HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1992 18:37:21 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct6.165617.26091@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>In article <1992Oct02.202707.126376@Cookie.secapl.com>,
>frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>>>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.
>>
>>Two very different analogies.  I *can* in principle determine the algorithm
>>from the implementation (although there may be cases where I am not smart
>>enough to do so).
>
>I disagree. In implementing an algorithm as a physical system, there
>will be some state variables that will be used as inputs, some that
>will be used as outputs, some that will be used as "scratch paper",
>some that will be used as memory. Still other state variables will be
>completely irrelevant to the algorithm (for example, in most computers
>such things as the temperature of the CPU, which is certainly a state
>variable of the computer as a physical system, is completely
>irrelevant). It is not possible (even in principle) to uniquely
>interpret a physical system as an implementation of an algorithm
>without knowing more about implementation conventions.

From your original post, I did not understand "a corresponding
implementation" to mean *physical* implementation, but instead interpreted
it as "implementation in a programming language".

With my interpretation, this is a mathematical problem, which is not
computable as a class, but any individual problem may be solved with
sufficient ingenuity.  Your problem makes it a scientific problem.  Our
experience with science so far suggests that such problems are, in fact,
solvable.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: The Cosmological Bad Dream
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1992 17:30:18 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct6.180613.43641@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct05.202904.62326@Cookie.secapl.com>, frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>> In article <1992Oct3.105750.43545@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>>     One of the conditions for a felicitous *assertion* is that the
>>>speaker have evidence for its truth at the time of utterance. 
>>>Since a testable, non-obvious and therefore non-trivial scientific
>>>hypothesis is supported or falsified or revised for years after it
>>>is stated, it seems to me that a scientific hypothesis cannot be an
>>>assertion.  This works out empirically: if the hearer of an
>>>assertion later discovers a single counter-example, (s)he concludes
>>>that the assertion was false.
>> 
>> Not really.  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.
>> 
>> Scientific hypotheses are like this; they have a lot of detail, and some of
>> the detail can be wrong without falsifying the assertion as a whole.
>
>I disagree on the ground of elementary logic: the assertion you give
>here is a simple conjunction of six propositions; the falsity of any
>one of them makes the conjunction false.
>
>Since I am claiming that scientific hypotheses are not assertions, I
>do not disagree with what you say about scientific hypotheses.

I disagree with the details of your taxonomy of human utterances.  At the
very least, you are using "assertion" in a different way from its common
usage.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Assumptions vs. assertions (was: Re the Cosmological Bad Dream)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 19:33:52 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct14.064942.43833@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.192242.157437@Cookie.secapl.com>, frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>> The second example is one without which scientific research cannot proceed
>> (although "which we are capable of understanding" might be qualified; we
>> need not believe in perfect or even asymptotically perfect understanding
>> in order to do research).
>
>I'm going to ignore for the moment the issue of describing the
>first three minutes in the existence of the universe and other late
>20th-century scientific utterances that I'm having trouble
>classifying, in favor of developing what we agree on.
>
>Finally we have something that we agree is a clear example of a
>scientific assumption.  I will modify it as you suggested:
>
>     There is a reality outside ourselves that we are capable of in
>     some sense understanding.
>
>Now, what I claim is that this sort of statement is fundamentally
>different from ordinary assertions (whether these are scientific or
>not).  You do not disagree with this either.

I don't think there is anything particularly scientific about this
statement (to try to choose a neutral term), either.  It is an assumption
that most people make, at least implicitly, in living their daily lives.

As to classifying it, depending on my mood, I might call it a philosophical
position, a religious statement, or a statement of a point of view.  (On odd
numbered Tuesdays I think that "there is a reality outside ourselves" is a
meaningless statement.)

Settling for the first of these, I will note that philosophical statements
often don't admit of verification in the sense that "ordinary" assertions
do.

There is another class of statements which are superficially assertions, but
are treated much differently: moral judgements.  How do you classify these?
From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: dream
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:08:34 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
              The opinions expressed are strictly those of the
              user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.

In article <92290.005644U53846@uicvm.uic.edu> U53846@uicvm.uic.edu writes:
>From: U53846@uicvm.uic.edu
>Subject: dream
>Date: 16 Oct 92 05:56:44 GMT

>Hi could any one out there can provide me some idea for the following
>   question?

>   The question is:  when you woke up this morning, how do you know you are
>                     the same persons today that you were yesterday before you
>                     went to sleep?  and how do you know others are the same
>                     persons today that they were yesterday?

>            Thanks very much!

Well, the answer to the second question is that you don't know. This for 
reasons tied up with the more general Other Minds problem--unless you take
the line that personal identity is simply spatio-temporal continuity, then,
maybe.

As to the sleeping case, if "I" am constituted by the totality of all my
character and personality traits--beliefs, feelings, etc--both public and
private, then there's no problem, since I can almost certainly be sure that
I still believe that Austin is the capitol of Texas after I wake up in the
morning, that I still don't like hot tomolies, that I still love my mother,
that I still enjoy talking philosophy. If there's no considerable 
interruption in my exemplification of these attributes and dispositions, why
should I doubt it is "me" who wakes up?
//////////////////////////////////////
/* Kenny  *   Welcome to Mind Wars! */
//////////////////////////////////////
From: snodgras@cyber.net (John E. Snodgrass)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The Sheridan Test.
Date: 16 Oct 92 07:40:38 GMT
Organization: The Cyberspace Station

In article <1992Oct15.023141.7989@wixer.cactus.org> sparky@wixer.cactus.org (Timothy Sheridan) writes:
>
>aww heck, a guys gota have some claim to fame..
>
>I propose that a test for consciousness exists wherein the entity or system
>is capable of demonstrating that it is intelegent enough so as to makt it
>impossible to fool it in to thinking it is not conscious.
>
>
>Tim.



      A computer program which simply kept reiterating that it was 
conscious would do the trick here. :-) The point being that anyone who
was foolish enough to grant that a machine was conscious because it could
fool a suitably "blinded" person into thinking it was conscious would
himself have to be a moron. Of course, no cautious academic would ever
be such a moron. They would have to first change the meaning of consciousness
until nobody knew what the devil they were talking about, _then_ they
could safely say it. Then all the people who said "Oh, dear" would buy
his book, in which he would explain in minute detail the true meaning
of the term "consciousness" and say next to nothing about computers!

      John E. Snodgrass [snodgras@cyber.net]
From: mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME (at numerous requests)
Date: 5 Oct 92 14:24:19 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Math Department

In article <37260@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu (James F. Hranicky) writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.092352.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi> hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>
>>    Unfortunately scientists teach to ordinary peoples presisely what they
>>  talk in private or in public situations all around the world. Ordinary
>>  peoples respect all their words (mostly without any criticism).
>>    This is why these 'wise teachers' are fully responsible for all their
>>  words they have 'teached' to ordinary peoples.
>>
>
[...]
>
>Science merely attempts to find the truth through verifyable means, and
>of those things which cannot be proved or disproved, science is silent.
>The scientists themselves are free to believe what they want to after this
>point, but laying the responsibility for anyone elses acceptance of 
>scientists' beliefs on the scientists themsevles is unwarranted. Do you 
>categorically reject the scientific method?
>
>Do you commit blasphemy by using this network created by science?
>
>Jim Hranicky (jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu)


Science is NOT in the business of finding The Truth.  
Science merely constructs "rational" explanations of 
observable phenomena.  For example, it is impossible 
to "verify" one way or the other whether or not 
molecules exist:  scientists use molecular models 
because they are very good at explaining things we 
see.  There are several schools of thought that hold 
that the explanations that scientists concoct somehow 
approximate The Truth, but this is a philosophical 
(or even theological) position, and more on this 
kind of thing can be found in sci.philosophy.meta and 
sci.philosophy.tech.

-----Greg McColm
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: "Consciousness Explained"
Date: 8 Oct 92 19:24:02 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <26646@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <burt.718400899@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:
>>  I can tell you my reaction ...
>>exercise of his ego .... sell me a bill
>>of goods ... rather patronizing attitude ... offensive ...
>>arguments ... not convincing .... agree with ...
>>Zelaney that the book was intellectually dishonest.
>
>Despite promising us a detailed review, and being asked detailed
>questions by a number of posters, Zeleny in the end refused to make
>any detailed criticisms, contenting himself with his usual well-turned
>sneers. Care to give some examples of why you found the book
>unconvincing and dishonest, or did you just want to share your
>feelings with us?

It depends on what you mean by "detailed".  Zeleny didn't just
say "intellectually dishonest" and stop right there.  On the
other hand, he didn't elaborate all that much further.

Perhaps you saw the tv show about Dennett.  Was it Panorama?
BBC?  ITV?  Maybe I'd better look it up...  

Anway, I found that more or less infuriating.  For instance, Dennett
told us a bit about Descartes, consciousness and the pituitary gland,
etc, and then tried to make it sound like virtually all philosophers
held that view!  We call this a straw man where I come from.

Then, again and again, there was a huge gap between some amazing
example or experiment and the conclusion Dennett seemed to want
us to draw from it.

I like Dennett, enjoy his books, even agree with a lot of the things
he says.  I think he's shown that certain aspects of consciousness 
are stranger than they often seem.  But he didn't say

  Aspects of consciousness revealed by amazing observations
  and experiments; the multiple-drafts of experience

he said

  Consciousness explained

(Yes, I know.  I should read the book, not watch tv.  I will.
Someone borrowed my copy, but I now have it back.)

-- jd
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Assumptions vs. assertions (was: Re the Cosmological Bad Dream)
Date: 14 Oct 92 06:49:42 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Oct13.192242.157437@Cookie.secapl.com>, frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

[stuff deleted]

> The second example is one without which scientific research cannot proceed
> (although "which we are capable of understanding" might be qualified; we
> need not believe in perfect or even asymptotically perfect understanding
> in order to do research).

I'm going to ignore for the moment the issue of describing the
first three minutes in the existence of the universe and other late
20th-century scientific utterances that I'm having trouble
classifying, in favor of developing what we agree on.

Finally we have something that we agree is a clear example of a
scientific assumption.  I will modify it as you suggested:

     There is a reality outside ourselves that we are capable of in
     some sense understanding.

Now, what I claim is that this sort of statement is fundamentally
different from ordinary assertions (whether these are scientific or
not).  You do not disagree with this either.  Presumably you will
go along if I suggest that at least part of the difference is, that
in the case of ordinary assertions the speaker has evidence for the
factuality of what he asserts, and has the intention to claim that
something is the case; while in the case of scientific assumption
neither is required.  I would like to say that scientific
assumptions are in fact not assertions at all.  (The labels
wouldn't matter except that in current pragmatics we already have
a pretty well-defined notion of what an assertion is.)
-- 
-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: Dualism
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 19:37:32 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <7670@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Sep18.172123.14367@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>In article <7525@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>>The net is wall-to-wall with people who insist on the claim that some sort
>>>of behavior (as in the Turing Test or Harnad's Total Turing Test) is
>>>all that we should (or can!) count as evidence of consciousness.  Such
>>>things as functional organization count for nothing, in their view.
>>
>>  I see relatively few
>>people who claim that TT is all we should count as evidence, or who
>>claim that functional organization does not matter. 
>
>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 response has been so
>universally negative that I've more or less given up on trying
>to make that point.

Well, I agree, for one.  I do believe, on the other hand, that *in the
universe we live in*, it is impossible to create a system which will pass
the TT but which is not actually intelligent.

However, it appears to me that the essence of the strong AI response to
Searle is that "functional organization" is *all* that counts; that being
made of the "right stuff" is not a requirement.

>Moreover, it should be straightforward to see that the TT is
>fataly flawed.  A significant aspect of human consciousness is
>that we condict an internal dialogue.  That is, we can think
>thoughts to ourself in linguistic form.

On the other hand, this strikes as exactly the kind of irrelevant detail
which is to be avoided.  This is something that, in fact, we do; but I see
no reason to believe that it is an essential part of being intelligent.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 22:37:57 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <7707@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.193732.71311@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>>In article <7670@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>Well, I agree, for one.  I do believe, on the other hand, that *in the
>>universe we live in*, it is impossible to create a system which will pass
>>the TT but which is not actually intelligent.
>
>It may surprise you, but I almost agree with this.  It's difficult
>to explain in a way that won't be misinterpreted (as I found the
>last time I tried it), but here goes.
>
>So far as any of us knows, it may turn out that all physically
>possible entities that pass the TT have to do it with the aid
>of intelligence, real understanding, consciousness, or whatever
>we take the key issue to be.

I think we entirely agree on this.  My quoted belief above is a scientific
speculation (hypothesis would be too strong a term); I reasons for thinking
it to be true, but there may be possibilities I have missed.

>  (Of course, it may also turn out
>that there's no way to get a computer to pass the TT just by
>giving it the right program.)

I disagree.  My belief that functional organization is all that is required
for intelligence/qualia/consciousness is much more firmly grounded; it is
essentially a philosophical position.  On the other hand, it is not at all
unlikely that no computer now in existence can be programmed to pass the TT.
Less likely, but still possible, is that no von Neuman machine can pass the
TT; but massively parallel computers are still computers.

>>>Moreover, it should be straightforward to see that the TT is
>>>fatally flawed.  A significant aspect of human consciousness is
>>>that we conduct an internal dialogue.  That is, we can think
>>>thoughts to ourself in linguistic form.
>>
>>  This is something that, in fact, we do; but I see
>>no reason to believe that it is an essential part of being intelligent.
>
>I think it does matter (in the end) whether we say the issue is
>intelligence or understanding or consciousness or qualia or whatever,
>because I don't think the answers for these different questions will
>necessarily be the same.
>
>The internal dialogue, however, is an important part of our mental
>life.  I think it matters whether something is conscious of, say,
>reasons for doing one thing rather than another.  Some other entity
>that made similar decisions without any reflective capability would
>be significantly different.

My response was putting a heavy emphasis on your "in linguistic form".
I expect that the existence of reflective capability will turn out to be an
essential part of what constitutes intelligence.

Unlike you, I strongly expect that intelligence, consciousness, and qualia
will prove to be irretrievably intertwined, because the type of system
needed to produce any of them will necessarily produce all of them.  (That's
a nomic "needed" and a logical "necessarily", in case anybody's keeping
score :-)).
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Obj/Exist
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 04:07:42 GMT

In article <Bvto3K.D3J@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Oct7.215507.28498@PacBell.COM>, rwbrigg@srv.PacBell.COM (Rick Briggs) writes:

>    Briggs limits Kant to idealism, a radically different limit than the Ob-
>jectivist claim that Kant's limit is nihilism. That is, within the limit of 
>idealism, Kant is an idealist; within the limit of objectivity, Kant is a nihil-
>ist. This is not a claim that Briggs' idealist understanding of Kant is false.
>This is the claim that there is more, there is always, and that, therefore,
>there is also objectivity. And, within the limit of Objectivist, not Kantian, 
>objectivity, Kant is a nihilist. It is possible to limit Kant to nihilism since
>everything exists and exists equally. Within the limit of nihilism, the follow-
>ing comment from Kant is essential: "I have limited knowledge therefore, to 
>make room for faith." (This quote is probably not essential within the limit of
>idealism) 

What do you mean by all this talk of "limits"?  Is this usage somethin you
invented yourself?  Does it mean "from the standpoint of"?  Or something
else?

--Brian

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: jamiller@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Phil.of Language (Ok Here or Not?)
Date: 10 Oct 92 02:14:57 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

>   This is as good a place as any. We had some nattering about the private
> language argument some time ago - in sci.philosophy.tech,  was it? Anyway,
> it's impossible to say anything about this topic that two people agree
> on. For example, you speak of "skeptical paradox". Ha! The private
> language argument has nothing to do with skepticism of any kind!

Well I must disagree!-);  Actually the arguement is presented by Saul
Kripke in a paper that can be found in A.P. Martinich's "The
Philosophy of Language."  The title of the paper is 'On Rules and
Private Language' and involves they idea that because we have no
independent check on whether we follow one rule or another then one
must give up the notion that we are following one.  He then argues
that rules are therefore just conventions decided on by the linguistic
community and those that conform to the rules of the community are
allowed to stay those that don't get kicked out. Or at least that's
how I follow it.  I must admit I'm not prepared to present the
position.  Perhaps there's someone who can?  Are there any
Kripkenstieniens out there?-);
-- 
jamiller@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
James Miller

_chicchai .sig no ho ga ichiban iin janai ka..._
             Enlightenment Happens?