From:	SMTP%"ghrosenb@phil.indiana.edu"  8-MAR-1996 11:29:12.86
To:	STAPP
CC:	
Subj:	Re: Reply to Hayes 5

From: "Gregg Rosenberg" <ghrosenb@phil.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Reply to Hayes 5
To: phayes@cs.uiuc.edu (Pat Hayes)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 14:24:06 -0500 (EST)
Cc: klein@adage.Berkeley.EDU, A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk, brings@rpi.edu,
        keith@imprint.co.uk, mckee@neosoft.com, patrickw@cs.monash.edu.au,
        STAPP@theorm.lbl.gov, phayes@cs.uiuc.edu,
        ghrosenb@phil.indiana.edu (Gregg Rosenberg)
In-Reply-To: <199603081800.MAA15949@tubman.ai.uiuc.edu> from "Pat Hayes" at Mar 8, 96 12:01:01 pm
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> >These cases really are *almost* exactly analogous. They are analagous
> >in that the demand for proof is the same in both, and need to be met in
> >the same way: by evidencing an entailment (or convincing us that an 
> >entailment exists in principle) from the properties a collection of atoms 
> >would have to the chalkiness of the chalk.
> >
> >They are disanalagous in that such an entailment seems to exist (under
> >any ordinary understanding of what 'chalkiness' means) in the chalk
> >case. 
> 
> It does NOW. But I can imagine a philosopher still not being convinced: he
> might insist that all that had been demonstrated was a necessary
> correlation between the atomic structre and the chalkiness, 

Actually, we used to have one such philosopher here at IU by the name
of Reinhardt Grossman. Gordon Globus seems to be another. Usually, a phil.
who holds this does so because he rejects the primary/secondary quality
distinction, and puts the qualitative characters we experience back into
the physical objects. If that's the correct maneuver, then such philosophers
are *right* -- scientific explanations really DON'T entail all the facts
about these things, and putative "scientific identities" fail. For my own 
part, I think such maneuvers create more problems than they are worth,
and that we have powerful positive arguments for keeping such qualia
on the experiential side of things.

In general, though, for any given position P, one can always find *some*
philosophers who hold P. That's just the nature of philosophy. You've
just got to apply a "reasonable man" test to decide whose nuts and whose
not. I like to think we're not *all* nuts, but maybe my standards are
low! ;-)

> >In the phenomenal and functional case all we have (and it seems all we
> >could ever have) is correlation. 
> 
> We dont have the theory yet, but on what grounds (other than an
> extrapolation of a lack of imaginative insight into a claim of
> impossibility) can anyone state that this is all we could *ever* have?

I'm about to send Pat a paper I've written on just this question. I
don't know if it is the best paper on the topic written, but it is the
only one I have on-line. If anyone else is interested, let me know.

I expect there's going to be alot of discussion of just this issue in a 
few months when Chalmers book comes out. He goes into alot of detail about 
why we should be pessimistic. I'm going to be very interested
to see how convincing it is to other people. I expect there will be about
a 75/25 split on convinced/not convinced with the 25 concentrated heavily
in the AI/Psychologist/Engineering/Materialist-Philosopher community. 
My experience is that the general population is about 25% already
sympathetic, about 25% strongly opposed, and about 50% sitting-on-the-fence.
After hearing the arguments, the already sympathetic say Amen, the
sitting-on-the-fence by and large become sympathetic, and the opposed
virtually *never* convert. The most troulesome part of this whole debate
to me -- what I'd like to figure out more than anything -- is *why*
reaction to the arguments is not more uniform. To me, they seem utterly
compelling and almost obvious; yet I know to others they seem utterly
question-begging and wishy-washy.

Any ideas on why this is? I don't buy for a moment Sloman's idea that
some of us are just too stupid to recognize the entailments when we
see them. The dualist arguments are not predicated on a failure of perception,
but a perception of failure. To paraphrase Dennett, those are not the
same thing.

> Pat
> 
> PS thanks for the education, its been useful. One quibble: when you say
> that in order to provide an explanation, F must entail *all* of P, isnt
> that too strong? After all, that doesnt apply even in the ms/es case: the
> appearances are due to many factors (atmospheric, eg) as well as the
> characteritics of the planet Venus, but the identity was discovered long
> before we knew enough to completely draw all those entailments. If we allow
> the properties of P to be uncovered bit by bit, then I think we may already
> be making some progress.

That's the metaphysical condition, and it's not too strong. But, in
practice, like with everything else, we usually accept something far
short of it if we can be convinced that the entailments exist in principle.
That is, adjusting for our ignorance, limiting factors, irrelevant
complications, and so forth, we try to judge what the case really is.
That's why there's so much room for disagreement about these things. The
reason the F and P case doesn't seem to be amenable to pragmatic 
justifications that the entailments exist in principle is because the seem
to be categorically such different things. P just isn't the *kind* of
thing entailed by F. Given that, it doesn't seem to be a failure of
*detail* but a failure in *principle*. That's where the arguments get
their bite, for those of us who think they have bite.

--Gregg

-- 
Honesty in academia
  _____  
 /     \
 |      |                             Gregg Rosenberg
 | --)(--                             
 C      _)  D'ohh!                    Will philosophize for food.
 |   ___\    /                        
 |  /  __)
 /_ \__/
/  \  / \