HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1992 17:36:34 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct8.210422.43690@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct08.150840.51360@Cookie.secapl.com>, frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>> I think this is not quite accurate.  A scientific hypothesis is
>> simultaneously interpreted in two different ways: one as exact as possible,
>> and the other quite loose.
>
>Simultaneously?  Are you sure this is what you want to claim?

Simultaneously, in the sense that the utterance of the hypothesis is
simultaneously understood in both ways by the listeners.  This does not
imply that any later use of the hypothesis depends on both interpretations
simultaneously.

>>  In the example I gave of a personal description, my listeners and
>> I might both understand that I think all the details I gave are correct, but
>> that there is a much greater degree of certainty that they are approximately
>> correct.
>
>It sounds as if you are talking about *vagueness* and indeed natural
>language is vague, in the sense that we cannot normally *precisely*
>define the truth conditions of an utterance.  However for language
>theorists the degree of precision required by an assertion is
>determined by the context* of the assertion.  Your claim of assertions
>simultaneously having multiple precision values seems mystifying.  Do
>you have any evidence from speaker behavior to back it up?

If I give a description of a person believed to have committed a crime, the
police will attempt to use the exact description to enable identification of
him in the future.  They will also, not assuming my powers of observation to
be perfect, use a much more approximate interpretation to study the question
of what the activities of the person were.  Assuming I also understand the
limits of my powers of observation, I will give the police the description
in detail, expecting it to be understood at both levels.

Another example: if your boss tells you that there will be a meeting
tomorrow with every employee in the company present, you will believe
strongly that there will be a meeting; much less strongly that *every*
employee will be there.  This is understood by both you and your boss.

>If you claim that assertions might be ambiguous in intended precision,
>so that a hearer might be uncertain, and might be intended by the
>speaker to be uncertain, just what degree of precision is intended, I
>think that certainly happens; it is a rhetorical device and it is
>regarded, quite simply, as a trick!

Assertions vary in the degree of certainty which the speaker has in the
assertion as well as in the precision of interpretation.  It is not unusual
for an assertion to occupy more than one point on this spectrum.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
From: snodgras@netlink.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 22:20:08 PDT
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

> In article <3076@news.cerf.net> snodgras@cyber.net (John E. Snodgrass) writes
> >      Your suggestion that computer programs model themselves, in this or
> >any other way, however, strikes me as farfetched. To create a coherent
> >model of any type, I would suggest it is necessary to have a purpose which
> >that model serves. This provides a means for prioritizing and organizing
> >the data in the model. Thus without even criticizing the obvious point
> >that all computer programs have a 'bottom level' which is simply a set
> >of conditionals relating input to output, no computer program could have
> >a purpose with respect to _itself_, which would (by my definition) exclude
> >any possibility of consciousness.
> 
> I see no reason to believe that "purpose" is such a fundamental concept.  I
> see it as an emergent concept in complex systems.


      Do you see it as an emergent phenomena in yourself? Do you 
observe that you won a tennis match, and then say: "That must have
been my purpose"? Do you get a college degree, then look back and
say "Gee, now I understand why I took all those classes"?

      The reason we have the word "purpose" is because we know very
well that our minds are nested levels of plans, goals, desires, fears,
aspirations etc. We analyse everything we experience in terms of how
it relates to our purpose. Our ultimate purposes may be general and
vague, such as survival, growth, gaining of knowledge, status, wealth
love, valuable baseball cards etc., but these notions, whatever they
are, precede our actions -- at least our rational and intelligent
actions. Moreover, they are of paramount interest to us in understanding
our fellow beings -- human or otherwise. We observe behavior for one
reason only: to determine purpose: after all, once we understand
someone's purpose, prediction and control follow. And is that not the
purpose of science: prediction and control?


      Even though living systems fall mostly outside the purview of
exact sciences, these are the systems we would most dearly like to
understand well. A systems approach which assumes purposeful behavior
will yeild a better analysis, more cogent and useful, when dealing 
with living systems, IMO. It is also my opinion that such an approach
would be more useful in the areas to which the exact sciences seem to
address themselves as well, the opposite of this approach, i.e. the
framework analysis which you defend, being the biggest block to
further progress -- having accomplished to date nothing more than
leading us into the quagmire of subjectivism.

