From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum Thu Apr 16 11:33:19 EDT 1992
Article 4973 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Message-ID: <1992Apr8.074316.29941@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 8 Apr 92 07:43:16 GMT
References: <1992Apr2.181357.25444@psych.toronto.edu> <511@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Apr7.222046.16470@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Lines: 39

In article <1992Apr7.222046.16470@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>What *empirical* evidence would count?  Remember that we are arguing over
>whether having the appropriate behaviour is sufficient evidence for
>having a mind.  I may be wrong, but I see *no* way in which this is
>amenable to empirical investigation.  

It can be investigated using the same techniques we use
to determine whether a newborn infant has a mind, or not.
Let us make the supposition that a alien lands in your yard
now, how would you determine whether this being has a mind?
Or do you still insist that there is no way to make this
determination?
>
>
>The difference between the brain and computers is that we *know* the 
>brain produces meaning.  We *don't* know that computers do.  Even if we
>don't know *how* the brain does it, we *can* rule out ways in which it
>doesn't, e.g., angels dancing on pinheads.  The claim being made is that
>we have independent reasons for ruling out functionalism as well, namely,
>that syntax is insufficient of itself to yield semantics.  The truth of this
>claim is independent of whether we *do* know how the brain does what it does. 
>
Every time someone says something like this it makes me
a little queasy. What you want to say in the above is
"I KNOW *MY* BRAIN PRODUCES MEANING. Fuck your brain,
because I have no evidence that it produces meaning!"
Another thing, we cannot rule out angels dancing on
pinheads as the cause of minds.
	You have been accused of Solipsism in the extreme!
How do you plead?
>
>- michael


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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
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