HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 24 Jan 1993 20:15:33 -0500
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu

In article <1993Jan24.213358.10067@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>In article <1juactINN4ph@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan24.024230.5977@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>>>Searle says that "it seems to me a well-attested empirical fact
>>>that dogs are conscious."  [The Rediscovery of the Mind, p.74.]
>>
>>Well, do you think dogs feel pain when you, say, cut them with a razor
>>blade without anesthetics?  It seems that they generally give lots of
>>incontrovertible evidence of being in pain when something like this
>>happens.
>
>	I agree: dogs, perhaps even spiders, feel pain.  But the situation
>is not so clear to me with other aspects of mental life.  Do they have
>desires?  Do they have beliefs?  Do they recall the distant past?
>Do they have streams of consciousness?

That is a different question.  You are no longer asking if dogs are
conscious, but about the complexity of and variety of the objects of
their consciousness (and the expressiveness of th language in which
these objects are represented).  I haven't read Searles' book, but
from what you said about it it seems that all he is saying is that
dogs are conscious.

Now, actually we have to get our terminology straight if we want to
answer questions like, "Do dogs have beliefs?".   Using the Knowledge
Level talk of Newell, certainly we can attribute beliefs to dogs, as
in: "Why does your dog keep going into the garage?"  "Oh, he
believes the food bowl is there.  He hasn't figured out that I have
moved it to the backyard."  In my view this is not just a fanciful
way of talking about dogs, but a perfectly reasonable stance towards
dogs as cognitive agents.  Both goals and knowledge can be attributed
to them.

BTW, having beliefs (or behaving such that beliefs are attributable to
one) is not sufficient for consciousness.  One can behave as if one
believes A without being aware that one believes A.  Often,
psychoanalysis brings out hidden fears and beliefs that control our
actions, but we are not aware of them.  Of course we are often aware
of desires and beliefs as well, but that doesn't seem to a defining
characteristic of consciousness.  The content of consciousness in
humans is much more expressive of course, which certainly gives human
consciousness a qualitative difference.  But having goals (which is
the same as desires, I think) and knowledge (or beliefs) is orthogonal
to being conscious, I think.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Minds, Computers and Searle
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 21:02:02 GMT

In article <chrisk.728156188@fester> chrisk@fester.dell.com (Chris Kostanick - X6736) writes:
>
>I'm curious as to what you think is possible in AI, weak or strong.
>Let's assume that compute power will continue to grow for another
>couple/three hardware generations. This should make 100 Mip machines
>readily accessable. What do you think an AI program running on
>one (with suitable robot effectors and vision aparatus) could do?
>
I'm not sure why sheer computational power would be relevant to the question.
Weak AI can do for cognitive science exactly what computational models do
for other sciences: formalize and idealize parameters thought to be
crucial, and show you in pretty short order what kinds of behaviors
such a model implies. Compare to data, revise model, and off to the races
we go.


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 04:29:11 GMT

In article <93025.173045ICJGA@ASUACAD.BITNET>,
<ICJGA@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:


>You don't have to buy all this, but tell me what it does NOT explain and 
>either I'll come back with an explanation within my model or I'll adjust
>my model.

It seems to me that we can take a lot of mystery out of the concept of
"consciousness" if we break the concept into parts.

I would say the consciousness of any individual is the sum total of all the
things the individual is conscious of. 

It seems to me, the problem breaks down into two essential questions:

     (1) What does it mean to be conscious of any one thing on the list?

     (2) How complete must the list of items be for the individual to be
     considered conscious.


What does it mean to be conscious of something?
     
     For a individual to be conscious of something, I believe the
     individual should be able to reconstruct the sensory sources of the
     data, should be able to see or recall how the sensory patterns were
     recognized, evaluated, assembled into a mental object, and should be
     able to see how the object can be used to enhance the functionality of 
     ongoing and upcoming behavior.   

     This description of consciousness is relatively formal, but I believe
     a conscious individual does all these things intuitively in the
     process of remembering something from experience and acting on it.

     I think the degree of consciousness is a matter of the quantity and
     quality of the processed data and how effectively it is used.

What should the list of conscious items include for an individual to be
considered conscious?

     I think the list will vary depending on what it is we are really
     trying to evaluate.  If it's a matter of how well the individual can
     communicate we use a list that depends on the parties to the
     communication and the topic.  If it's a matter of how well the
     individual can do his (its) job, we use a job dependent list.

     If we think of the job of house cat, the list would include items
     pertaining to sanitation, social responsibilities, feeding schedule,
     etc.  If we are inclined to think that Tabby is unconscious of these
     duties, just imagine an animal that really ignores them.



--
Ken Easlon
ken@holonet.net

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:30:08 GMT

In article <tim.728091182@giaeb> tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (Tim Roberts) writes:
>michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>>In addition, unless one is a panpsychist, it is necessary to speculate
>>that there is *some* discontinuity in (early) evolution, since I would
>>think that most folks would agree a bacterium is not conscious.
>
>Why ?
>
>("Most folks agree" is not generally considered a valid scientific test).

Agreed, Tim, although its a good starting point.  In any case, the point
can be made looking at the division between living and non-living matter
(bacteria may be conscious, but rocks ain't).  Again, *unless one is
a panpsychist*, there must be some discontinuity.  There *are* in fact
a few folks who seriously propose that all matter has some sort of 
consciousness, or qualia...               

- michael


Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: colby@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Kenneth Colby)
Subject: Re: Description of OVERCOMING DEPRESSION 2.0
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 17:11:44 GMT

To the NETusers we offer a 50% discount ($99 + $5 shipping)
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Self
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 09:03:58 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.193135.5046@newssun.med.miami.edu> dbrown@newssun.med.miami.edu (Daniel Brown) writes:
>There is a good collection of papers on attempts to scientifically
>demonstrate the extent of cognitive faculties (esp. levels of
>thought, e.g. intentionality):
>
>	_Cognitive_Ethology:_ 
>	ed by Carolyn Ristau
>
>The first few chapters have some pretty weak overviews of the relevant
>work in philosophy, but the scientific contributions are very interesting.
>
>Also, see
>
>	_Animal_Thinking_
>	by Donald Griffin
>
>	_Gavagai!_
>	by David Premack
>
>Both discuss the possibilities of animal intelligence from a more 
>philosophical perspective.
>
>Dan

See also

	_Animal Thought_
	by Stephen Walker

I found the book by Donald Griffin to be unsatisfactory.
He wasn't very careful about making relevant arguments,
and his writing is more in the nature of persuasive anecdotes
than thoughtful argument bolstered by a survey of evidence.



-- 
Kevin McCarty (kmc@netcom.com)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: mcgeege@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu (MCGEEGE)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Vanderbilt University
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 20:06:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.154911.1421@unocal.com>, stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini) writes...
>Ah, the perpetual discussion on consciousness in this newsgroup.
>A lot of this confusion is due to people not defining terms and
>making unstated assumptions-
>	- is consciousness associated with A.I.?
>	- clinical definition of consciousness
>	- zoological, pyschological definition of consciousness
>	- metaphysical, philosophical definitions of consciousness.

I think that the real problem is much deeper, but is hardly worth trying to 
solve in the way that I wish it could be.  It is a social problem about the 
political state of the philosophical Institution.  American philosophy has 
become an analytic enterprise, though I count myself lucky to be a student at
one of the few pluralistic universities left in the country.  The shift to 
reductivist, simpleminded technologies of mind and body and consciousness is
a function of the alienation of the philosophical enterprise in america from
its pragmatist roots.  Where once "action and knowledge" were a blurred 
distinction, and "fact and value" also were usefully conflated by philosophers,
now philosophy (whether analytic or rigorously continental) occupies its time
twiddling its thumbs while Self Help replaces it at the bookstores.  You won't
read anything about the really interesting arguments about consciousness and 
mind, like those by Levinas, Derrida, James, Zaner, Rollo May, etc., here, 
because there is no interest in the FELT problem of mind/body/consciousness.
Here, in American Philosophy of the 21st C, it is a big professional crossword
puzzle for your amusement. End of diatribe.

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 27 Jan 93 06:16:48 GMT
	<1993Jan25.005814.12035@psych.toronto.edu>
	<1993Jan25.061353.4583@news.media.mit.edu>
Organization: ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of
	Arizona

diwadkva@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu (Vaibhav A. Diwadkar) writes:
   >>
   >>	- On an added note, if evolution is indeed a continuous process,
   >>	I wonder why it would give rise to discontinuous phenomenon like
   >>	consciousness etc.  By discontinuous I mean a case where only
   >>	one species has it and noone else on the evolutionary continuum
   >>	does.
   >>

The first point is that evolution is actually *not* a continuous
process, it's a discrete process.

Of course it can often be approximated as a continuous process.  But
then the second point is that it is perfectly possible for continuous
processes to give rise to discontinuous phenomena.  For example, there
exist systems of partial differential equations having continuous
coefficients which, when started from a continuous initial condition,
give rise in finite time to discontinuous "shock fronts".

The mechanism of speciation is capable of amplifying small differences
into larger differences:  this is the main requirement for turning
continuous initial states into discontinuous final states.

	-- Bill
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 20:47:38 GMT

In article <zlsiida.852@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:
>In article <dpn2.239.727932872@po.CWRU.Edu> dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil) writes:
>
>
>I'm not at all convinced that emotions have anything much to do with the 
>type of consciousness we're discussing here.  

Any reasons?
 
>I feel they're largely sub-
   ^^^^                           [this is a joke, right?]
>conscious (I don't mean they operate in or emanate from "the subconscious", 
>just that they're not involved in consciousness).  

Why do you "feel" this? Any evidence? Surely at least *some* emotions are
conscious...especially the ones we talk about. Right?
And what's the *subconscious*? Could you be refering to Freud's notion
of the *unconscious*?

>Emotion could be how we 
>managed to stay alive before we had thought, 

Could be, but I've no particular reason to believ so.

>and it's thought that is 
>central to consciousness: 

Many would disagree with this. Most computational cognitive scientists, I 
suspect. Certainly Pylyshyn, for whom all important cognitive mechanisms
are "cognitively impenetrable".

>the ability to abstract ideas from phenomena, the 
>idea of a self, and so on.  The ability to plan may be a good benchmark for 
>consciousness: I think dogs can do this, and cats; goldfish probably not, etc
>
I think you've completely conflated consciouness and cognition, and for no
reason that I can see.  Do *you* have access to the processes by which you
"abstract ideas from phenomena"? If so, please let us in on it immediately,
because it's been opaque to philosophers since the time of Aristotle.
Read Nelson Goodman's "The new riddle of induction" in _Fact, fiction, and
forecast_. Then read anything in cognitive science...

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:21:24 GMT

In article <1993Jan24.024230.5977@sophia.smith.edu>, orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>Searle says that "it seems to me a well-attested empirical fact
>that dogs are conscious."  [The Rediscovery of the Mind, p.74.]
>I haven't read much about animal consciousness, and I would
>be interested to hear the opinions of various philosophers on 
>the topic.  Is it as uncontroversial as Searle implies?

SG	Moderns, following Descartes' primacy of consciousness, confuse 
consciuousness w/self-conscioiusness. Conciousness is the widest fact here. 
There are many states of consciousness: sensation, perception, reason, 
emotion, imagination, etc, etc. Self-consciousness may be 
perceptual or rational. Only humans have self-consciousness. Brute animal 
behavior can be completely explained by perception.  See Objectivism.
________________________________________________________________________________
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASSD.EDU>
================================================================================
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: COMPUTATIONAL BEHAVIOR MODEL
Date: 21 Jan 93 19:34:35 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

In article <93020.100600ICJGA@ASUACAD.BITNET> <ICJGA@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:
>     Regarding emotions, the model does give the APPEARANCE of emotions, but
>the appearance is the result of the emotions being there.  That means that
>the emotions must have computable definitions.  For example, given a
>situation that is "undesirable" (i.e. StoryPal has a "problem"), such as
>hunger, a STRATEGY is available to deal with it.  That strategy has in it
>one or more PLANS.  Each plan has in it a set of steps, the final one in
>a plan being the absence of the problem.  If StoryPal cannot get to any
>point on any plan in the strategy we describe that as being "hopeless".
>Certain expressions go with being hopeless giving an appearance of having
>the emotion hopelessness, but it starts with a real emotion resulting from
>a real situation.  And being hopeless (not being able to get on a plan)
>would definitely influence actions (even if itsuch action is to stand still
>or run around in circles or lay down and cry).

Just because some computational state occurs in your program and you 
call it an "emotion" doesn't mean that it's a "real emotion".  You are
just playing with words.

As a few elementary questions, why do you label the state of not having a
plan "hopelessness"?  Why not "confusion", or "terror", or "frustration",
or "anger at the programmer", or "quiet resignation", or "satisfaction at
having done all one can do"?  

What is the point of such labelling anyway?  Do you seriously believe 
you are modelling how human emotions work?  Or does the "hopeless" program
act just like a "hopeless" human being-- not just assuming a facial
expression, but reducing its energy level even in other tasks, becoming
aggressive or withdrawn, seeking distractions, contemplating suicide, 
reading a lot of Kafka?  

You're not doing yourself a favor by redefining the goals of AI so narrowly
that you can claim to have already achieved them.
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7408 sci.philosophy.tech:4987
From: stgprao@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Date: 26 Jan 93 15:49:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: unocal.1993Jan26.154911.1421
Organization: Unocal Corporation

Ah, the perpetual discussion on consciousness in this newsgroup.
A lot of this confusion is due to people not defining terms and
making unstated assumptions-
	- is consciousness associated with A.I.?
	- clinical definition of consciousness
	- zoological, pyschological definition of consciousness
	- metaphysical, philosophical definitions of consciousness.
From: chrisk@fester.dell.com (Chris Kostanick - X6736)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Minds, Computers and Searle
Date: 27 Jan 93 17:36:28 GMT
Organization: Storage Technology Corp.

christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

>To repeat for the 37,000th time, the CR -- right or wrong -- is directed
>at Strong AI only. The vast majority of cognitive scientists I deal with,
>in both psychology and AI, are not proponents of strong AI, and many find
>the idea somewhat ludicrous. The "targets" are McCarthy, Minsky, and
>Newell & Simon (as Searle himself states explicitly).

I'm curious as to what you think is possible in AI, weak or strong.
Let's assume that compute power will continue to grow for another
couple/three hardware generations. This should make 100 Mip machines
readily accessable. What do you think an AI program running on
one (with suitable robot effectors and vision aparatus) could do?

This isn't the prelude to flamage by the way, I work with robots 
and am somewhat amazed by how good robotic hand/eye coordination
can be in the right environment.

Chris Kostanick
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 06:13:53 GMT

In article <1993Jan25.005814.12035@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <24JAN199317172344@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu> diwadkva@ctrvx1.vanderbilt.edu (Vaibhav A. Diwadkar) writes:
>>
>>	- On an added note, if evolution is indeed a continuous process,
>>	I wonder why it would give rise to discontinuous phenomenon like
>>	consciousness etc.  By discontinuous I mean a case where only
>>	one species has it and noone else on the evolutionary continuum
>>	does.
>>
>I agree with your beliefs abount animal consciousness, but I think this
>(common) line of evolutionary "reasoning" is spurious. What about the
>"discontinuity" of cordates having central nervous systems? What about the
>"discontinuity" of animals having the power of movement? What about the 
>eucaryotic "revolution". Evolution is full of "discontinuities" of this sort. 
>If it weren't, it would be damn hard to develop a taxonomy of life forms.

That's a curious reply.  The first two examples (central nervous, and
movement) ignore lots of intermediate stages.  And the final reason
(about taxonomy) is strange because, "so what" if it were damn hard.
In fact it *is* damn hard--and there's not much reason to think it can
even be done, except heuristically.

.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 21:33:58 GMT

In article <1juactINN4ph@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>In article <1993Jan24.024230.5977@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>>Searle says that "it seems to me a well-attested empirical fact
>>that dogs are conscious."  [The Rediscovery of the Mind, p.74.]
>
>Well, do you think dogs feel pain when you, say, cut them with a razor
>blade without anesthetics?  It seems that they generally give lots of
>incontrovertible evidence of being in pain when something like this
>happens.

	I agree: dogs, perhaps even spiders, feel pain.  But the situation
is not so clear to me with other aspects of mental life.  Do they have
desires?  Do they have beliefs?  Do they recall the distant past?
Do they have streams of consciousness?
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech