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Article 7535 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: hondl@nsslsun.nssl.uoknor.edu (Kurt Hondl)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Summary: Do cats pre-exist in human consciousness?
Message-ID: <1992Nov7.213838.15600@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>
Date: 7 Nov 92 21:38:38 GMT
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In article <BxBBnw.CEK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr) writes:

>In article <burt.720913842@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:
>>
>>It is logical only in that it is an identity, and the question of identity
>>is at the core of the metaphysical foundations of logic.  It's a mistake
>>to put logic as prior to identity.  Logic is the tool that we use in order
>>to be precise about our thinking about identity, but it did not create
>>identity.  Cat's existed, for example, before there was ever a word for
>>cat.
>>
>
>I would argue that you don't know that as surely as you think you do.
>Certainty is a very nebulous thing.  You perceive the phenomena, not
>noumena, that you associate with the word "cat" and, because of
>certain a priori assumptions that human beings make, you assume that
>it must have existed prior to your perception of it and your
>assignment of the word "cat" to it.
>

Suppose there was a world that was inhabited by only human beings (in all
their variety) and various types of dogs.  If a cat were suddenly introduced 
to this world, would the humans ...

a) Recognizing the very distinct differences between the "cat" and themselves
   and simply refer to the "cat" as a dog?

or
 
b) recognize the distinct differences between the various types
   of dogs and this new "cat" and be compelled to name the new
   intruder as a "cat"?


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