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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Folk psychology (was: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
Message-ID: <Cwr0G3.J7v@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <CwLIE8.6o3@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <35vgvu$432@newsbf01.news.aol.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 17:55:14 GMT
Lines: 74

In article <35vgvu$432@newsbf01.news.aol.com>,
DrewDalupa <drewdalupa@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <CwLIE8.6o3@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca
>(Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>Is this then "the purpose and also the function of the robot's (the one
>>I have described before) action" in moving around and scanning for
>electrical
>>outlets, when it's batteries are low, to find a source of electricity to 
>>replenish its energy source?
>
>First of all, it could be your purpose in designing the robot.  I would
>also
>say that, assuming a robot, it is the function of the activity to find
>electricity.  But the crux of the matter is "assuming a robot".  That is,
>assuming an entity which depends on electricity.  But what if I should
>be indifferent to the robot's fate, seeing nothing more that parts
>which could have one fate or another?  Or to give another example, when
>I polish a rock, am I violating it?  I see no reason to assume an entity
>which is violated by my action.  But if I "polish" a turtle I may be
>hurting it (especially if I paint it).  Or to move to your (?) example of
>rolling a stone down a hill, I don't see that I am violating the stone
>by doing so.  But were I to tie up a human and roll that down the hill,
>there would clearly be an entity which I was exposing to harm.
>
You obviously do not notice that your reasoning is circular - you have
a starting premise that turtle is different from a rock (a turtle can be
hurt and a rock cannot) and then try to prove your point by saying: you see,
polishing a rock I do not 'violate' it, but polishing a turtle I may by
hurting it, so they are different. But you have already assumed it by
the starting premise! If you 'know' that you cannot hurt (or break) a rock
but you can do it to a living organism, then your examples prove nothing.
Now, say I take a pyrite crystal and throw it into a pool of molten lava -
has it not been 'broken'? And if I block off a stream, has it not been
broken? Why is it less 'broken' than a bacteria which dissolves in acid
or a virus which looses its integrity in a hostile environment? Trying to
'prove' the point by taking extreme examples (say a rock and a human rolling
down a slope) is not very convincing. How about considering borderline
cases? Showing that there is a clear distinction between life and non-life
is not as easy you seem to think.

>>Then I have also misread your message. Would you care to explain more
>clearly
>>what you meant?
>
>"Nature abhors a vacuum" was replaced by physical laws.  It was a fact
>about
>the physical world.  I attempted to demonstrate that to recognize the
>existence of life on earth is to recognize the existence of things that
>can
>be broken.  Whereas the physical world can't very easily be broken.  If I
>polish a rock, I am not bringing harm to physical reality, and certainly
>not to
>the physical laws of the reality (which comes to the same thing).  Now it
>may
>turn out that the universe will be broken by something.  But, the
>intent of physics being to discover the final laws of reality, then this
>would
>not demonstrate that such final laws were being broken--but only that
>the laws that physics discovered were not so final after all.
>
More circular reasoning above.
No one has as yet succeeded in defining clearly what is life and what is
not. Capability to be 'broken' or not does not do it.

>Edward
>

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
