HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:48:40 GMT
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging

In article <92099.194744JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> 
JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>     The point is not that what computers do is _necessarily_ meaningless, just
>that, at the machine level, there is no inherent meaning (or reference).  It
>is we who come along and project reference upon the formal manipulations that
>the computer has carried out. 

> John Emmer

  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
From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: 8 Apr 92 08:12:07 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

In article <1992Apr7.203327.516@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>In article <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>>Kristoffer Eriksson:
>>>Surely, no-one has suggested that SHRDLU is advanced enough to have a mind?
>>
>>Christopher Green:
>>>Under strong AI, one would be committed to such a view. Surely, if McCarthy
>>>believes is thermostat has beliefs, he believes that SHRDLU does. Same
>>>goes for any other thorough-going functionalists. Right Dave...?
>>>
>>
>>  I think I'm a backer of strong AI, but I don't believe that
>>mind is an all-or-nothing concept.  Minds come in varying degrees
>
>OK, so what are the moral consequences of this belief?  
>
Moral consequences??? What is being talked about here?
Are you telling me that you don't step on ants? You
don't eat meat and plants? (hundreds of other examples
omitted) I am not attempting to answer this for KE, but
the moral consequences are the same as when you first
realized as a baby that animals have feelings, but we
still use them, we still consume them.
Please make this clear, why do we attribute a moral
agency to things with minds? My belief as to why we
do this is because things with minds can be influenced
in behaviour (NOT BECAUSE THEY INFLUENCE!), Thus a moral
agent is a being that fits your mental model of that
being. Thus a human is a moral agent, a animal is
less so, and a rock is practically a non-agent.
	To be a little more explicit, the human being
attempts to match his behaviour to what he thinks you
expect. The animal does this to a degree less, and the
rock does not attempt to change its behaviour in any
way to match your mental model of itself.
	Examples: You say "Nice weather", I reply
"Sure is!" --> I am a moral agent.
You say "Nice weather", I beat your brains in! --> I
am not a moral agent!

You say "nice doggy", the dog comes to you and whines.
--> it is a partial moral agent.
You say "nice rock", the rock does nothing! --> It is
not a moral agent.

To be a moral agent, it comes down to being capable
of being such. Even the law takes agency into account
with its insanity plea, in effect it is a plea that
that person was not a moral agent.

So what makes me more of a moral agent than the dog?
In a word, capability! I have in mind what you expect
of me, while the dog only has a partial knowledge of
expectation, the rock has no such knowledge!
(Incidently, if this sounds like some theory from
somewhere, be assured that it is only coincidence.
My thought processes are being transcribed directly!)
>- michael 


-- 
*****************************************************************
*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
*****************************************************************
From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Date: 11 Apr 92 00:28:25 GMT
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine

In article <1992Apr7.211232.6930@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
|They go, roughly, like this: the simple fact that we have trouble
|definitively classifying some objects does not imply that they are
|not definitively classifiable. Nor does it imply that they have some
|sort of graded classification. It simply means that we have trouble
|classifying it.  ...

It *may* mean that we simply have trouble classifying it, or it may
mean that there is a graded classification, or it may mean that there
is no single best classification.

All of these are possible, and the reality must be determined seperately
in each case.  If the underlying phenomenon is strictly continuous then
any categorical classification is going to be partly arbitrary (in that
it will seperate arbitrarily similar entities into seperate classes).

Biological phenomena are often continuous, or aproximately so (that is the
actual unit increment is often infinitessimal).

Alternatively the phenomenon may be a complex one, with several partl
independent features, making classification indeterminate - that is
making any of several different classifications equivalent in explanatory
power.

Again, this is something quite common in biological phenomena.



Of course it is also possible that we do not yet know enough, or that
we have not yet tried the classification that is most useful, but I think
the differences between these cases can often be determined by careful
investigation.
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)
From: peter@sysnext.library.upenn.edu (Peter C. Gorman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Godel's Incompleteness Theorm
Date: 17 Apr 92 16:48:12 GMT

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 the proof and 
> discusses the implication of the theory?

I highly recommend the following:

Nagel, Ernest, and James R. Newman.  Godel's Proof.  New York: NYU Press,  
1958.  118 pp.

This is very readable, but doesn't skimp on the details relevant to the  
non-mathematician.  It gives a very good account of the historical and  
philosophical environment of the Proof, and is written in a clear and  
direct style.  I happened to find it on a remainders table in a bookstore  
for $1.  One of the best dollars I ever spent.

--
Peter Gorman
University of Pennsylvania
Library Systems Office
peter@sysnext.library.upenn.edu
From: kulki@cs.toronto.edu (Dattatraya Kulkarni)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: goedel and ai - correct version!!
Date: 13 Apr 92 18:47:13 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:

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

*** edited out ***

I am a new comer to the group. I am v.keen to read the summary
of the discussion on Pensrose which I unfortunately missed. 
I will be glad if somebody could mail it to me.

Thanks in advance for digging the summery out.

--Kulkarni DH
  Dept of Comp Sc
  Univ of Toronto
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: What counts as the "Right" functional organization?
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 17:32:15 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.181138.8475@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.142239.7807@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr14.064526.16723@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>
>>>No, not necessarily.  A functionalist need only hold that beliefs result
>>>from the *right* functional organization, not from any old functional
>>>organization.
>
>>Okay, then you'd better start specifying what counts as the "right" functional
>>organization lest you slip into a Davidsonian circle.  Actually, snarkiness
>>aside, I'm honestly interested in what might count as right and not right.
>
> I hope we can avoid discussions of "what is the right functional organization
>for belief (or understanding, etc)."  A discussion of "what is the right
>functional organization" might be ok.  But once you pin it to terms such
>as 'belief' or 'understanding' or 'semantics' you run into the problem of
>these terms not being sufficiently well defined, and the discussion will
>quickly degenerate into arguments about issues that are not really central.
>
It's hard to tell, but it sounds like you're trying to avoid discussion of
what might be the "right" functional organization because you believe it
will ultimately be fruitless. My intuitions concur. This is why I would never
say something like "belief" (or any other propositional attitude, for that
matter) is a matter of the "right" anything. If you're going to talk about
functional organization, and you're not willing to be committed to the
McCarthian belief that all functional states constitute mental
states (though perhaps "small" ones, whatever those might be), then
you better be prepared to say which ones count and which don't. Chalmers
distinguishes between them by offering the promisory note of "rightness".
Do you have a better demarcation?



-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
---------------------
From: petersow@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Wayne Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Ahah! Behold the prime in the quark ! ( was Re: ai )
Keywords: ai,realism,Goedel,platonism
Date: 7 Apr 92 00:41:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: saifr00.1992Apr7.004115.4012
Organization: Honeywell Air Transport Systems Division


 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 Mr Silber states:
> Ahah! Your response goes to my point about what mathematical realists
> must prove, viz. you assert the primacy of the existence
> of mathematical objects, their primacy over all other domains including
> the "physical", it remains only for some ambitious mathematician/cosmologist
> to probe deeply enough into a quark to find a prime number !!!!!!!
A prime number of what?
Is zero a physical entity?
Where do you find negative number?
If we discovered math concepts, from where in the universe of matter,
did we discover them.  In fact without the concepts of the mind, how
would the universe be knowable? Would it even exist?

Regards
Wayne Peterson

"Who heard the Big Bang?"
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tuesday, 7 Apr 1992 17:06:25 EDT
From: <JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
 <1992Apr2.181357.25444@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr03.164328.8107@spss.com>
 <1992Apr4.061244.767@mp.cs.niu.edu>

In article <1992Apr4.061244.767@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil
Rickert) says:
>
>In article <1992Apr03.164328.8107@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark           )
>Rosenfelder
>writes:
>>
>>Searle seems to use "syntactic" to mean "formal", or "manipulating...
>>symbols [with] precisely stated rules."  "Semantics" he seems to equate
>
> Would that Searle were that precise in his use of "syntactic".  But he
>also says that every thing a computer can do is syntactic, and this
>therefore includes computing averages and correlations of very imprecise
>floating point information.
>
    Are you suggesting that such computations are _not_ syntactic?  In what
manner would they not be?  From what I understand, whatever the computer does
_is_ "formal" and "precise", although we may interpret its output as
_meaning_ something imprecise.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      John Emmer              Currently playing at the Emmer Arcade:
  JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu    Amiga: Black Crypt  Genesis: Kid Cham.  SNES: Smash TV
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------- "We are condemned to meaning."  - Maurice Merleau-Ponty --------------
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 01:24:58 GMT

jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>I can only reiterate what I have said before.  If you wish to show that
>>computers lack something that humans possess, it seems to me that you
>>need to show (a) that computers lack it, and (b) that humans possess
>>it. If you only prove (a) then you have not proved your point.
>
>Not to your satisfaction, perhaps.  I see no reason to _prove_ that
>humans have understanding in the sense required for the Chinese Room,
>for instance. I see no more need to prove this than to prove that
>my coffee cup is not the most intelligent being in the universe.

I sincerely promise never to ask you to prove that your coffee cup is
not intelligent. As a matter of fact, I would prefer it if you never
talked about your coffee cup again.

I don't doubt human understanding. What I find dubious is when Searle
(or whoever) says "Conscious minds have such and such property, which
computers lack". There is no reason for me to believe that all
conscious minds have some property unless I at least have reason to
believe that *human* minds have the property.

You keep accusing me of being a verificationist, but I am not asking
for proof, I am only asking for reasons to believe. Introspection is
perfectly fine as a means of demonstrating properties of the mind.
However, my introspection does *not* show me that my brain is not
working like a computer.

> What interests me in this is whether or not computers can understand,
> and not in whether or not I can convince a determined skeptic that
> humans can understand.  Other people may have different interests, of
> course.

Nobody is disputing that humans understand, just like nobody is
disputing that your you-know-what is not the most intelligent being in
the universe. However, if you rephrased the question "Can computers
understand?" to be "Can computers do what we call 'understanding' when
done by humans?" then it becomes clearer that the answer must involve
comparing what humans do with what computers do.

> Now, if an argument against computer understanding also applied to
> humans, I would regard that as reason to conclude the argument was
> wrong. But I'm certainly not going to conclude the argument is wrong
> just because no one has yet shown it doesn't apply to humans. Why
> should I?

Why should you conclude that it is right? It is an incomplete
argument, an argument with steps missing. It doesn't show anything
until those steps are filled in. And the steps are not showing that
humans are capable of understanding, it is in showing that humans
have whatever it is claimed is necessary for intelligence.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY









Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Subject: Re: intelligent organic goop
Organization: University of Central Florida
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 14:20:51 GMT

In article <1992Apr08.213706.30933@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark  
Rosenfelder) writes:
| In article <1992Apr6.145603.22619@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas  
Clarke) writes:
| >Consider weather as a rough analogy.  We know how it works  .. but ...
| > the weather is  
| >predictable in principle, but not in practice in the physical world.

| This seems to me to be different (and more reasonable) than your earlier
| comments about parts of the system being "unidentifiable."  It's not hard
| to believe that the behavior of an AI might be unpredictable in practice
| though not in theory.

Cognitive psychologists have discovered that human I's have a short term  
"stack" that can hold about seven items.  Neurophysiologists have not found a  
structure corresponding to this stack.  I doubt if they ever will in more than  
a very general sense.  No surgeon will ever be able to excise 2 cc of tissue in  
order to reduce the stack depth by one.  A neural net AI might have an  
"awareness buffer" that emerges from the net dynamics rather like eignenvalues  
from a differential operator so that the "buffer" is not localized and subject  
to easily understood modification.

| >If you could look at the code (or circuit for hardware) of the AI and  
starting 
| >with the current thought after only a little work arrive at a prediction or  
| >calculation of the next thought, would this not trivialize the thought?  You  
| >would be in the position of Searle with his Chinese room.  Where's the  
| >intelligence? 

| It sounds like you just want the program to be very complex before you call
| it intelligent.  I suspect Searle would say that it doesn't matter how 
| complex it is-- it's still unintelligent, to him.

I didn't say I agreed whole heartedly with Searle, but I do have some feeling  
for his position.  I conjecture that it can be demonstrated that intelligence  
can only arise in sufficiently complex systems where the proper definition of  
complexity is relative to the observing (Turing test conductor) intelligence.  

Incidentally, Putnam (Representation and Reality) speculates that the  
equivalence relation "between the structures of all physically possible systems  
(organisms cum environments) which contain a physically possible organism who  
entertains a particular belief (is) ... undiscoverable by physically possible  
intelligent beings."  [see the Rock FSA thread]  This is stronger than arguing  
that there is a threshold complexity for intelligence, but perhaps rigorous  
demonstration requires going all the way to "undiscoverability". 
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: smoliar@hilbert.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 07:54:48 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.140908.29033@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl
McCullough) writes:
>
>Edelman discusses in one chapter, and in an appendix, some of the
>issues from this newsgroup. I looked forward to his contributions to
>the AI debate because he is someone who actually knows a lot about how
>the brain really works. Unfortunately, he doesn't bring any special
>insight into his discussion of AI, and merely repeats Searle's
>arguments about semantics and syntax. He also pooh-pooh's the notion
>(due to the old Putnam) that the brain can be viewed as a Turing
>machine, saying that there is nothing in the brain that corresponds to
>a Turing machine tape.
>
This sounds as if Edelman is simply repeating the same material he presented in
THE REMEMBERED PRESENT.  (Of course, THE REMEMBERED PRESENT includes a rather
substantial review of the material he presented in NEURAL DARWINISM.)  Is there
any NEW material in this "new" book?
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: wlfong@logos.waterloo.edu (Philip W. L. Fong)
Subject: Godel's Incompleteness Theorm
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 16:07:47 GMT

I am interested in knowing more about Godel's Incompleteness Theorm, especially
the proof and its implication on the limitation of human/artificial 
intelligence.  However I am not a theory person and I don't think I will
understand Godel's original document.  Is there any easy-to-comprehend 
text/reference (for an average CS student) which covers the proof and 
discusses the implication of the theory?

Philip

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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 20:05:13 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.074316.29941@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.222046.16470@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>>What *empirical* evidence would count?  Remember that we are arguing over
>>whether having the appropriate behaviour is sufficient evidence for
>>having a mind.  I may be wrong, but I see *no* way in which this is
>>amenable to empirical investigation.  
>
>It can be investigated using the same techniques we use
>to determine whether a newborn infant has a mind, or not.
>Let us make the supposition that a alien lands in your yard
>now, how would you determine whether this being has a mind?
>Or do you still insist that there is no way to make this
>determination?

What we were originally arguing about was the sufficiency of the Turing Test.
If you wish to merely *assert* that behaviour is all there is to minds, then
fine, but we can't talk....


>>brain produces meaning.  We *don't* know that computers do.  Even if we
>>don't know *how* the brain does it, we *can* rule out ways in which it
>>doesn't, e.g., angels dancing on pinheads.  The claim being made is that
>>we have independent reasons for ruling out functionalism as well, namely,
>>that syntax is insufficient of itself to yield semantics.  The truth of this
>>claim is independent of whether we *do* know how the brain does what it does. 
>>

>Every time someone says something like this it makes me
>a little queasy. What you want to say in the above is
>"I KNOW *MY* BRAIN PRODUCES MEANING. Fuck your brain,
>because I have no evidence that it produces meaning!"
>Another thing, we cannot rule out angels dancing on
>pinheads as the cause of minds.

Well, if *you* can't rule out angels, then I don't know why you bother to
discuss the issue.  *I* can rule them out for any number of reasons (e.g.,
ontological problems). 

>	You have been accused of Solipsism in the extreme!
>How do you plead?

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.  

- michael