HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cmenzel@tamsun.tamu.edu (Chris Menzel)
Subject: Re: The Mathematical Universe
Keywords: inconsistent multiplicities
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 15:55:19 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.050325.22915@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>The reason why I maintain that alternate physical universes exist is
>that I also maintain that the physical world is a "mathematical
>object" (say, for the sake of argument, a function with domain R^{4}
>and values expressing the intensities of various fields at given
>places and times; I am not committed to a specific description of this
>kind).  

Zur\"uck zu Pythagoras!  As I recall, Quine suggested a similar idea
some years ago, but I can't remember where; "Ontological Relativity"
maybe.  Pythagoreanism notwithstanding, I take it you don't think the
physical world is *literally* a mathematical object, if only for the
fact that, as you yourself hint, any number of other mathematical
objects would have served just as well.

>There are, of course, many other functions of the same general
>kind as the one to be identified with the physical universe, some of
>which satisfy the same "natural laws" as ours.  These latter ones are
>the "possible worlds" to which I am referring.

Seems to me that, on this story alone, there is no basis for saying
that one of these alternative functions satisfies the same natural
laws as ours, since those functions only describe what actually
happens in fact in those worlds.  To say that certain natural laws
obtain you have to be able to say that those worlds support certain
sorts of couterfactuals, i.e., relative to those worlds you have to be
able to be able to talk about what *would* happen under certain
conditions, and for this you need at least some notion of "closeness"
or "similarity" of worlds a la Robert Stalnaker or David Lewis for
understanding counterfactual discourse.  (E.g., p counterfactually
implies q iff q is true in the closest world in which p is true.)
Even this though is rather uncomfortably Humean for us gonzo realists.

>The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
>above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
>opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
>or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu

--Chris Menzel
  Philosophy Department
  Texas A&M University
From: rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi (Risto Kaivola)
Newsgroups: sci.logic
Subject: A only if B
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:07:14 GMT
Organization: Microdata Oy


  The following is no doubt a little trivial for the participants of this
group, but I hope someone is willing to help me, nevertheless.
  Exactly how should one formalize the English notion of 'only if'
in the language of the propositional calculus?
  That is, given the sentence
"Tom will visit us only if we invite him.",
is the correct formalization

A = "Tom will visit us."

B = "We invite him."

A  -->  B


Or, should this perhaps be B --> A (not in my opinion), or A <--> B
(this last alternative is more likely to be correct than B --> A, in my
opinion)?

This isn't homework.

--
Risto Kaivola
(Internet address:   rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi)
Newsgroups: sci.logic
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: A only if B
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:57:37 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <7563@charon.cwi.nl>, frankt@cwi.nl (Frank Teusink) writes:
|> I agree totaly in the mathemathical sense. But I think that when
|> we use the phrase "only if" in language, the "if" part is often
|> implicite. I would not say "Tom will come only if we invite him",
|> if I thought that even with an invitation, Tom might not come.

I certainly would say this.  For example, consider the context

	Bob will come if he learns of the party -- whether
	we want him to or not.  But Tom will come only if we
	invite him.

Since we haven't yet invited Tom, we of course have no idea of
whether he will in fact come (once he is invited) since,
for example, he may have a conflict, may want to avoid Bob, etc.

If you don't concede this (rather standard, I think) use of 'only if',
you have a lot of trouble straightforwardly expressing the thought
that Tom is the sort of fellow who won't attend in the absence of
an invitation.
	
I agree that it is sometimes (maybe even often) the case in English
that 'only if' is used in a context where 'if and only if' is implied,
but this does not remove its more fundamental meaning.  And I think
that you have picked a particularly bad example to illustrate the
point.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
From: sjv@doc.ic.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.logic
Subject: Re: "A only if B"  vs  "A if and only if B"
Date: 15 Oct 92 08:54:18 GMT
Organization: Imperial College
NNTP-Posting-Host: dse-mac-l1-85.doc.ic.ac.uk

In article <1992Oct13.224541.3542@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
rags@triples.math.mcgill.ca (Robert A. G. Seely) writes:
>
>I am surprised at the amount of comment this has caused - but (at the risk
>of making a blooper myself - it's always possible and frequently probable)
>here is my attempt to kill the thread:
>
> ...

Bob's account is clear and comprehensive and ought indeed to kill the thread.

My only reason for prolonging the agony is that I think that one reason for the
confusion is that English has temporal implications that the logic throws away:

  "if A then B" suggests that A happens first and B inevitably follows (in
_time_).