      John E. Snodgrass [snodgras@cyber.net]

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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 14 Oct 92 17:49:16 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Sep22.181940.1611@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>If you have explained why an intelligent
>being will assert that it is conscious, it is very hard to imagine
>that you have not explained consciousness itself. 

I don't see how this can be so unless a lot turns on "intelligent",
because it must be possible to build a simple robot, or to program a
computer, to say "I'm consciousness" from time to time and to
answer "yes" to a range of questions about whether it was conscious.

So it shouldn't be hard to explain why some entities assert that
they are conscious, and even if we could explain why all intelligent
entities would assert they were conscious (which I suspect is what
you had in mind), I don't see why that would have to explain
consciousness as well.
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:36:36 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <3076@news.cerf.net> snodgras@cyber.net (John E. Snodgrass) writes:
>      Your suggestion that computer programs model themselves, in this or
>any other way, however, strikes me as farfetched. To create a coherent
>model of any type, I would suggest it is necessary to have a purpose which
>that model serves. This provides a means for prioritizing and organizing
>the data in the model. Thus without even criticizing the obvious point
>that all computer programs have a 'bottom level' which is simply a set
>of conditionals relating input to output, no computer program could have
>a purpose with respect to _itself_, which would (by my definition) exclude
>any possibility of consciousness.

I see no reason to believe that "purpose" is such a fundamental concept.  I
see it as an emergent concept in complex systems.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 05:51:18 GMT

In article <7653@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>An "epistemological nightmare".  I like that.  Yes, it certainly
>>leaves the epistemology looking very weird.  My zombie twin, after
>>all, will have just the same beliefs and puzzlement, but he won't
>>have qualia at all.  Furthermore, on most of the usual accounts
>>of justification, he seems to be just as *justified* in his belief
>>that he has qualia as I am. 
>
>This sort of thing is one reason why I think the "disposition
>to behave" version of belief is a such a lose.

Maybe so, but in any case, beliefs aside, it's clear that my zombie
twin would go around *claiming* to have qualia, even though he
didn't, and one can ask similar questions about the justification
of those claims.

>>On the first question, though, it seems to me that the functional
>>explanation of why we think we have qualia may actually be
>>quite straightforward.  In fact, it seems to me that any
>>system with a reasonable capacity for perceptual discrimination,
>>say between different waveforms of light, as well as a reasonable
>>capacity for reflection, would have such beliefs.  They make
>>certain discriminations (causally) between different kinds of
>>waveforms, A and B, and then you ask them how they made the
>>discrimination.
>
>Where do the qualia come in?

The qualia don't come in to this explanation, as this is an
explanation of *behaviour*, and as such is entirely physical.

>>My paper "Consciousness and Cognition" gives a somewhat more
>>detailed account of why a system should think that it had qualia,
>>in terms of information-flow within the system. 
>
>BTW, I can't print the ".ps" file.  I can print lots of other
>".ps" files, but I suspect most of them derive from ".dvi" files.
>I can ghostview it, though.

The PS file was derived from a Mac.  Most systems seem to be able
to print it.  I can send you a copy, if you like.  (Incidentally,
my new flagship paper "Can Consciousness be Reductively Explained?"
will be available soon.)

-- 
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: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 14 Oct 92 17:31:00 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <BILL.92Oct12170751@cortex.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>   > Why is it then that when I suggest that functional organization  
>   > (or, more generally, "how it works") should count, no one on the
>   > anti-Searle side says they agree?
>
>The distinction is between "It thinks" and "It thinks like a human".
>I can't imagine anything passing the Turing Test that I wouldn't give
>credit for thinking, regardless of its functional organization.  On
>the other hand, I wouldn't say "It thinks like a human" unless it had
>the same functional organization as a human, even if it were
>behaviorally indistinguishable.

If it doesn't think like a human, in what sense does it think?
Is it conscious, for instance?  I have no objection to the idea
that there are other ways to think, but the word "think" doesn't
necessarily say very much.  Is the sense of thinking you have in
mind merely behavioral (kind of like "intelligent" in "intelligent
terminal")?  For if so it's true, but trivial, that anything
that passes the TT thinks.

-- jd
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:41:12 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <OZ.92Oct15133905@ursa.sis.yorku.ca> oz@ursa.sis.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) writes:

>Jeff, really, have we not had enough of this "conspiracy theory of
>the philosophy of mind" bit of yours

Why would there have to be a _conspiracy_?  People who have similar
views don't have to _conspire_ in order to argue on the same side of
an issue.

>oz
>---
>... it isn't always necessary to have as your aim the winning of
>arguments (by one side or another).  A sometimes more reasonable
>aim is to obtain information. -- Jeff Dalton

Good quote!

-- jd
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: nano-replicator assumptions
From: snodgras@netlink.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 22:41:52 PDT
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

[...discussion relation of purpose to evolution deleted ...]
> 
> As an intelligent entity, I have a number of purposes, one of which is to
> survive.  Why should I single out this purpose as my purpose *as an
> organism*?
> 

      Because, if you didn't survive, you would no longer be an
organism. Put another way, if you didn't survive, all your other purposes
(which I would label as _derivative_ purposes) would become irrelevent.
Your primary nature as an organism is to continue to exist as an
organism. I'm suggesting that is the primary purpose of all systems:
to continue to exist as that system.


> And yet, Darwinian evolution, by its very mechanism, selects for survival.
> 

      Reproduction is part of the survival mechanism of systems. The
purpose of adaptation is again to further survival, i.e. stability of
the system -- clearly the individual organism is a subfunction of a
larger system, which has the same purpose on a larger scale: just as
a corporation has the same purpose as its employees -- on a larger
scale.

> I have no problem with saying that the purpose of the beak is to crack the
> harder type of nut.  But I will insist that this is *not* exactly the same
> meaning of the word purpose as I have when I say, for example, that my
> purpose in writing this is to get people to agree with me.  One "purpose"
> derives from the evolutionary dynamic; the other is inseparably part of the
> behavior of an intelligent entity.

     The "intelligent entity" is a product of your imagination. You
are first and foremost an organism. Secondly you are part of a larger
social structure which is also trying to survive, and your performance
as an intellectual (or whatever) is relevent to this social survival --
at least in principle. This then comes down to the social valuation of
your contribution, and ultimately feeds back into your ability to do
what in modern society is this complicated dance of forces, but which
in the final analysis is again just survival -- albeit we call it
status, wealth, power, influence, prominence etc. The development of
such attributes or skills is no different from the development of a
finch's beak. It's just a difference in the type of hard nuts you crack.


      John E. Snodgrass [snodgras@cyber.net]

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INTERNET:  snodgras@netlink.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
UUCP:   ...!ryptyde!netlink!snodgras
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: 14 Oct 92 07:10:05 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <exukjb.293.718490050@exu.ericsson.se>, exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell) writes:

[stuff deleted]

> Can scientists qua scientists call any theory "well-confirmed" or "true"?
> Can a scientist say "It is true that p" where p is some scientific statement 
> like "The sun is 93 million miles from earth" or "Metals expand when 
> heated" ? Would not such remarks be epistemological and not scientific? 
> 
> Just wondering what a Searlian speech-act theorist would say about that.

I think such statements as you mention may or may not be ordinary
assertions; what I'm mainly interested in is assumptions that science
has no evidence for in the usual sense, but which are necessary in
order to carry on the scientific enterprise.  For example in my field,
Linguistics, we assume that all the languages ever spoken had pretty
much the same properties as the languages we know first-hand.  If we didn't
assume this we would be free to "write off" any funny-looking
phenomena from the past as due to arbitrary changes in the nature of
language, instead of being forced to try to explain them.

I'd like to emphasize that Searle and others who
have developed Speech Act Theory (as well as other people in
Linguistics who are working on questions of pragmatics) have not had
*anything* to say (that I'm aware of) about the language of science.
It's just something that I'm exploring.
-- 
-Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> {Sometimes you have to look reality straight
 OPINIONS ARE MY OWN            {in the eye, and deny it. - G. Keillor          



Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 15:40:14 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct8.065725.43676@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>You're absolutely right to bring up imprecision (pragmatic theories do
>take it into account; in fact it's a central idea; see my remarks on the
>original thread).  But the example you chose (the black hair and the
>brown hair) doesn't work in any context *I* can imagine.

It is very easy to mistake black for brown, especially if the light is poor
or one only gets a quick look.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 15:08:40 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct8.064917.43675@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>Given an *assertion* that p, hearers will interpret p in context as
>making some claim that something is the case. ...  Call this C, the
>interpreted content of the assertion in context.

>     C will be as exact as is required for the occasion, as judged
>by speaker and (if the communicative act is successful) by hearer. ...

>     Now to scientific hypothesis.  If one says, "I hypothesize
>that p" what is interpretive content C like?  Due to the nature of
>science, it is *as exact as possible* since its strength resides in
>its falsifiability.

I think this is not quite accurate.  A scientific hypothesis is
simultaneously interpreted in two different ways: one as exact as possible,
and the other quite loose.

While this exact pattern is specific to scientific hypotheses, multiple
precision of interpretation is not unusual in assertions made in other
contexts.  In the example I gave of a personal description, my listeners and
I might both understand that I think all the details I gave are correct, but
that there is a much greater degree of certainty that they are approximately
correct.

Of course, you can find distinguishing characteristics for scientific
hypotheses from (other) assertions; after all, we do successfully make such
a distinction.  But I think these characteristics fall well within the
normal range of variance for assertions in everyday language.
From: mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME (at numerous requests)
Date: 4 Oct 92 18:27:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: ariel.1992Oct4.182740.5089
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Math Department

In article <1992Sep30.092352.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi> hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>In article <1992Sep29.224610.25773@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
>ledwards@leland.Stanford.EDU (Laurence James Edwards) writes:
>> In article <1992Sep28.091054.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>,
>hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>> |>
>> |>           Hannu.
>> |>
>> |>  "I think that atheistic scientists are fully reponsible for ordinary
>> |>peoples sufferings in all over the world, when they have instructed them
>> |>to reject God's good doctirine given in The Holy Bible. This doctrine
>> |>teaches ordinary people to respect good. Now this kind of respection
>> |>does not exist and good peoples who respect good are considered to be mads.
>> |>You all "wise scientists" should know that this means only one thing,
>> |>namely that all kind of evil will be in full power in all around the world."
>>
>> Well, first of all, as someone else also pointed out, far more mental and
>> physical pain has been inflicted upon "ordinary" people in the name of the
>> holy bible than ever was done in the name of science.
>>
>
>  All caused by undeveloped peoples. ?
>


It seems that some Christian fundamentalists regard atheistic 
scientists as responsible for the world's suffering.  Something 
should be done about them.  On the other hand, atheistic 
scientists thinkg that the world's suffering is due to Christian 
fundamentalists, and something should be done about THEM.

This is, of course, merely the tip of the iceberg.  As we all 
know, the cause of the world's suffering are the homosexuals.  
Them and the Jews.  And those silly Islamic fundamentalists.  
And we shouldn't forget the secular humanists, the social 
democrats, and adherents to the Wiccan, Unitarian, and Southern 
Baptist churches.  Have I left anyone out?  Anyway, something 
should be done about all these troublemakers.

Ladies & Gentlemen:  Number one:  this is the sci.math group, 
and this sort of thread is a bit out of place here.  Number 
two, in MY opinion, much of the world's suffering is due to 
people out to blame someone for much of the world's suffering.
'Nuff said.

-----Greg McColm
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:14:15 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

>>In article <Buqq86.7oJ.2@cs.cmu.edu> tycchow+@cs.cmu.edu (Timothy Chow) writes:
>>>The disagreement between Dave Chalmers and Randall Holmes seems to boil down
>>>to a question about which of the following holds about "logical possibility":
>>>
>>>1. Something that appears to us to be conceptually coherent is logically
>>>   possible unless proven otherwise.
>>>2. Nothing is logically possible until it is proven to be so.

I kind of let this slide by the first time (but not this time :-)).

I can't agree with either of these.  Questions of logical possibility seem
to me to be very much like mathematical questions.  And in this realm, it is
quite clear that there is no "burden of proof"; you assume you don't know
until you prove it one way or another.  I think this is the only appropriate
standard of proof for issues of logical possibility.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech