From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!minsky Tue Apr  7 23:24:23 EDT 1992
Article 4945 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Message-ID: <1992Apr7.002306.9823@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <1992Apr5.210553.11966@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 00:23:06 GMT
Lines: 24

In article <1992Apr6.182533.109@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>>Kristoffer Eriksson:
>>>Surely, no-one has suggested that SHRDLU is advanced enough to have a mind?
>>
>>Christopher Green:
>>>Under strong AI, one would be committed to such a view. Surely, if McCarthy
>>>believes is thermostat has beliefs, he believes that SHRDLU does. Same
>>>goes for any other thorough-going functionalists. Right Dave...?
>>>
>>
>>  I think I'm a backer of strong AI, but I don't believe that
>>mind is an all-or-nothing concept.  Minds come in varying degrees
>>of sophistication.  
>
>Varying degrees of sophistication have no bearing on the question of
>presence or absense.  A small mind is still a mind, just as a small ball
>is still a ball.

And a small giant is still a giant, etc.  Is a small large X still an
X?  Yes, I suppose, if all X's are Y's (for all X and Y), which
appears to be the thesis here.




