course of action
>    (virtue)
>
> 6) That accepting the facts of reality and acting accordingly is
>    an example of such a course of action.
>    (honesty)
>
>The final step in this progression is grasping that faking the facts
>in order to get something is dishonesty, with lying being one example.
>
>Initially, the child undoubtedly grasps these concepts in a primitive
>way (much as I described them), but the point is, he must have that
>grasp before he can grasp "lying."

  This part seems fairly unnessecary.  When did one have to have a concept of
something to be able to do it?	Did man have to have a concept of how gunpowder
actually worked before he started making explosives out of it?	No, he just
needed to know how the explosion worked.  Why does one need to have a concept of
lying to actually lie?
   Also, why does the child need to grasp any of (1)-(6) to actually be able to
"do" them.  For example, (3) suggests you have to know that thinking requires
identifying facts.  You don't.	You just start identifying facts.  Having these
concepts sorted out is not how one begins.

>>And I don't have any reason to believe that all these sophisticated
>>philosophical underpinnings are prerequisites to lying.
>>If animals can be stimulated to exhibit apparent lying behavior,
>>if you will, by such simple mechanisms as perceptual pain avoidance,
>>how on earth did similar behavior in humans get to be so complicated?

>"Sophistication" is not obtained instantly (if ever).	Learning in humans is
>not a linear process, but more like a spiraling process.  A primitive
>grasp of a new concept can shed light on earlier, related concepts, thus
>making the grasp of them stronger, which in turn provides a wider context
>for the new concept, making a stronger grasp of it possible.  A child's
>form of grasping concepts like "reason," "logic," etc., *is* less
>sophisticated than an adults, but that less sophisticated grasp is
>a prerequisite for his initial grasp of "lying."
>
>I think "apparent lying behavior" is just that - apparent behavior that
>does not require conceptualization to perform.  Washoe doesn't have *any*
>grasp (even a primitive one) of the concepts mentioned above, so she
>can't know what "lying" is.  What looks to us like "lying behavior" is
>explainable in perceptual terms, so I think that positing a conceptual
>faculty in apes on the basis of that behavior is not justified.

  Behaviorists said the same thing about humans.  However, I'm not sure how much
of this argument is about Washoe knowing that she's lying or if it's about
Washoe having a conceptual faculty.
    IMHO, anyone that uses natural language must have the ability to
conceptualize, or what you say with your words has no meaning.	This fact is
probably why it's so difficult (read impossible) to have computers learn natural
language.  Until they are able to conceptualize what they're saying, they'll be
unable to give meaning to their words.	At any rate, the fact that Washoe even
uses a language in an apparently meaningful way is enough to grant that she has
a conceptual faculty.  To tell me this is not so would take out at least half
(probably more) of the reasoning I use to assume other humans have minds,
including you.

Lynn Winebarger