  "A only if B" suggests that B happens first, as a necessary precondition to
A.

Logically, both are translated as A -> B, but I suspect that the temporal
suggestion "B then A" in "A only if B" disturbs people's logical judgement and
tempts them to translate it as B -> A.

Steve Vickers.
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 14 Oct 92 18:27:59 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <Bv4A0D.EAM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

>These plausibility arguments can be taken further.  The old "fading
>qualia" and "dancing qualia" arguments are instances of these,
>for instance, using our intuitions about the most plausible
>results of certain thought-experiments to argue for the conclusion
>that consciousness supervenes on abstract functional organiozation.

Dancing qualia?

Anyway, I don't think our intuitions in these areas are very
reliable.  For instance, it it really intuitive that a number
of neurons could be killed without much, if any, noticeable
effect?  Suppose someone's neurons stopped working, one by one.
What happens?  Does their consciousness fade, blink out, or
what?  

-- jd
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Assumptions vs. assertions (was: Re the Cosmological Bad Dream)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 19:22:42 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct13.062810.43806@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>     However we have strayed far from the question we began with.  I'm
>interested in the pragmatic status of scientific assumptions, made
>because without making them science would be impossible.  That is,
>I'm not trying to distinguish between scientific hypotheses and
>other assertions, but between what I take to be two kinds of
>scientific assertion, for example those in (a) vs. those in (b):
>
>     (a)  Air has weight.
>          Space is curved.
>
>     (b)  The physical laws that hold locally, hold throughout the
>               universe. 
>          There exists a reality outside ourselves which we are
>               capable of understanding.

I agree that this is an interesting question.  (I certainly had no idea that
things like (b) were what you had in mind; I was thinking more along the
lines of "living things evolve by a gradual process of mutation and natural
selection of genes".)

Your first example under (b) is more a definition than an assertion.  Any
difference in what happens locally which is different from what happens
elsewhere are counted as differences in what is present; *by definition* the
physical laws are the same.

The second example is one without which scientific research cannot proceed
(although "which we are capable of understanding" might be qualified; we
need not believe in perfect or even asymptotically perfect understanding
in order to do research).

>  My problem is that (to hark back
>to the Cosmological Bad Dream) there are scientific utterances that
>I don't know whether to assign to (a) or (b), such as a detailed
>description of the first three minutes in the existence of the
>universe.

I think these things are clearly in category (a).  Why should a detailed
description of the first 3 minutes of the universe be any less of an
assertion than a detailed description of Paris last summer?  In neither case
can we go back and look.  We make the best guess we can based on the
evidence; we are prepared to modify it if new evidence disproves it; and
there will always remain some residual doubt, since the evidence is
necessarily incomplete.  The evidence in the case of the first 3 minutes of
the universe is more sketchy, and so the amount of doubt is higher; and it
may indeed be the case that the public does not understand the appropriate
level of doubt and inexactitude for these kinds of statements.  But this is
a conventional problem of misunderstanding, not anything fundamental.
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 9 Oct 92 19:46:44 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <26534@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1992Oct2.225739.4915@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>>In article <26519@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>>Indeed, in expert systems, knowledge representation plus mechanical
>>>inferencing systems are not only capable of chains of deductive
>>>reasoning, and making hypotheses and testing them, but of explaining
>>>what they are doing and why they are doing it in a persuasively
>>>rational manner.
>
>>If they can do this, they are conscious.
>
>Many years ago to entertain some schoolkids I wrote a BASIC program
>based on ELIZA which was capable of having apparently sensible
>conversations with the user about how it worked. The point of the
>exercise was to present them with something that behaved as though it
>was intelligent and conscious, but which was capable of dispelling the
>illusion by explaining the simple trickery involved.
>
>I take it that you would have insisted that the program's dispelling
>of the illusion was the trickery, and that I had actually succeeded in
>writing a conscious computer program in 60Kbytes of BASIC?

One of the things that completely surprised me when I came to
the Edinburgh AI Dept was that some students would defend the
idea that ELIZA wasn't just a "trick", and that (so far as
I could tell) they really thought this was the case.  That is,
they weren't just defending it for the sake of argument.
What surprised me even more was that members of the faculty
were prepared to defend the same position.

I still don't know what to make of this.

-- jd
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 8 Oct 92 19:32:49 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Sep15.184735.19327@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>Any decent scientist would want to know much more about what was really
>happening inside the box before rushing to judgment.

Well, that's what I say, so why are we always disagreeing?
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1992 18:46:41 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct7.013230.20350@tamsun.tamu.edu> e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand) writes:
>Frank Adams writes:
>>If I assert, "I saw the man come in.  He was tall, thin,
>>brown-haired, wore glasses, and smoking a cigar.", and it turns out his hair
>>is actually black instead of brown, you don't necessarily conclude that my
>>assertion was "false".  It *do* conclude that it was not correct in every
>>detail.
>
>No, you don't *necessarily* conclude this, but it's true anyway -- 
>assuming the definite description successfully denotes.  The second
>claim is a conjunction, and is thus false if even one conjunct is
>false.
>Does this really need pointing out in sci.philosophy.TECH, for x's sake?

It is correct that a literal interpretation of my statement is false (under
the given assumptions).  But the essential import of my statement is not
this literal interpretation, but rather more like, "he looked approximately
like this".  And *this* is not falsified by my being incorrect about some
details.

This kind of imprecision is very common in ordinary discourse.  Any theory
of human utterances which fails to take it into account is grossly
insufficient, and it is not surprising that such a theory might produce
absurd results like "scientific theories are not assertions".
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Putnam's book
Date: 15 Oct 92 09:29:11 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hilary Putnam "attacks functionalism" in his book _Representation and
Reality_ (MIT, 1988).  I think he makes some good points about 
intentionality (eg. about the social division of labour in giving words
meanings) but it's been a while since I read it and I can't recall what
the attack of functionalism really was.  I remembered the title, so
this is not a total waste of bandwidth.


-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 16 Oct 92 03:28:19 GMT
	<7711@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Oct15.215854.56205@Cookie.secapl.com>
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

   > I recommend the book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat"
   > (sorry, the  author's name escapes me).

Oliver Sacks.

	-- Bill
From: smaill@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Alan Smaill)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 13 Oct 92 17:18:36 GMT
	<1992Sep18.172123.14367@mp.cs.niu.edu> <7670@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: DAI, University of Edinburgh

In article <7670@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:


   Why is it then that when I suggest that functional organization 
   (or, more generally, "how it works") should count, no one on the
   anti-Searle side says they agree?  The response has been so
   universally negative that I've more or less given up on trying
   to make that point.  


Well, I agree for one.

My impression is that majority opinion in this group is on your side
here. (I keep being surprised by postings in the opposite sense, though).

Maybe this has something to do with net.attitudes ? (the purpose of
posting is of course to point out where someone else got it wrong,
not where they got it right, after all).

--
Alan Smaill,                       JANET: A.Smaill@uk.ac.ed             
Department of Artificial           ARPA:  A.Smaill%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
       Intelligence,               UUCP:  ...!uknet!ed.ac.uk!A.Smaill
Edinburgh University.
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 12 Oct 92 20:07:50 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Sep18.011924.22771@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <Buqq86.7oJ.2@cs.cmu.edu> tycchow+@cs.cmu.edu (Timothy Chow) writes:
>>
>>The disagreement between Dave Chalmers and Randall Holmes seems to boil down
>>to a question about which of the following holds about "logical possibility":
>>
>>1. Something that appears to us to be conceptually coherent is logically
>>   possible unless proven otherwise.
>>2. Nothing is logically possible until it is proven to be so.
>
>This seems a fair assessment.
>
>I tend to side with Randall on this.  But it is perhaps a quibble about
>words.  I would have no problem if Dave had said "plausible" or even
>"possible".  But when he attached the adjective "logical" to the
>possibility, it seemed to me he was overstating his case.

On the contrary, logical possibility is weak, much weaker than,
say, physical possibility.  It's arguable that even "plausible"
is stronger (so very implausible things might nonetheless be
logically possible).  And an unqualified "possible" is too
ambiguous.  Logical possibility is about as inclusive as you
can get, short of "anything goes".
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:16:01 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Oct15.174237.1730@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <7708@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>Or consider all the people who express the systems reply as "the
>>system understands".  This is a minor detail, but what are people
>>thinking when they say it?  Are they thinking `a la McDermott
>>that the reason for saying the system understands would be the 
>>theory used to construct it?  If so, why didn't they say so?
>
>Why should they say so?  This is a natural implicit assumption.  Searle
>allows us to assume that a suitable system exists, so it is natural
>to implicitly assume that this system has the "right" functional
>organization.

That doesn't show the system understands, only that it understands
_if_ this theory about functional organization is correct.

Sure, what people often mean by "the system understands" is "Look,
Searle, our claim is that the _system_ understands, not that the CPU
does."  This is a version of the system reply that I agree with.  But
I've heard a lot of people discuss the CR without making the connection
to functionalism that you suggest and without responding in the way
they would if that was their point.  Indeed, some disagree with Searle
but think the systems reply isn't enough.  It's far from clear that
everyone is thinking along these functionalist lines.

-- jd
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: nano-replicator assumptions
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 22:49:22 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <H13PsB3w165w@netlink.cts.com> snodgras@netlink.cts.com (John Snodgrass) writes:
>frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>> As an intelligent entity, I have a number of purposes, one of which is to
>> survive.  Why should I single out this purpose as my purpose *as an
>> organism*?
>
>      Because, if you didn't survive, you would no longer be an
>organism. Put another way, if you didn't survive, all your other purposes
>(which I would label as _derivative_ purposes) would become irrelevent.

But they wouldn't.  One of my purposes is to keep my family alive; I care
about their continued survival even in the event of my demise.  It is true
that I would not continue to have these other purposes after dying; but I
would also cease having them if I became permanently unconscious.  Why isn't
remaining conscious my purpose as an organism?

>>   One "purpose"
>> derives from the evolutionary dynamic; the other is inseparably part of the
>> behavior of an intelligent entity.
>
>     The "intelligent entity" is a product of your imagination.

If I wasn't an intelligent entity, I wouldn't have an imagination.


Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: "Consciousness Explained"
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 17:52:06 GMT

In article <26753@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <7650@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>>Perhaps you saw the tv show about Dennett.  

>I'm a Dennett fan and made a point of recording it. I was so disgusted
>after watching it that I erased it.

Dennett gave a talk here on CE last Friday night (Oct.2nd), during
which he showed some clips that didn't make it into the TV program.
He said that, despite his insistence that some convincing experiments
be included, by the time the BBC included the obligatory "sex and violence,"
the experiments were cut almost entirely.  So he showed the excised
experiments during his talk.  He didn't disown the TV program, but
he evidenced frustration with the BBC.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: U53846@uicvm.uic.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: dream
Date: 16 Oct 92 05:56:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: uicvm.92290.005644U53846
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

Hi could any one out there can provide me some idea for the following
   question?

   The question is:  when you woke up this morning, how do you know you are
                     the same persons today that you were yesterday before you
                     went to sleep?  and how do you know others are the same
                     persons today that they were yesterday?

            Thanks very much!
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 14 Oct 92 01:33:47 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <1992Oct13.215811.18973@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>I'll interject here that what I claim is that _Chalmers_ is using the
>wrong notion of possibility.  I admit that his possible world with
>zombies in it is a possible world (essentially because it can be
>imagined, which is Chalmers's argument for its possibility, as far as
>I can see), but I deny that the notion of "qualia" in that possible
>world correlates with the notion of "qualia" in our own world.
>Chalmers can only construct a possible world in which our "qualia"
>correlate with his "non-physical qualia" (absent in the case of the
>zombie) and our "relevant physical states" correspond to the relevant
>physical states of the zombie when he has _already established_ that
>the referents of these two notions (the qualia and the physical
>states) are actually different in the actual world.  Imaginable worlds
>can be possible worlds considered by themselves, but the identity
>criteria relative to the actual world may not work correctly, as in
>the case of Chalmers's argument.

So.  You accept that God could have created a possible world with zombies;
i.e., a possible world in which the physical states and laws
correspond isomorphically with ours, but in which there is nothing
it is like to be those creatures.  That's enough.  I win.  It
shows that God had *more work to do* in creating our world, over and
above making sure that it satisfied those physical laws.  He
also had to make sure it was like something to be us.

All this stuff about "identity of qualia across worlds" is entirely
off the point.  I don't care whether the zombie has or lacks
the "same" qualia that we do -- I'm concerned whether it's like
anything to be that zombie, or not.  The reference is by description,
if you like, rather than by rigid designation.  That's entirely
enough to make the point.

>If his argument were valid, it would provide a general proof of the
>existence of any occult qualities you care to name: I can imagine an
>apparently living being without "vitality", so "vitality" must be
>distinguishable from the microphysical organization now mistakenly
>identified with "life".

This is quite irrelevant, as there's no reason to suppose that
we even *have* this mysterious thing, vitality.  Whereas we
certainly have qualia; there can be no doubt of that.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."