HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 20:52:45 GMT

In article <6587@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>However, I do not agree with McDermott's earlier and stronger claim
>that if Searle knew anything about computation we wouldn't be discussing
>the CR in the first place.  Well, it's at least logically possible
>that if _Searle_ knew anything about computation ... But it's certainly
>not the case that everyone who knows about computation finds the Room
>argument worthless.

Indeed, one merely has to look at the responses after the original BBS
article, or Steven Harnad's work, to see that not all AI people think
that Searle is full of it.

- michael
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 06:46:44 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.183603.10809@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>Regardless of the dubious relevance of Parfit's position on personal
>identity to the issue of reducing functionalism to behaviorism, it should
>be clear to you that the lack of rigid personal identity, as determined by
>functional organisation, ipso facto denies you the opportunity to
>estabilish truth-conditions for the strong conditionals in question.

Of course one has to distinguish the identity-conditions for the
minds from those of the physical basis of the implementation
(c.f. the copper/statue distinction, here mirrored by both the
object/system and object/mind distinction).  But in any case I am
certainly not denying the existence of trans-world identity, simply
denying that there is always a fact of the matter about it.  I take 
Kripke's position, more or less, that one doesn't need to establish
identities across qualitatively specified worlds to establish the
truth of these conditionals; rather, the identity is given in the
antecedent specification of the worlds.  Again, there's no more
difficulty with these conditionals than with the conditional about
the lamp.

>I am not sure just what you are saying here; if you are implying that
>"mere" nomological supervenience in conjunction with a full ontological
>commitment to the ranges of the existentially quantified variables of the
>formal expressions of the supervenience laws in question can be
>meaningfully distinguished from metaphysical supervenience, then, on the
>face of it, you are making a ridiculous claim.  I don't see just how your
>dualism could help you out of this predicament, other than by reducing your
>supervenience theses to mere parallelism.

Nomic supervenience is trivially distinct from metaphysical
supervenience, because nomic necessity is different from metaphysical
necessity.  A universe physically identical to ours but lacking
conscious experience is a conceptual and a metaphysical possibility,
but not a nomic possibility, on my view.  So consciousness nomically
supervenes on the physical, but does not conceptually or metaphysically
supervene.

I'm a dualist for more or less the same reason as Kripke, i.e.
because of the possibility of the experienceless replica universe.
Of course most materialist functionalists will respond to Kripke's
argument by denying this possibility (or else by denying the
reality of consciousness, as Dennett does, so we're already
in the experienceless universe).

-- 
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."
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Robert Rosen & Physical form of Church's Thesis
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:50:09 GMT
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine

In article <oFD2iB2w164w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> tomh.bbs@cybernet.cse.fau.edu writes:
|
|Well, the idea is to use an analog computer to 'compute' one of those
|non-effectively computable physical processes.  The difficulty is that
|an analog computer cannot be started with a specified exact initial
|condition, due to limitations of finite precision.
|

So what, as someone else has already pointed out this just says that
identical twins will not behave exactly alike.

Unless one is trying to duplicate a *particular* mind, the exact initial
conditions do not matter, as long as they fall within the correct basin
of attraction for the dynamic system.
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Functional Equivalence (Was: A rock implements every FSA)
Date: 9 Apr 92 21:48:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: oracorp.1992Apr9.214829.3723
Organization: ORA Corporation

orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>	So here's my proposal:
>
>		Two Turing Machines are FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT
>		if they make the same tape moves & writes, in the
>		same order, on every starting input tape.

>Note that there is no mention of mapping between states of the two
>machines. So in a sense, I am defining functional equivalence in
>terms of behavioral equivalence.  But it is fine-grained behavior.
>After all, if we included state transitions as part of the behavior,
>Then behaviorism = functionalism!

I think that what you have defined is behavioral equivalence, and not
functional equivalence. Behavioral equivalence is dependent on your
definition of the external interface, or what it is we are allowed to
see about the system without "opening it up". Your definition amounts
to letting people see the intermediate steps of the calculation
instead of just the final results.

To me, functional equivalence is a constraint that is imposed over and
above behavioral equivalence, and is not simply a matter of drawing
the interface at a different place.  For whatever your choice of
interface is, there is a corresponding notion of behavioral and
functional equivalence. As I said in another posting, I don't think
that functional equivalence adds anything except in the case of
nondeterministic systems, which you don't seem to be considering here.

Anyway, given your definition of equivalence for Turing Machines, I
don't understand how you extend your definition to equivalence for
other systems, such as computer programs and human brains, etc. Of
course you can write any computer program as a Turing Machine, but in
general it can be done in more than one *inequivalent* way. The usual
ways of implementing algorithms on Turing Machines don't worry too
much about what happens in intermediate calculations.

So, before I grant your definition of equivalence of Turing Machines,
I would have to know how you would extend it to other computational
systems.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Godel's Incompleteness Theorm
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:57:36 GMT
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging

In article <1992Apr15.160747.9350@watdragon.waterloo.edu> 
wlfong@logos.waterloo.edu (Philip W. L. Fong) writes:
>      Is there any easy-to-comprehend 
>text/reference (for an average CS student) which covers [Godel's] proof 
>and discusses the implication of the theory?

  Far and away the best thing to read is Hofstadter's "Goedel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid."

	-- Bill
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Date: 14 Apr 92 15:36:09 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <1992Apr12.120115.1221@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:

>I agree with you. As a matter of fact, in the the theory of processes,
>as developed by Robin Milner, quite a bit is done with a notion of
>"functional equivalence", and it is a theorem that any two processes
>that are (1) deterministic, and (2) behaviorally equivalent, are also
>functionally equivalent.

  This claim seems quite preposterous.

  Consider the following two methods of computing the GCD of two non-negative
integers.  For each process, the observed behavior is to read two numbers,
then after a brief delay print the GCD.

  Method 1:

	This is the usual Euclidean algorithm.

	while (b > 0)
	{
		r := remainder on dividing a by b;
		a := b;
		b := r;
	}

	output a;


 Method 2:

	if (b == 0  ) { output a; exit; }
	m = 1;
	while (a is even and b is even)
	{
		shift a and b left one bit;
		shift m right one bit;
	}

	loop
	{
		if (a == 0  ) { output m*b; exit; }
		if (b == 0  ) { output m*a; exit; }
		while (a is even) shift a left one bit;
		while (b is even) shift b left one bit;

		if (b < a)
			a := a - b;
		else
			b := b - a;
	}

   ---------------------------

   Both methods compute the GCD.  Both take times at worst proportional to
the log of the largest argument.  It is easy to add idle cycles in each
iteration to keep the times of both processes identical.  [Roughly speaking,
add idle cycles so each step takes a time equal to

	K * (log (largest on input) - log (largest on output) )

for some suitable K].

  With method 1, given inputs 24 and 15, after the first few cycles it will
find itself following the exact sequence of states you would get with
inputs 15 and 9.  With method 2 and inputs 24 and 15 it will soon start
following the same sequence of states as with inputs 12 and 3.

  Method 1 essentially goes through the same functional states you would need
to compute the continued fraction representation of a/b.  Method 2 doesn't.

  How can these possibly be functionally equivalent?

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
From: tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Categories: bounded or graded?
Date: 15 Apr 92 19:47:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: hellgate.1992Apr15.134743.8440
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept


>>is that natural
>>categories are not defined by invariant features, but rather
>>by radiation from prototypes.  

And indeed, this is nearly correct.

>Consequently, what we
>usually need is something that sandwiches the definition between the
>two aspects: structural (that is, of the examples) and functional
>(that is, of the intended purpose or usage of the category). 

And this is even closer.

(sit back and relax)

Lets examine where the object arrives from.  In the case of an animal,
we have the genetic evolution which is clearly a form of radiation of
form.  However, it is not radiating from a "prototype", rather from
a whole slew of forms.

In the case of a created object, it is a form arising from concept- which
itself is a radiation of form from the internal model.

However, as was pointed out, our functional aspects have bearing.  In
evolution, we have separate evolution of the same form (wings for example)
This is a functional consideratio- the insect,dinosaur, and bird all evolved
these independently in search of function.  And now we can describe all
of these with the term "wing".

In created objects, we have the same convergence.  I may see a rock, and
decide it is my chair.  Here I have used an aspect of its functionality
as my definition of its nature.

Now comes the bonus question: What is it we really mean when we are
referencing something?  

The problem is that I may talk about a rock, knowing it is my chair, and
you are thinking about it as a place to put peas on.  We may be unaware
of the others functional form, yet still talk about the same thing.
Indeed, it is often an act of "genius" to take ordinary things and realize
another aspect of functionality.

So it is apparent we live in a world of unrealized functionalityion
Therefore, we DO NOT talk about nature as "the" functionality, for this
is unknown, however we do talk about it within the domain of shared
functionality. 


The problem I see is that people end up moving the conversation into
an abstraction of self-referentiality.  Progress can't be made anymore,
because no one is talking about anything that means anything other
than itself.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:12:33 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.155719.10215@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.231721.2684@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

>>>What you "like to think" has little bearing on the question. Surely
>>>whether SHRDLU, thermostats, and rocks have minds is an empirical
>>>question.
>>
>>  A precise, complete and unambiguous definition of "mind" please.  You
>>obviously have such a definition, since you declare the question to
>>be "empirical".
>>
>in advance. Do you honestly believe that the question of whether some  
>object has a mind is a logical question? That seems to be you primary

  It was you, not I, who claimed this was an empirical question.  If it is
an empirical question there is a generally accepted standard which can be
used as a measuring rod.  But you flat out reject the Turing Test.  In
fact your postings imply that there is nothing that would ever persuade
you that any computer program could ever have a mind.  Thus for you
it is not an empirical question, but a question of religious dogma.

>                                                             I always thought
>that psychology was an empirical science.

  I'll take the fifth on that :-) .

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: goedel and ai - correct version!!
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 00:06:21 GMT

atten@phil.ruu.nl (Mark van Atten) writes:

> II.2 Penrose's argument

> Let F be a formal system, and G(F) an undecidable formula in F.
> (e.g., Con(F))
>
> Then Penrose's argument is this: The ***deduction*** of G(F) from F
> is true and valid, we can ***see*** that. The important thing is that
> it is the deduction is seen to be  valid, while it is not formalizable
> (is that correct English?).

Mark, we already did Penrose in this newsgroup. Sigh.

Penrose's arguments are, in my opinion, completely wrong. First of
all, to say that we deduce Con(F) from F is mistaken. The statement
Con(F) is simply a formalization of the statement "It is impossible to
prove a contradiction from the axioms of F". If we believe that F is
consistent, then we believe the formalization of this, Con(F). Where
is there some non-formalizable deduction in any of this?

Penrose claims that our ability of "reflection" is somehow not
formalizable, but this is an empty claim. His proof doesn't prove it,
any more than Lucas' proof did. As a matter of fact, Penrose' proof is
simply Lucas' proof, recycled.

> Perhaps mathematical intuition cannot see ALL of true math. (Goedel
> thinks it can, however), but that doesn't matter for this argument:
> there is at least one math. truth that can not be formalized and
> hence, is not algorithmic.

I agree that mathematical truth is not algorithmic. But the little
pieces that we have been able to grasp certainly are.

> It must be borne in mind that this is a
> question of principle. Probably no one will ever be able to compute
> the 10^10^10^10 digit of pi, but in ***principle***, it is possible.

> Again: it is the fact that we see the validity of Goedel's proof, not
> the truth of G(f); that is the difference with Lucas.

Godel's proof is a *theorem* of Peano arithmetic. It is completely
formalizable, and therefore does not prove that there is some kind of
reasoning that we do that is not formalizable.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:48:24 GMT
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine

In article <1992Apr7.205221.3728@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
|
|But where does this lead us?  To entities that only have a "part" of a belief,
|or a "bit" of an experience, a "portion" of qualia?

Essentially.  I have no trouble with ideas like 'limited understanding'
or 'rudimentary qualia', or ...

Note that the boundry cases are not necesarily best described using words
like 'part' or 'bit', often words like 'limited' or 'partial' or some
such thing are more expressive of what is happening.

As a concrete example, I would say that Schank's "story reading" program
shows (very) limited understanding; nothing like the type of understanding
that humans have, but it captures *some* of what is involved in human
understanding, and can therefore be said to understand, to a limited degree.

|  I want to be a realist
|about mental states, and so therefore believe that it is not simply a matter of
|"deciding" whether rocks have beliefs, like one would decide whether glass is
|a liquid or a solid.  There is, from my perspective, a *fact of the matter*
|whether or not rocks, or thermostats, or SHRDLU, has mental states.

I tend to agree, fuzzy boundries do not necesarily deny objectivism, just
universal certainty. There will still be many unambiguous situations, and
even the ambiguous states will still have a 'fact of the matter', it will
just be one that defies classification.


One if the main issues of philosophical concern is the appropriate criteria
for deciding what things have the various 'qualities' associated with
minds.

It is here that this group can make its biggest contribution.
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wednesday, 8 Apr 1992 20:07:26 EDT
From: <JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
 <1992Apr8.010858.5398@news.media.mit.edu> <92099.165657JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
 <1992Apr8.220700.12092@mp.cs.niu.edu>

In article <1992Apr8.220700.12092@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil
Rickert) says:
>
>In article <92099.165657JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>In article <1992Apr8.010858.5398@news.media.mit.edu>, minsky@media.mit.edu
>>(Marvin Minsky) says:
>>...
>>>It is _you_ who may interpret what it is doing as formal or precise.
>>
>>   Does this mean that you reject the isomorphism that many philosophers
>>find between computers and formal systems?  And if so, on what grounds?
>
>  I certainly do when it is doing numeric computations involving approximate
>arithmetic (as is done, for example, in the floating point unit).  To treat
>the computer in such a case as doing formal symbol manipulations is to reduce
>its task to something incredibly intricate and resource consuming, but
>without any purpose.

     The purpose is to distinguish between what the computer is actually
doing (i.e. what is actually happening inside the computer) and what kinds
of things _we_ do with the various states (say, output) of the computer
(i.e. how we interpret them).


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 John Emmer               "...reason has no dictatorial authority; its verdict
 Philosophy Department     is always simply the agreement of free citizens..."
 Penn. State University                   - Immanuel Kant, CPR, A738/B765
 JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu       Now playing:  Amiga: BC  Genesis: KC  SNES: Smash TV
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 14:07:20 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.174840.3407@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>  I don't agree with this analysis (if I understand it).  In a brain,
>at the neuron level, there is also no inherent meaning or reference.
>But this does not mean that it is up to us to decide whether or not
>to "project" meaning and reference.  Meaning is an aspect of function,
>and function is conferred by design.  Computers are designed by
>people, and brains are designed by natural selection.  The roles
>that symbols play are the purposes they are designed to serve, and
>observers have nothing to do with it.
>
>	-- Bill


	So we have:
	Humans are designed by natural selection!
	- Computers are designed by Humans!
	- ie. Computers are the end result of natural selection!
	So - Computers are designed by natural selection!
  Sorry, I just couldn't resist.
-- 
*****************************************************************
*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
*****************************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Organization: Smith College
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 15:00:18 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.135236.11478@watdragon.waterloo.edu> 
	cpshelle@logos.waterloo.edu (cameron shelley) writes:

>..., I was impressed with the strength of his [Searle's] rhetoric.

>It is ironic that someone who, as I've learned, is so good at rhetoric
>dismisses it so abjectly.

	He will have ample opportunity to employ his rhetorical skills
in the future:  he was just appointed to the National Council on
the Humanities, as was reported in this week's Chronicle of Higher
Education.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: petersow@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Wayne Peterson)
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Organization: Honeywell Air Transport Systems Division
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 14:41:37 GMT

Micheal Gemar writes:

"One does *not* have to be a solipsist to hold this position.  I am quite      happy to believe that other entities *really* have minds.  That is why I am concerned about how one would determine such a thing.  On the other hand, those who are happy merely to *interpret* a thing as acting *as if* it had a mind seem not to be all that committed to the reality of minds. "

Here, here someone who actually discerns the difference between the
brain and the mind.  How tiresome it is to hear those who assume they
are the same, they use this assumption to prove that computers could be 
able to think just by modelling the computer after the brain.  The trick is
not to make machines intelligent but to make humans machines.


-wayne
"The chemicals made me do it."
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy