HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Re:God and Zorn
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 12:21:15 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.184027.90102@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> kevin@vaxc.cc.
monash.edu.au writes:

   >So, just come up with anything that you think an intelligent person
   >would perhaps classify as an a-priori, non-trivial truth.
   >There's no point arguing about the various shades of grey unless you
   >can possibly do this.

  But then it's not a matter of what I think! For there are many
examples of statements that intelligent people have in fact classified as
a priori non-trivial truths. However, it is an easy matter for anybody
who feels so inclined to point out that these are not a priori or
are not non-trivial or are not true. Hence my doubts concerning the
meaningfulness of the exercise you propose, in the absence of any
agreement on what we are talking about.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 21:02:33 GMT

In article <BuHEHG.9Cu@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <3awngqj.kmc@netcom.com> kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty) writes:
>
>>It seems to me that the question of whether the mental aspect of
>>reality is a causally invisible epiphenomenon has not been settled.
>>Am I wrong?  This may explain the startled reaction to the claim that
>>the physical world is causally closed.  We may have no evidence to
>>doubt that it is, but that's not justification for saying there
>>couldn't be.
>
>Well, many aspects of mentality are almost certainly causally
>efficacious: things like learning, memory, belief, desire, and
>so on.  That sort of thing seems to logically supervene on the
>physical facts -- e.g. if I'm learning, it's logically necessary
>that my physical replica (if embedded in an identical physical
>environment) is learning, and so on.  That's because mental
>concepts like learning, belief, and so on, seem to be characterized
>by their causal role in the production of behaviour.

And these characteristics comprise the entire mind!

>
>The problem of epiphenomenalism only really arises in a strong
>form for the phenomenal aspects of mind, i.e. conscious experiences,
>or "qualia" as philosophers call them.  These aren't characterized
>functionally, and don't seem to logically supervene on the physical.

I think they do.  I think that bare subjective experience is quite
reasonably understood as identical with the existence of the relevant
parts of the brain.  Give an argument against this position.

>But these have to be kept quite separate from the "psychological"
>aspects of mind, like learning and belief, which seem to be
>causally efficacious in a relatively straightforward way.  Hence,
>it's not really a problem for physicalism if economics invokes the
>beliefs and intentions of cognitive agents.
>
>-- 
>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
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 11 Sep 92 23:24:37 GMT
	<BuFH4G.CKo@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

   > Certainly all current evidence suggests that the physical world 
   > is causally closed, [ . . . ]

I've heard this said before, but I don't understand it.  If "The
physical world is causally closed" is a scientifically meaningful
hypothesis, then it must be falsifiable, and presumably the kind of
thing that would falsify it would be an uncaused event -- an event
that happens for no physical reason.  But life is full of apparently
uncaused events; they may even be the majority.  So there is actually
a great deal of evidence against the hypothesis.  We simply ignore
this evidence, either because of a faith that the universe is lawful
in spite of appearances, or because we are forced to assume lawfulness
in order to do science.

	-- Bill
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:47:57 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <BuJ1or.CHI@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>                                 Even once we know all the facts
>about that functional organization, the fact of the system's consciousness
>or otherwise won't follow logically.

You can't possibly know this to be true until you do know the functional
organization.  Until then it is just an assumption you are making.

>                Consciousness doesn't seem to be logically
>necessitated by any set of physical facts, and that's all the
>dualist requires.

But this must be recognized as a statement of ignorance.  Presumably in
times past people said the same kind of thing about light emanating from
the sun.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 20:05:40 GMT

In article <3awngqj.kmc@netcom.com> kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty) writes:

>It seems to me that the question of whether the mental aspect of
>reality is a causally invisible epiphenomenon has not been settled.
>Am I wrong?  This may explain the startled reaction to the claim that
>the physical world is causally closed.  We may have no evidence to
>doubt that it is, but that's not justification for saying there
>couldn't be.

Well, many aspects of mentality are almost certainly causally
efficacious: things like learning, memory, belief, desire, and
so on.  That sort of thing seems to logically supervene on the
physical facts -- e.g. if I'm learning, it's logically necessary
that my physical replica (if embedded in an identical physical
environment) is learning, and so on.  That's because mental
concepts like learning, belief, and so on, seem to be characterized
by their causal role in the production of behaviour.

The problem of epiphenomenalism only really arises in a strong
form for the phenomenal aspects of mind, i.e. conscious experiences,
or "qualia" as philosophers call them.  These aren't characterized
functionally, and don't seem to logically supervene on the physical.
But these have to be kept quite separate from the "psychological"
aspects of mind, like learning and belief, which seem to be
causally efficacious in a relatively straightforward way.  Hence,
it's not really a problem for physicalism if economics invokes the
beliefs and intentions of cognitive agents.

-- 
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: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 20:14:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.034215.16017@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>However it is quite possible that you have it backwards.  Experience
>has shown true that the problem of  producing mechanized learning is
>quite hard.  Once we have the right kind of learning, consciousness may
>actually turn out to be much simpler than we think.

Well, learning is a significant technical problem for AI and psychology,
but it's not so much of a conceptual problem.  Learning is just a matter
of having the right sort of causal organization in a system.  Sure, due
to our empirical ignorance about brain function and the like, we don't
know just what causal chains it is that do the job, but that just
means we have to look harder.  Once we've uncovered those causal chains,
there won't be any further question "but why is this *learning*?".  The
answer to that question will be purely semantic: i.e., because those
causal chains lead to the successful adaption of behaviour in repose
to environmental stimulation, and that's all that it *means* for
something to be "learning".  Whereas with consciousness, even once we've
unconvered all the causal chains in question -- once AI and psychology
have done their work -- there will remain the further question of
"why do those causal chains give rise to consciousness"?.  So, learning
is a hard empirical problem, but consciousness is a deeper philosophical
problem.

-- 
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: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: causality
Date: 12 Sep 92 07:10:44 GMT
	<BILL.92Sep11162437@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
	<BuFzw9.C2H@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

I see that I need to say a little bit more.

If "The universe is causally closed" is a scientifically meaningful
hypothesis, then it must be falsifiable.  But what sort of observation
could possibly falsify it?

I claim that given any observation whatsoever, however out-of-nowhere
it appears, a scientifically minded observer would assume it had a
cause (modulo the apparent indeterminacy of quantum mechanics).  So no
observation could possibly falsify the hypothesis.

This reasoning, by the way, is pretty much straight out of Hume,
especially the essay on Miracles.

In the same thread, Dave Chalmers writes:

   > Certainly there are some events with no apparent cause, but it
   > seems to usually turn out that when we dig deep enough there's a
   > cause there. 

I don't agree.  If you read old journal articles, you find many cases
where different people performed apparently the same experiment and
got different results.  In quite a number of these cases the
discrepancies are simply never explained, in spite of a great deal of
effort.  In the end one theory wins out, and the discrepant
experiments are simply forgotten.  Most scientists believe (and I am
one of them) that if we only knew *enough* we would be able to account
for the differences, but this is really a matter of faith.

	-- Bill
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 19:12:46 GMT

Chalmers:
	[There seems to be a vast explanatory gap between 
	consciousness and all the causal and behavioral facts.]
O'Rourke:
	This "seems to be" is controversial:  Dennett in particular 
	questions the vastness of the gap (in "Consciousness Explained").
Chalmers:
	Sadly, Dennett's arguments don't come to much. [...]
	[His two strategies are:]
	(a) redefine the problem: instead of explaining the experience
	of consciousness, explain various functional capacities;
	(b) deny the phenomenon: argue that conscious experience in
	fact does not exist, but is a mere illusion.

Although I am sympathetic with your view of consciousness, Dennett's
arguments have shaken my faith in that view.  I wonder if you could
address (b):  why are you so certain that consciousness, let's say
experiencing color qualia to be specific, is something above and
beyond the "disposition to react" (in Dennett's words) in certain
complex ways?
	I certainly am convinced that training can alter the content
of consciousness:  a musicologist experiences different sound qualia
when listening to certain pieces of music than does an untrained person,
despite the similarity of sensory input.  No doubt the same
is true of colors.  One can even contrive examples where identical
sensory inputs produce no quale in person A but a rich quale in
person B (and where B might be A later in time).  How does your
theory deal with the seeming dependence of qualia on various
functional capabilities?
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 11 Sep 92 22:48:07 GMT
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department

Dualism is simply another form of mysticism. Its the same old
premise: we don't understand something, therefore there must 
be a paranormal phenomena at work. 

I take the historical perspective: this argument has failed in 
so many contexts, as science one by one develops the understanding, 
that we should expect this sort of argument to fail again.

The 'soul'  has hopped from organ to organ, as each organs
function has been elucidated. It used to reside in the heart, 
and at another point, the kidney, and its come to its final resting
place in the brain. The brain is harder to unravel than than the heart or 
kidney, but folks are making steady progress, and I'm sure we'll 
live to see it exorcised from the brain as well.

--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)
From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 13 Sep 92 20:10:05 GMT
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.

In article <BuJ1or.CHI@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>Again, I'm not sure why you're concentrating on the giant lookup-table,
>which is more relevant to the contingent question of which physical
>systems consciousness *in fact* arises from, rather than the
>question of which systems consciousness *must* arise from (by logical
>necessity).

The reason I introduced the lookup-table was that it seemed to me to be a
good way of making your argument clear to someone who is deeply committed
to some kind of behaviorism or verificationism.  For example, in article
<1992Sep12.232531.3921@sco.com> evanh@sco.COM (Evan Hunt) writes:

>One cannot measure consciousness in a system (or in a person) save by
>evaluation of the system's (or person's) behavior.  Your replica seems
>just as conscious as you; can you suggest any further test I might
>subject it to that would prove it nonsentient?

Evan Hunt seems to believe that a machine that can pass the Turing test is
conscious if and only if human beings are conscious.  But most of us have
some intuition (even if some of us squelch it as incorrect) that the giant
lookup table is not conscious.  By introducing the lookup table I hoped to
awaken this intuition to show how one might argue that consciousness is a
further fact beyond the facts that are accessible to us by means of tests.

The verificationist might respond that "consciousness" is a vague term
and if we want to ask any meaningful question about it we must define
it in terms of facts that we can determine by means of tests.  If we
were to challenge the verificationist and ask, "Is Dave Chalmers
conscious?  Is the lookup-table conscious?" he would likely respond
that it depends on what definition of "conscious"---IN TERMS OF FACTS
ACCESSIBLE BY MEANS OF TESTS---we intend.  Regardless of the chosen
definition, however, the verificationist would say that the mimic is
conscious if and only if Dave Chalmers is.

Against the verificationist we could argue that he has simply assumed
that all facts reduce to verifiable facts and simply dismissed the
intuition we have that the lookup table is not conscious.  If we are
being dismissive, why not dismiss our intuition that all facts are
verifiable?

Most of this applies to physicalism in place of verificationism.

-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 20:56:40 GMT

In article <7511@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <BuDoJ5.MDM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>
>>Personally, I don't think that any strong metaphysical conclusions
>>can be drawn from the possibility of disembodiment (which is
>>itself disputable).  However, there is a quite similar argument
>>that I believe is a good argument for dualism, and probably
>>a correct one.
>>
>>(1) It's logically possible that there could be a physical replica
>>of me without any conscious states.

But I don't agree with this.  I think that "bare subjective
experience" is exactly the physical existence of part of my brain.
Therefore it is NOT logically possible, etc (because the physical
duplicate would have the same conscious states).  You can only assert
that something is logically possible if you can say what it means.

>>
>>(2) Therefore the existence of conscious states is a further fact,
>>over and above the physical facts (i.e. it is contingent relative
>>to the physical facts).

But it is NOT a "further" fact (at least, you can't tell that it is);
it is a fact in a totally different domain of knowledge (from your
standpoint); you cannot tell whether they are "further" facts or not
without answering the question of identity of subject matter of the
two different domains first (i.e., you are assuming what you are
trying to prove).

>>
>>(3) Therefore dualism is true.

You haven't proven it.

>
>Is this "substance dualism" `a la Descartes, or "property dualism"
>(there are some nonreducible mental properties) or both or neither?
>
-- 
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: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Hidden Variables
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:20:59 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com


In article <1992Sep5.191520.7172@ariel.ec.usf.edu>, mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm) writes:

|> for years on end.  Perhaps the real question is:  why is it 
|> that turn of the century Vienna had people making major 
|> contributions to areas outside of their major fields to an 
|> extent not true since?

(I'm not really sure how many people in old Vienna made "major"
contributions to fields outside of their own, but ... )

One possible (or partial) explanation:  Things got a lot more
complicated relatively quickly (i.e., within years or decades
instead of within centuries).  Back in the 16th and 17th century
there was a lot less science (for example) to know.  Even if you
look at the early 20th century and compare it to today, there
has been a staggering advance in scientific and technical knowledge.
Whole new fields and sub-fields have been born.

It takes a very special person to master multiple disciplines.
It always has, but I think it is clear that things are tougher
as time goes on.  Besides, it is often through the perspective
of history that we decide someone's contributions (in his own
major field or another) are "major".  For example, are Quine's
contributions to philosophy "major"? (Probably.)  Are his
contributions to cartography "major"?  (Beats me.)  Are John
Pollock's contributions to philsosophy major?  (Probably too early
to tell.)  What about his contributions to photographic art? 
(Again, I can't say.)  I'm sure there are candidates of the sort
you seek (Herbert Simon comes to mind), but we may be too temporally
close to identify them.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
From: kevin@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re:God and Zorn
Date: 15 Sep 92 18:40:27 +1000
Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia

S. Torkel in response to my "God and Zorn's Exisitence"
criticizes my suggestion of the absence of a-priori non-trivial truths
about the world.
His criticism revolves around what non-trivial & a-priori mean.
Well, that's fine. Nonetheless, a counterexample is required.

So, just come up with anything that you think an intelligent person
would perhaps classify as an a-priori, non-trivial truth.
There's no point arguing about the various shades of grey unless you
can possibly do this.
Yours,
Kevin DAvey

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 21:22:20 GMT

In article <_cwnz1m.kmc@netcom.com> kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty) writes:
>In article <1992Sep11.224807.13323@math.ucla.edu> barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
>>Dualism is simply another form of mysticism. Its the same old
>>premise: we don't understand something, therefore there must 
>>be a paranormal phenomena at work. 
>
>What mysticism? I don't know what you're railing at.  There's
>absolutely nothing paranormal going on at all.  The two
>incontrovertible facts at issue here are as plain and mundane as the
>nose on your face: there are physical phenomena such as objects, and
>there are mental phenomena such as sensations.  And a mystery: how are
>they so different?

How do you know that they are different?  They are spoken of in
totally different ways -- how does one compare them?  I don't see any
obstruction at all to identifying conscious experiences with events in
my brain; the causal behaviour is right.  We are dealing with objects
with incommensurable descriptions here -- we have no reason to believe
that the _objects_ are different, just that the _descriptions_ are
different.


>
>>I take the historical perspective: this argument has failed in 
>>so many contexts, as science one by one develops the understanding, 
>>that we should expect this sort of argument to fail again.
>>
>>The 'soul'  has hopped from organ to organ, as each organs
>>function has been elucidated. It used to reside in the heart, 
>>and at another point, the kidney, and its come to its final resting
>>place in the brain. The brain is harder to unravel than than the heart or 
>>kidney, but folks are making steady progress, and I'm sure we'll 
>>live to see it exorcised from the brain as well.
>
>Who said anything about a soul?  What's that got to do with anything?
>Do you really think that such things as affect, blueness, and the
>sonority of a major triad will be exorcised someday?  Why would anyone
>want to do that?
>
>
>-- 
>Kevin McCarty (kmc@netcom.com)


-- 
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