HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Empiricist who deplores averages?
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 01:10:59 GMT

I vaguely recall an empiricist, I think it was Locke, who quipped
something like, "What use is an average? If my head were in ice and
my feet in fire, it would tell me that I was at the right temperature,
on average."  Does anyone else remember this passage? Can you point
me to its exact location? I would be most appreciative. Thanks.
e-mail please.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 20:28:10 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <Bv9BKL.IIs@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <1992Sep25.194311.138446@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>
>>What I am asserting is that you are looking for (insisting on) the wrong
>>kind of explanation of consciousness, and that the reason you are looking
>>for this kind of explanation is that you refuse to take seriously the idea
>>that you are a physical system.  If you really accept this, then an
>>explanation in the form "these aspects of the system are your
>>consciousness; when it gets these kinds of inputs, it reacts in this kind
>>of way, which is your qualia" *is* a full explanation of consciousness. I
>>don't think it is necessary to *agree* that "you are a physical system" to
>>understand this; although for me personally, when I understood this point,
>>my last objections to physicalism disappeared.
>
>Well, this seems to be the net.physicalist.position.of.choice.  Qualia
>just *are* physical events; don't ask why.  Unfortunately, it's
>entirely unsatisfactory.  For this position to be any good, you have to
>provide some reason why God couldn't have created a world with isomorphic
>physical events, but no qualia.  And that's what you can't do.  Note
>that "qualia are physical, therefore She couldn't" is utterly circular,
>as the physicality of qualia is precisely what's at issue.  (Though
>the passage above suggests that you want to be able to take it as an
>unquestioned axiom.)

Step back a moment, and imagine that you are a computer which has been
programmed/learned to be conscious.  (Assume that the structure of the
program is enough like the way the brain works that it is *really*
conscious, not just "faking" it -- I think "faking" it is impossible in the
real world, but I could be wrong.  N.B. This note is not directed at those
who believe real AI to be impossible; but based on his postings, I doubt
that Mr. Chalmers falls into this category.)  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?
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 28 Sep 92 04:57:57 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <1992Sep28.002120.11473@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>>Well, this seems to be the net.physicalist.position.of.choice.  Qualia
>>just *are* physical events; don't ask why.  Unfortunately, it's
>>entirely unsatisfactory.  For this position to be any good, you have to
>>provide some reason why God couldn't have created a world with isomorphic
>>physical events, but no qualia.
>
>Thought is a physical event with physical effects, some of them externally
>visible.  The physical events represented by qualia could not be subjects
>of thought if there were no qualia.

There are any number of problems with this, but for a start: (1) Assuming
that everything involved in thought is a "physical event" begs the
question; (2) The step from the first sentence to the second here seems
to be a non sequitur; (3) The second sentence doesn't seem to be justified;
presumably, in a qualialess zombie, all the same representational work
could be done by the appropriate functional processes; (4) Most importantly,
all this seems utterly irrelevant to the question I asked, which asked for
reasons why God couldn't have created a physically isomorphic world
with no qualia (NB the brute assertion that qualia are physical won't
do as a reply here, as that is precisely the matter at stake).

>>Either way, the call for
>>an entailment relation (or alternatively, the call for an explanation
>>of why qualia exist at all) is being evaded entirely.
>
>Surely qualia exist (i.e. evolved) so as to allow the physical sensory
>input to become a component of thought.

Evolution is irrelevant here.  Evolution will get you as far as the
current physical structure of the brain.  What needs to be explained
is: why, given that the brain is like so, do qualia exist?

-- 
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: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 5 Oct 92 00:10:40 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

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?
-- 
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
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 27 Sep 92 21:27:32 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <dd0nhy+.kmc@netcom.com> kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty) writes:

>>(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.
>
>You realize of course, that your theory which uses a functional
>explanation of why we *think* we have qualia regardless of whether we
>actually *do*, violates your 2nd principle of plausibility.

Not so.  Nothing in my position implies that our reports of
consciousness don't accurately reflect the contents of our consciousness.
It's just that the relation between these two isn't as simple as
billiard-ball causation.  See my postings on the coherence of the
explanatory bases of both consciousness and claims about consciousness;
this notion of "coherence" is motivated precisely by principle (2)
above.

-- 
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: tycchow@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Y Chow)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 03:16:30 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.201632.75690@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

<It is easier to imagine the red/blue interchange, because red and blue are
<rather similar feelings, and ones don't have nearly as strong behavioral
<implications. But I think there are differences in behavior caused by the
<differences in the feelings in this case, too.  They're subtle; but pretty
<much everyone agrees that red is a "hot" or "active" color, while blue is a
<"cool" or "passive" color.  I don't think this is a purely conditioned
<response -- babies seem to react the same way.

Another way to distinguish between red and blue is that blue seems
"close" to green.  It's easy to imagine a continuum between blue and
green, but between red and green the best possible seems to go by way of
the rainbow---red to orange to yellow to chartreuse to green.

The Hardin book _Color_for_Philosophers_, mentioned already by Dave
Chalmers, is excellent reading, and dispels naive notions about color
(e.g., identifying color with certain EM frequencies) very quickly.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: unpublished chapters of "The Turing Option"
Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 17:30:54 GMT

I have archived two unpublished chapters of "The Turing Option" by
Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky, published by Warner Books, August
1992.  Use  
  ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu  (and then login with name "anonymous")
  cd doc/minsky
  get option.chapters

These chapters have a lot of far-out ideas about how to build a
humanlike machine. Harry Harrison and I have been longtime friends.
One day he said that he liked my book 'The Society of Mind' and
suggested that the ideas could reach a larger audience if I wrote a
version in the form of a novel.  When I said I didn't have the talent
for that, he offered to collaborate.  We decided that the central
character Brian would be a mathematical super-hacker of the future who
would build the first AI with a human-like mind. Harry drafted the
action plot, and I suppled the technical stuff. While our hero is
building his robot (in the year 2023) he is shot in the head by
mysterious criminals who steal the prototype.  This lets us explain
computational aspects of the theory in the context of repairing
Brian's brain, while also explaining psychological aspects in the
context of reconstructing his childhood memories.

A co-author does not have complete control.  These FTP chapters are
part of the text I wrote that did not make it into the published book.
Both Harry and the editor at Warner thought they would slow down the
story too much.  At the time I disagreed, but now I think they were
right.
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 30 Sep 92 01:26:53 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <1992Sep29.155144.15901@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>>Evolution is irrelevant here.  Evolution will get you as far as the
>>current physical structure of the brain.
>
>You are assuming your conclusion.  That is, in saying that evolution
>determines physical structure but is irrelevant to qualia, you are
>assuming that qualia have nothing to do with physical structure.  But
>if, in fact, we did evolve, if evolution only explains the physical,
>and if qualia exist, then surely this combination is strong evidence
>that qualia are physical.

No, I'm not assuming my conclusion.  I'm just saying that precisely
what is in question is the relationship between brain structures and
consciousness -- whether this is identity, or nomic supervenience,
or whatever.  An evolutionary story will be able to tell you why a
particular brain structure evolved, but about the further
("philosophical") question, it has nothing to say.  This alone of
course doesn't refute physicalism -- it simply means that the
physicalist has more work to do (i.e., give an account of how this
sort of brain structure and function could entail the existence of
qualia).

As for your "strong evidence", obviously this doesn't count against
the alternative point of view, which is that there are contingent
laws of nature that link physical states with qualia.  Evolution
selects the physical states, which give rise to qualia by virtue
of these laws of nature.

>>What needs to be explained
>>is: why, given that the brain is like so, do qualia exist?
>
>So, all your asking is for a complete functional description of the brain.

No, I'm asking for an account of why something with a functional
description like that would have qualia.  It's a further question.

-- 
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: hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME (at numerous requests)
Organization: Nokia Telecommunications.
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 07:23:52 GMT

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:
> |>
> |> In the end of this conversation I would like to remind to all readers
> |> that I have tried to be only as accurate clerk in this matter as possible.
> |> And because this inhuman and hostile environment of science to amateurs
> |> I have some doubts that will Hanna-Maria ever become scientist when
> |> she grows up. This kind of hostile and unhuman environment could injure
> |> her seriously.
> |>
> |>
> |>           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. ?

> Second, scientists (atheistic or otherwise) do not teach people to
> reject the good doctrine in the holy bible ... they teach people to reject
> the "bad" doctrine in the holy bible. That is, things like adam&eve and the
> age of the earth etc. Scientists do not in general teach people to reject
> teachings like thou shalt not kill etc. And frankly, the atheists that I
> know are some of the most considerate, kindest, humblest, thoughtful people
> I have ever met. They just happen to base there moral values on an empathy
> for their fellow human beings rather than on what some religion tells them
> they must believe.
>
>
> Larry Edwards

    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.


         Hannu.

  "Thrown to ignorance men give themseves to work and employment and keeping
   themselves sensible and learned they stagger without goal like blinds
   lead by blinds."

             (Indian wisdom, from Kat'ha upanisad)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Phil.of Language (Ok Here or Not?)
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 08:58:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.013135.43433@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> jamiller@kuhub.cc.
ukans.edu writes:

   >Is there a more appropriate group to discuss Phil of Language issues
   >such as "private languages?"  I would be interested in hearing
   >responses to Krikinstien -) (Kripke or Wittgenstien's) sceptical
   >paradox issues.  (ie. No way to prove one is operating under any
   >specific linguistic rule)

  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!

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: torstein@kjemi.unit.no (Torstein Hansen . Elektrokjemi)
Subject: Re: Free will or Can Life After Death be Proven
Organization: Dept. of Chem.Eng, Norwegian Inst. of Tech. 
Distribution: sci.philosophy.meta
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 11:04:01 GMT

Just in case anyone would like to fill up my e-mail postbox with flames :-)

In my previous posting the from:-line and organization line where wrong.

Correct address:

torstein@itekiris.kjemi.unit.no
   or
torstein@kjemi.unit.no
From: mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Obj/Exist
Date: 1 Oct 92 17:39:34 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Math Department

In article <Bv0J3q.KI9@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
>In article <exukjb.223.717195223@exu.ericsson.se>, exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell) writes:
>ell> writes:
>
>>>Re Stephen Grossman:
>
>>OK, you objectivists. What is being?
>
>    Everything. Literally everything. There is no essence to being, if by es-
>sence you mean basic property. All of being is just being, it just is. Essences
>are a method of knowing being, not being itself. If by essence, you mean iden-
>tity, then being IS essence; or essence is being; or existence IS identity.
>    E.g., a rock does not HAVE being; a rock IS being. Being is a rock and the
>entire Universe and consciousness. Being is everything. Most philosophies re-
>strict being to some privileged things but, in Objectivism, being is, liter-
>ally, everything. It is not some mystical fantasy. Metaphysics is not the stu-
>dy of transcendental states of consciousness. It is extremely common sensical.
>Read Aristotle and Rand. Don't disintegrate your consciousness with the main-
>stream of contemporary philosophy. Philosophy conditions the learning ability.
>Be very careful to keep your consciousness integrated and tied to objective
>reality. Read the Presocratics for a very common sensical metaphysics. Kath-
>leen Freeman's _Ancilla to the Pre-Socratics_ is enlightening and intellect-
>ually pleasurable. 


Hmmm.  I hold in my "hand" a lump of organized subatomic 
particles and electric charges that I perceive to be a 
red roundish object and I say that this apple exists.  
Am I saying that the quarks, leptons, and what-not that 
make it up exist?  After all, these particles are products 
of the fevered imaginations of physicists.  Am I saying 
that the apparent organization of the object (seeds in 
core, white interior, red skin) exists?  After all, this 
organization may be partly imposed by my mental processes.
Am I merely saying that I am not dreaming?  How would I 
know?

Is "exist" really a definable verb?  Does the number 2 
exist?  How about transfinite numbers?  This issue does 
not seem to be as easily resolved as some Objectivists 
seem to think ...

-----Greg McColm
From: tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Obj/Exist
Date: 6 Oct 92 21:19:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BvpxwL.9pK.1
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

>How about a novel thought: when you see an apple in your hand, how about
>postulating that: YOU, SEE (with your eyes), a red-roundish object (you've
>seen one of these before, you and your friends call it an apple).  

As stated here, this is G.E. Moore's "common-sense" view. Wittgenstein
cut it up neatly in his final book, _On Certainty_.

I reply simply to offer pointers to relevant literature. Sorry, I can't 
enter a discussion at this time -- busy, busy, busy.

Tom

******************************************************************************
         Tom Price  |  tp0x@cs.cmu.edu  |  Simplicity, simplicity
******************************************************************************
 plutoniumsurveillanceterroristCIAassassinationIranContrawirefraudcryptology
From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Free will or Can Life After Death be Proven
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:38:15 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <1aakfuINN5k2@smaug.West.Sun.COM>, dab@ism.isc.com (Dave
Butterfield) writes:
|> pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
|> >...where is a thought.?  What color is it?  Does it have position
|> >and momentum?
|> 
|> One might ask similar questions about a computation occurring
|> in a digital computer.  One difference is, we understand enough
|> about that domain to realize that those questions hardly make
|> sense, and trying to answer them doesn't lead to much in the
|> way of insight into what a computation is.
|>

The point here is not to ask admittedly dumb questions, but to point out
that the supposed underlying "thing-in-itself", in this case thought, is
a not a  traditional thing in the Scientific sense.  We are aware of its
existence, only because we are "cheating" from the inside.  Few people
waste their time anymore attempting to "prove" that computers think.

Therefore, unlike rocks or cars, we cannot deal directly with the
thing-in-itself and must infer it from effects seen in an observation
space.  I am questioning whether any inferred impact of thought on an
observation space, e.g. EEG, alpha waves, etc.,  can be proved to a
valid effect of thought.  In particular, the original post *assumed*
that thought was related to chemical reactions in the brain.  He wanted
us to point out holes in his logic.  There is no proof that chemicals
cause, are caused by, or are indicative of "thought" in any way.  That
is a hole in his reasoning, in my estimation.

 
|> >In another vane, this turns out to be false because in quantum mechanics
|> >"position" turns out to be a concept that doesn't correlate real well
|> >with what is supposed to be reality...
|> 
|> Yet computers continue to compute, and cars continue to run into
|> each other.
|>

But, not with deterministic certainty gleaned from knowing the initial
position of the universe and the laws of motion.  The initial "position"
of the universe is not defined.  All attempts to define it will yield
uncertainty.

Paul Collacchi
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta