HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 20:17:13 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <BvH18G.D70@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>Seriously, the only aspect of thought that I've claimed is non-physical
>is its phenomenology: the raw feel, if you like.

But it seems to me that this question does not make sense until you answer
the question of *what* is doing the feeling.  *If* you accept the hypothesis
that "you" are a physical system (the phsyicalist hypothesis), and that that
same "you" is doing the feeling, then the expected kind of answer to this
question is the purely physical explanation of what is happening in the
system.  No other kind of answer is even sensible.

More generally, until you admit *something* about what "you" are, no
explanation of any sort is possible.

>  All it *means*
>to be alive is to be able to adapt, reproduce, and so on, in a certain
>way: life is a functional concept.

I don't disagree; but there were many generations of very bright people who
didn't see it that way.  This is only obvious after a great deal of science
has been done.

>>(It *is* a contingent hypothesis that any computer capable of intelligent
>>behavior would have feelings.  I personally think it's true, but it might
>>not be.  But I did specify that the organization of the computer+program be
>>"sufficiently like" the human brain precisely to counter this objection.)
>
>The notion that this is a contingent hypothesis is very strange -- I
>believe it but I suspect that you should not.

I'm just accepting that the organization of a system may be relevant in
determining whether or not it is "really" conscious.  I am accepting the
idea that a "giant lookup table" would simulate consciousness without having
it.  But I believe that any such system is not physically realizable; that
any apparently conscious system built in the universe we live in would have
to be really conscious.

(In case anyone is confused, I argued the purely functionalist position a
few years ago.  I've changed my mind.  I would describe my old position as
"external functionalism" -- it suffices to look at the function of the
system as a whole -- while I now take an "internal functionalist" approach
-- it suffices to look at the functions of the parts of the system.)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: wadley@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Gregory Robert Wadley)
Subject: "Consciousness Explained"
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 09:45:01 GMT

I'm reading "Consciousness Explained" by Dan Dennett.

Can anyone tell me what the reaction to this book has been?
References would be good.
Sorry if it's been discussed already and I missed it.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 16:21:43 GMT

In article <BvD9v4.DL4@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
[...]
>(4) I suppose this is compatible with some sort of "monism", but
>certainly not with a materialist kind.  Personally, I am hopeful
>for some kind of information-based monism, where both the physical
>and the experiential are seen to be different aspects of information.
>

This is comparable to my viewpoint.  The point then is that the
"information" in the physical states and the supposed conscious states
is exactly the same, and so there is no reason to suppose that the two
kinds of states are not identical.  (I _said_ that I am not a
materialist...) 

>-- 
>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."


-- 
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
From: mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Hidden Variables
Date: 22 Sep 92 19:51:20 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Math Department

In article <22350@galaxy.ucr.edu> atristan@ucru1.ucr.edu (Andrew Tristan) writes:
>In article <1992Sep5.191520.7172@ariel.ec.usf.edu> mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm) writes:
>>
>[stuff deleted]
>>Some of the Vienna Circle people (eg, Frege and Mach) and 
>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^             ^^^^^
>Frege in the Vienna Circle?!?!?!?
>

Sorry.  But he was their Grandpapa.

-----Greg McColm
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand)
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:32:30 GMT

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?
B-o} Michael
_______________________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Hand                     phone (409)845-5660, fax (409)845-0458
Dept of Philosophy, Texas A&M Univ, College Station TX 77843-4237 U.S.A.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 13:23:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.155837.4398@guinness.idbsu.edu>,
holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>The facts about "qualia" translate exactly to facts about physical
>states of the brain; there is no need to maintain that there are
>any additional facts, as opposed to additional sentences. The
>additional questions you ask about qualia seem to me (and my qualia
>have the same structure as yours, on the whole...) to be
>pseudo-questions.  I think that the only thing which we can
>"understand" about anything is its structure; qualia and
>the brain states have precisely correlated structures and identical
>"causal" relationships with the world, so I see no reason to doubt
>that they are in fact the same.

I don't agree that facts being perfectly correlated implies that they
are the same facts. If that were the case, how could talk about
isomorphism between structures make any sense? Or perhaps you believe
isomorphism *is* identity?

For example, suppose that a perfect, complete, deterministic theory of
physics is developed. (There may never be such a theory, but it is
conceivable.) What this would mean is the development of a
mathematical structure, together with a correspondence between aspects
of the structure and aspects of the physical world, such that every
fact about the world is mirrored by a purely mathematical fact about
the structure. Does this imply that the mathematical structure *is*
the physical world? Maybe so, but that is a fairly radical position.

I also don't believe that mental states are determined by physical
states. I believe that the relationship between a mental state and the
corresponding physical state to be something like the relationship
between an algorithm and a corresponding implementation, or the
relationship between a theory and its models. I don't know whether you
would consider this a "dualist" position or not. A mental state is
compatible with a certain physical state if a correspondence can be
set up between the two such that changes to the mental are mirrored by
changes to the physical. However, there is no reason to think that
there is only one possible correspondence relation. Without specifying
the correspondence, it is not possible to determine the mental state
from the physical state.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
From: e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Hannu's poetry
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:34:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: tamsun.1992Oct2.183459.20917
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station

hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:

	I was heart those words too many times

This is really beautiful.  (Granted, a taste for Modernist 
poetry is required, but it really is beautiful.)  I say if 
the guy is gonna come through occasionally with a sentence 
like this, let him post his crap!
B-o} Michael
_______________________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Hand                     phone (409)845-5660, fax (409)845-0458
Dept of Philosophy, Texas A&M Univ, College Station TX 77843-4237 U.S.A.
From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:12:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: meteor.1992Sep29.231258.1999
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

In article <Bv48H2.CvJ@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

[article rearranged and somewhat truncated for coherence]

>In article <1992Sep24.230141.1269@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:

>>Will someone tell me what "nomic" means? My dictionary is silent on this.

>"nomic" = (roughly) lawful, or having to do with laws.

>  So consciousness is at least nomically supervenient on the
>brain (i.e. subject to the laws of nature, it's necessary that
>identical brain states give rise to identical conscious states).

Um, but my dictionary defines "supervenient" as "coming or occuring as
something additional, extraneous, or unexpected". That doesn't seem to
correspond to "necessary" to me. (It's Webster's 7th Collegiate, btw)

>On the other hand, a zombie replica at least seems to be logically
>possible.  If this is so, then consciousness is not logically
>supervenient on the brain, but *only* nomically supervenient.
>i.e., it arises from the brain in virtue of a nomic connection, or
>a law of nature.

Um, then how does your position differ from monism? If consciousness
necessarily arises from the state of your brain, that sounds like
the old "emergent property" handwaving to me. In what sense is this
consistent with dualism? Do you postulate "laws of nature" that are
not included in what is normally called physics? Are you certain there
are no zombies, for that matter?

>Hope this clears things up somewhat.

Well, thanks for trying, but actually I'm more confused than ever.

mt
From: tycchow@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Y Chow)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:51:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Sep29.195116.27218
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.

Further evidence that the issue is one of explanation appears in the
following quotations.

In article <1992Sep29.130441.29896@sophia.smith.edu> (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>	If even these explanations would not satisfy you, then
>perhaps you could make clear what type of explanation *would* satisfy you.

In <1992Sep28.202810.110716@Cookie.secapl.com> Frank Adams writes:
>You ask, "what are my qualia"?  They are the interactions of your self
>(a portion of a computer program running on a computer) with the
>outside world.  "But why do I feel them?" Because you are this system,
>and feeling is part of what you do.  What other kind of explanation is
>even conceivable for such questions?

Dave Chalmers hasn't really stated precisely what he wants from an
explanation.  Perhaps it's time to do so now.
From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 5 Oct 92 19:07:09 GMT
Organization: Boise State University

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?

No.  But ELIZA does not in fact have internal representations which it
really uses to explain what it is doing to a questioner; its
apparently intelligent responses _are_ a trick.  The expert systems
referred to by the original posting do, and so, in my view, they are
conscious.

This requires explanation.  I think that _everything_ has "qualia", in
Cahlmers's sense of having a "bare experiential feel".  Consciousness,
for me, has something to do with "knowing oneself" to some extent.  I
would recognize any system which maintains an internal model of its
own activity and can provide answers to queries about same as
(minimally) conscious.  Note that consciousness does not necessarily
go with being terribly bright.

>-- 
>Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
>Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
>5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


-- 
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
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: nano-replicator assumptions
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 01:42:01 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <3027@news.cerf.net> snodgras@cyber.net (John E. Snodgrass) writes:
>>>       There is no such thing as "just chance".
>
>>       Even if you believe the universe is deterministic, this is
>>an unreasonable statement.  ...
>>       Similarly, if you put a bunch of chemicals with the right
>>elements into solution, with an external energy source to keep
>>them within a certain energy range, eventually any given molecule
>>formed from those elements will form.  In some cases, it will
>>take a fraction of a second; in others, the average waiting time
>>will be 10^100 years or longer.  This is the only sense of
>>"chance" needed for my comments above.
>
>       A logical approach to discovery prompts us to say: why
>certain molecules form is not a matter of chance, but of the
>nature of the elements and the environment they share. Let us
>discover what actually happened. This would be interesting. :-)

That is exactly how these estimates of probability are arrived at.  Consider
what chemical reactions are required to generate the molecules in question,
given the chemical environment believed to have existed before life arose,
and determine what the reaction rate is.  From there, you have an estimate
of how long, on average, it will take for the reaction to take place once.
In some cases, this is very short; in others, it is very long.
From: davis@passy.ilog.fr (Harley Davis)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 30 Sep 92 13:07:41 GMT
	<1992Sep24.202832.14468@mp.cs.niu.edu> <7571@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: ILOG S.A., Gentilly, France
In-reply-to: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk's message of 25 Sep 92 17:40:20 GMT


In article <7571@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

   Indeed, why does there have to be a disposition to behave when I
   have a belief?  Why can't I believe something w/o any inclination
   to behave as if I do.  How can you be sure you can detect this?
   And what does the "disposition" now amount to?

You're adding a new constraint when you say "a disposition to behave
*as if* you believe something."  The behavior needn't reflect the
belief in this way.

-- Harley Davis
--

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nom: Harley Davis			ILOG S.A.
net: davis@ilog.fr			2 Avenue Gallie'ni, BP 85
tel: (33 1) 46 63 66 66			94253 Gentilly Cedex, France
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 21:23:24 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.010553.19020@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>>But are thoughts _just_ dispositions to behave.  I think not.
>
>I agree with you here.  Incidentally, I'm not sure Dennett would
>disagree with this either.  He says quite explicitly (in "Consciousness
>Explained") that qualia are just complex dispositions to react in
>certain ways in certain circumstances, but he treats qualia
>differently from intentional mental states.

Well, no-one has held the simple view "mental states are just
dispositions to behave" since Gilbert Ryle, and even in Ryle's
case it's not clear that his position was so simple (for a start
he was ambiguous between the behaviour and the disposition; for
another thing, he invoked other mental states in his dispositional
analyses, so that e.g. vanity is among other things a disposition
to think certain sorts of thoughts).  But the modern functionalist
view has inherited the essentials of this notion, with a good dollop
of holism, internal causation, and environmental contribution thrown
in too.  Certainly there's not much room for quasi-magical extra
components to belief, as there seems to be with consciousness.  So
the "dispositional" position is generally much easier to hold
for beliefs than for phenomenal states.

As for Dennett, he's more or less the modern heir to the Rylean
position (having been his graduate student at Oxford), and his
positions are really quite close.  For all his cognitive-science
sophistication, he's more or less a logical behaviourist with a
few extra trappings when it comes to intentional mental states --
at least as much for these as for qualia (indeed, his "behaviourist"
treatment of intentional mental states forms the basis for his
similar treatment of qualia).  See _The Intentional Stance_ for his
observer-relative analysis of intentional states.

-- 
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."
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 15:22:25 GMT

>Plausibility arguments are really all that one has to go on in
>theorizing about consciousness.  Solipsism, to take another
>position, is consistent with the evidence, but doesn't seem at all
>likely.

I'm not sure what you mean by "likely" here. I think that the argument
against solipsism is more based on esthetics or practicality than on
likelihood (since there is no a priori probability distribution on
possible worlds). Either we argue: For the world to be like that seems
arbitrary (which is an esthetic judgement, as far as I can tell), or
we argue: Assuming I act on the hypothesis that solipsism is right,
and it turns out to be wrong, then the consequences are much worse
than the other way around (which is a practical argument). I don't
see where likelihood comes in.

>Here are a few "principles of plausibility" that seem
>to be good constraints for a theory of consciousness to satisfy.
>
>(1) Indistinguishable brains give rise to indistinguishable states
>of consciousness.
>
>(2) Our reports of our conscious states, by and large, accurately
>reflect those states.
>
>(3) Our memories of conscious experiences aren't radically mistaken,
>by and large.
>
>And so on.

Without assuming something like (2) and (3), we have nothing to go on
in discussions of consciousness. However, I don't see the necessity of
assuming (1). Why should it be that physical states "give rise" to
unique mental states? An alternative point of view is that, rather
than there being a function from mental states to physical states,
there is simply a relation: This physical state is compatible with
(rather than "gives rise to") that mental state. Compatibility would
in general be a many-to-many relation.

In Searle's Response to the Systems Reply to the Chinese Room
Argument, Searle suggests that you might memorize the rules for
producing output based on inputs in Chinese. Regardless of whether
this is a practical possibility, it is logically possible (as is the
giant lookup table). According to one story, there are no thoughts
other than your thoughts as you try to follow a set of mystifying
rules that you have memorized. According to another story, your
actions give rise to a Chinese mind which thinks thoughts that are
expressed in Chinese.

I believe that both stories are compatible with the physical facts,
and that is the most that can be said. Contrary to how it might seem
at first, this doesn't contradict principle of plausibilty (2), that
our reports of our conscious states are reliable. Using introspection,
you find that there is a definite fact of the matter about what you
are thinking about; either you are thinking about your home in
Beijing, or you are not. However, you cannot transfer this
definiteness of thoughts to the physical object, your body, unless you
identify your mind with your body. Given a mind, there may be a fact
of the matter about what it is thinking about, but given a physical
object, there might not be a (unique) fact of the matter about which
mind it possesses.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
From: snodgras@cyber.net (John E. Snodgrass)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 3 Oct 92 07:56:53 GMT
Organization: The Cyberspace Station

In article <26519@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
[...]
>
>One thing which artificial intelligence research has demonstrated
>conclusively is that these kinds of reasoning do not need
>consciousness. The fact that we employ consciousness in such reasoning
>is not relevant. We also employ consciousness to perform long
>division, but, fortunately for calculator manufacturers, consciousness
>is not an essential ingredient of mechanised arithmetic.


      What we refer to as consciousness, or self-awareness, probably has
more to do with purpose i.e. survival and growth, than with any particular
information processing. This is what computer programs, no matter how complex,
cannot have. At bottom, no matter how cleverly self-modifying, a computer
program is just a looping set of instructions. Living systems are not
necessarily analogously structured.

>-- 
>Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
>Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
>5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205



      John E. Snodgrass [snodgras@cyber.net]
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech