HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Colbys-Weizenbaum   Weizenbaum Errors
Date: 21 Jan 93 22:05:56 GMT
Reply-To: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <1993Jan13.215919.23226@cs.ucla.edu> colby@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Kenneth Colby) writes:

> (2)  Weizenbaum implies that Carl Rogers recommended that the
> therapist "love" the patient so that the patient can learn to
> "love" himself.  I was a friend and colleague of Carl Rogers for
> many years.  I never heard him recommend "loving" the patient.  His
> recommended therapeutic attitude was one of "unconditional positive
> regard".  When you start talking "love", it is easy to slip into
> sex and then you get cases like the Bean-Beaogg example at Harvard
> in which the therapist had sexual relations with a medical-student
> patient, rejected him and then he killed himself.  Bean-Beaogg gave
> up her license and settled a suit for one million dollars.  Another
> instance is the Masserman case in Chicago in which he put his
> patients to sleep with amytal and then had intercourse with them.
> (By the way, these not-uncommon (15%) sexual side-effects of
> human therapists are happily absent in computer-mediated psychotherapy.)
>
> The psychotherapeutic relationship is not a love relationship - it is
> an educational cognitive-work relationship designed to enhance
> therapeutic learning by the patient or client.  If Weizenbaum wants
> to make it into a love relationship, he runs the risk of producing
> horror situations such as those described above.

Ken, I don't think this is fair.  As you know, love is a word that
in English has different meanings.  The kind of love Weizenbaum
is talking about is more like "charity" of the Bible rather than
"eros".  When I tell my medical students they have to love their
patients even if they are alcoholics, drug abusers, whatever, I
am following what my mentor Lou Caplan taught me and they are
not confused by this, as I was not when Lou taught it to me.
"Unconditional positive regard" is really a pretty good synonym
for this kind of love.  











-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic
From: ard@cs.bham.ac.uk (Antoni Diller)
Subject: Re: Searle on syntax mirroring semantics
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 12:24:32 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.121155.24448@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>Can anyone explain this sentence to me?  It is on p.203 of "The
>Rediscovery of the Mind" by John Searle.
>
>	The development of proof theory showed that within certain
>	well-known limits the semantic relations between propositions
>	can be entirely mirrored by the syntactic relations between
>	the sentences that express those propositions.

I assume that by `syntax' he means proof-theory and by
`semantics' he means model-theory; so all he's saying is that
there are some logics for which you can prove soundness and
completeness given a suitable proof-theory and model-theory.
Ie, you can prove:

If Delta |- P, then Delta |= P.
If Delta |= P, then Delta |- P.

He also probably thinks that a `proposition' is what a sentence
means, ie, is something non-linguistic; but you can ignore that.

Antoni Diller

Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7385 sci.philosophy.tech:4948
From: chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 25 Jan 1993 08:43:24 -0500
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu

In article <1993Jan25.023842.11756@sophia.smith.edu% orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
...............
%	This raises an interesting question:  suppose we established
%(somehow) that a particular species experienced pain, but otherwise had no 
%mental life -- no other aspects of what we normally gather under the
%"consciousness" umbrella.  Would it be accurate to call these creatures
%conscious?  If not, then arguing that a dog feels pain does not suffice
%to establish that dogs are conscious.

I agree that the contents of human consciousness are richer, and if
you propose to define consciousness as having that richness of
content, then you are right that dogs are unlikely to be conscious.
But I think that it is a bit like claiming that dogs aren't
intelligent, because you want to redefine intelligence as having the
capabilities that we want to use in describing  human intelligence.  

If it is a mere matter of redefinition of terms, I don't think it would
matter much.  But I think it is important remain open to the
possibility of certain continuities.  If it turns out that human
consciousness is built out of the substratum of animal consciousness,
then we would miss out on an important insight by treating human
consciousness, almost by definition, as something animals don't have.

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 14:39:08 GMT

In article <1k0r1tINN5fn@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> 
	chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:

>Would you say that a patient under anesthesia is in pain, he just
>doesn't feel it? I think that would be an odd use of the term.

	Good question!  I'm afraid I am ignorant of the precise
mechanism of anesthesia, but since it results in loss of sensation
even when you are conscious, it seems clear that under anesthesia,
there is no pain.  Anesthesia and sleep seem significantly different.
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Minds, Computers and Searle
Date: 21 Jan 93 19:34:06 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1993Jan16.101540.1225@skynet.uucp> ice@skynet.uucp (Ice) writes:

>Searle is whining like a spoilt child by pointing out that a computational
>metaphor for mind is "wrong," without offering a realistic alternative.

You don't think it's useful to point out a mistake, even if you can't
offer a solution?

>A comment on the sociology of science: It's amazing how much this guy
>gets the limelight while contributing little to foundational issues in
>AI by sidetracking us with semantic head games.

I'm amazed that people working in AI spend so much time on these
issues when they're relevant to only a very small part of AI.
Even in Cog Sci most (I think) of what people do would still be
worth doing even if Searle were right.

Anyone who doesn't want to be "sidetracked" should be able to
avoid the whole debate almost all of the time.  Of course,
people who read an ai.phil newsgroup tend to be interested
in these issues and don't want to avoid it (except when it
just cycles through the same old arguments).
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: dbrown@newssun.med.miami.edu (Daniel Brown)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: University of Miami, School Of Medicine
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 19:31:35 GMT

There is a good collection of papers on attempts to scientifically
demonstrate the extent of cognitive faculties (esp. levels of
thought, e.g. intentionality):

	_Cognitive_Ethology:_ 
	ed by Carolyn Ristau

The first few chapters have some pretty weak overviews of the relevant
work in philosophy, but the scientific contributions are very interesting.

Also, see

	_Animal_Thinking_
	by Donald Griffin

	_Gavagai!_
	by David Premack

Both discuss the possibilities of animal intelligence from a more 
philosophical perspective.

Dan
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7384 sci.philosophy.tech:4947
From: chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 25 Jan 1993 08:35:37 -0500
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu


In article <C1Dzy0.H9D@unix.portal.com% emil@shell.portal.com (emil rojas) writes:
%chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
%
%%In article <1993Jan24.213358.10067@sophia.smith.edu% orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
%%That is a different question.  You are no longer asking if dogs are
%%conscious, but about the complexity of and variety of the objects of
%%their consciousness (and the expressiveness of th language in which
%%these objects are represented).  I haven't read Searles' book, but
%%from what you said about it it seems that all he is saying is that
%%dogs are conscious.
%
%Does conscious here mean self-aware?
%

I think so.  To the extent that the dog is in pain, it is aware that it
is in pain.  Of course, if by "aware" you mean that it ought to express
this to itself as a proposition in natural language, then the dog is not
aware, but I'd like to argue against such a restricted use of the term
"aware."

%
%%BTW, having beliefs (or behaving such that beliefs are attributable to
%%one) is not sufficient for consciousness.  One can behave as if one
%%believes A without being aware that one believes A.  Often,
%%psychoanalysis brings out hidden fears and beliefs that control our
%%actions, but we are not aware of them.  Of course we are often aware
%%of desires and beliefs as well, but that doesn't seem to a defining
%%characteristic of consciousness.  The content of consciousness in
%%humans is much more expressive of course, which certainly gives human
%%consciousness a qualitative difference. 
%
%I take issue with the idea that this "gives human consciousness a
%qualitative difference."  Unless of course, you believe an elephant's
%strength is _qualitatively_ greater than your own.
%

I think there is a certain "second-orderness" to human consciousness, since
we are not only aware of certain things, but we are also often aware that
we are aware.  In my view this makes possible certain recursiveness which
yields a qualitative difference to human consciousness.  I think it can be
fairly claimed that this second order consciousness is missing in animals,
even though one can't be sure of that.  

%%But having goals (which is
%%the same as desires, I think) and knowledge (or beliefs) is orthogonal
%%to being conscious, I think.
%
%Just to be picky.  Conscious and _knowledge_ of self/other would seem
%to me to be related, that is not orthogonal.
%--

I think (following Newell), being in a knowledge state is not necessarily
identical to being conscious of having that knowledge.

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Searle on syntax mirroring semantics
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 20:38:19 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.121155.24448@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>Can anyone explain this sentence to me?  It is on p.203 of "The
>Rediscovery of the Mind" by John Searle.
>
>	The development of proof theory showed that within certain
>	well-known limits the semantic relations between propositions
>	can be entirely mirrored by the syntactic relations between
>	the sentences that express those propositions.

Logic. The rules that drive a logical derivation are forward are syntactic 
(e.g. "if a formula look like such-and such, then you're allowed to write 
one down that looks so-and so), but upon interpretation, you'll discover that
certain semantic feature (viz. truth) have been preserved. This is the sense
in which syntax mirrors semantics. It is also the driving force behind the
plausibility of computational cognitive science (See Pylyshyn _Computation and
cognition_ or Fodor _Psychsemantics_.). Only if a (syntactic) computer program
can mirror the semantic features of cognition is there any hope that a computer
might be made into a mind.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Unocal Corporation
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 01:30:20 GMT

Teh Nov or Dec 92 Scientific AMerican had an article on detecting
mental states (successfully) in higher mammals.  Not easy,
but possible.
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7392 sci.philosophy.tech:4970
From: forbis@stein.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 25 Jan 93 21:37:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1k1mj7INN8cu
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

In article <1k0r1tINN5fn@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>Would you say that a patient under anesthesia is in pain, he just
>doesn't feel it? I think that would be an odd use of the term.

Years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed.  When I awoke I was crying
but couldn't say why--I did not feel any pain.  Since that time I have wondered
about the experience.  When I heard about split brain patients I began to 
speculate about the possibility that while my speach center was disconnected
some other parts may not have been.  

A related question is: can a patient feel pain if she or he cannot relate
the experience?

I think that if the anesthetic prevents signals from entering the brain then
no pain is felt but am less willing to claim a general anesthetic blocks pain
when it might be the case that it merely blocks the ability to report pain.

--gary forbis@u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:31:39 GMT

In article <1k0qb9INN5dc@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>
>In article <C1Dzy0.H9D@unix.portal.com% emil@shell.portal.com (emil rojas) writes:
>%chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>%
>%%In article <1993Jan24.213358.10067@sophia.smith.edu% orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>%
>%Does conscious here mean self-aware?
>%
>
>I think so.  To the extent that the dog is in pain, it is aware that it
>is in pain.  

No no no! To the extent that it is in pain, it is aware (conscious) *OF THE 
PAIN*. To be *self-aware* is an entirely separate issue. Consciousness is
to be aware of "things" (roughly).  To be self-aware is to be conscious
of oneself, of one's own consciousness. Surely it is possible to be consciousess
without having the capacity for self-consciousness. Squirrels likely fit into
this category. Some would aruge even dogs and cats.
-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: emil@shell.portal.com (emil rojas)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Portal Communications Company
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 01:53:59 GMT

chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:

>In article <1993Jan24.213358.10067@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>That is a different question.  You are no longer asking if dogs are
>conscious, but about the complexity of and variety of the objects of
>their consciousness (and the expressiveness of th language in which
>these objects are represented).  I haven't read Searles' book, but
>from what you said about it it seems that all he is saying is that
>dogs are conscious.

Does conscious here mean self-aware?


>BTW, having beliefs (or behaving such that beliefs are attributable to
>one) is not sufficient for consciousness.  One can behave as if one
>believes A without being aware that one believes A.  Often,
>psychoanalysis brings out hidden fears and beliefs that control our
>actions, but we are not aware of them.  Of course we are often aware
>of desires and beliefs as well, but that doesn't seem to a defining
>characteristic of consciousness.  The content of consciousness in
>humans is much more expressive of course, which certainly gives human
>consciousness a qualitative difference. 

I take issue with the idea that this "gives human consciousness a
qualitative difference."  Unless of course, you believe an elephant's
strength is _qualitatively_ greater than your own.

>But having goals (which is
>the same as desires, I think) and knowledge (or beliefs) is orthogonal
>to being conscious, I think.

Just to be picky.  Conscious and _knowledge_ of self/other would seem
to me to be related, that is not orthogonal.
--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Emil Rojas  emil@shell.portal.com (408) 973-0603
Cognisys Software System Development
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7386 sci.philosophy.tech:4949
From: chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 25 Jan 1993 08:47:41 -0500
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu

In article <1993Jan25.115504.13869@sophia.smith.edu% orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
%In article <1993Jan25.023842.11756@sophia.smith.edu% I wrote:
%%	This raises an interesting question:  suppose we established
%%(somehow) that a particular species experienced pain, but otherwise had no 
%%mental life [...].  Would it be accurate to call these creatures conscious?
%
%	Let me add to this thought.  The night after I last sprained my
%ankle, I had great difficulty sleeping from the pain, but I managed a
%few hours of fitful sleep.  It seems clear to me the pain continued while
%I was asleep.  Searle argues for this convincingly in "The Rediscovery of
%the Mind."  My body responded to the pain even while asleep, e.g., by not
%attempting to roll over.  So one can have unconscious pains.
%	It seems therefore that establishing that an animal experiences
%pain does not establish that it is conscious.

Hm, what I would say is not that you had pain when you were unconscious, 
but the mechanisms that cause you to feel pain were active and were trying
to pierce your consciousness, hence your fitful sleep.  That is, each time
you sort of woke up, the pain mechanisms scored a minor success, they
made you *feel* pain.  If you had not had fitful sleep (say you had taken
a sleeping pill), then I think it would be incorrect to say that you had
pain while you slept.   

Would you say that a patient under anesthesia is in pain, he just
doesn't feel it? I think that would be an odd use of the term.
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 24 Jan 93 18:21:08 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil) writes:
>I very much doubt it. My freshman philosophy teacher maintained that humans 
>are the only self-aware creatures on the planet, and that we perceive 
>conciousness in animals because we tend to judge all things by ourselves.

      According to Sir John Eccles, author of "Evolution of the Brain",
all the mammals have essentially the same brain organization.  The 
differences between the mammals are quantitative, at least at the levels
we can see with an electron microscope.  Presumably there are degrees
of "self-awareness" accordingly.

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Minds, Computers and Searle
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 22:55:48 GMT

In article <chrisk.728156188@fester> chrisk@fester.dell.com (Chris Kostanick - X6736) writes:
>christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>
>>To repeat for the 37,000th time, the CR -- right or wrong -- is directed
>>at Strong AI only. The vast majority of cognitive scientists I deal with,
>>in both psychology and AI, are not proponents of strong AI, and many find
>>the idea somewhat ludicrous. The "targets" are McCarthy, Minsky, and
>>Newell & Simon (as Searle himself states explicitly).
>
>I'm curious as to what you think is possible in AI, weak or strong.
>Let's assume that compute power will continue to grow for another
>couple/three hardware generations. This should make 100 Mip machines
>readily accessable. What do you think an AI program running on
>one (with suitable robot effectors and vision aparatus) could do?
>
>This isn't the prelude to flamage by the way, I work with robots 
>and am somewhat amazed by how good robotic hand/eye coordination
>can be in the right environment.

You miss the distinction that "strong" and "weak" marks.  The issue is not
whether computers can eventually do all variety of nifty things - remember
that Searle *grants* the possibility that a computer could answer any
question you give it in a natural fashion, since this is the premise of
the Chinese Room. The question is whether doing all these nifty things
require semantics, or, if you prefer, consciousness.  Faster/stronger
arguments simply have no bearing on the philosophical question at hand.

- michael
 

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Unocal Corporation
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 22:06:23 GMT

Some people call consciousness an "emergent phenomena"-
property of a sufficiently complex system.  Life is
another emergent phenomena- some chemical systems are
definitely non-living, some definitely living, and a
small set almost or barely alive.  Therefore there
may be a stages along the eveloutionary complexity
ladder that correspond to non-conscious, clearly
conscious and ambigious.
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7373 sci.philosophy.tech:4938