HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 01:52:57 GMT

In article <BILL.92Sep11162437@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:

>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.

So what are all these uncaused events?  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.  Macroscpoic events seem
to be constituted of lots of microscopic events, and one doesn't see
very many uncaused microscopic events (with the exception of the
results of quantum measurements, but the latter don't leave much room
for a substantial dualism to have much causal oomph.  See Eccles for
a contrary opinion, however).  The evidence from physics so far seems
to be that modulo the indeterminacy of quantum measurement, the
microscopic world is deterministic.  Of course, that conclusion is
highly defeasible, but I don't think it's likely to be defeated in
a way that's will leave substantial enough gaps for a disembodied
mind to do much interesting causal work.

-- 
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: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:49:57 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.011825.25966@galois.mit.edu> tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:
>In article <1992Sep13.215142.25567@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>Some of us have the intuition that the lookup table could not pass the
>>Turing test.  What does this do to your argument?
>
>Can you be more explicit about this intuition?  Perhaps I should point out
>that my sample of the lookup table was a bit misleading.
>...
>case (1st input)
>  "Hi":	output("Hi")
>	case (2nd input)
>	  "What's up?": output("Not much.")
>			case (3rd input)
>			...
>	  "How's it going?": ...
>	  ...
>  "Are you conscious?": output("What do you think?")
>  ...
>
>The main problem lies with the limitations of the input and output:

No.  The main problem lies in the impossibility of constructing a table
sufficiently comprehensive.

To maintain some degree of dialog, the lookup table daemon must respond
within a reasonable time.  Let's say a maximum time delay of 1 year, to
be excessively generous.  Now start counting how many entries are needed
in the table -- at least 26^n where n is the maximum length (in characters)
of the conversation -- and assume that you would probably need at least
one atom to record the information for each table entry.  All these
atoms would have to fit within a diameter of 1 light year to meet the
responsiveness requirement.

The density of atoms will be so high that I believe you will have created
a black hole, from which the response of the lookup table daemon cannot
escape.

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 01:30:25 GMT

In article <BuG1nK.DGL@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> 
	chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

>Not so with consciousness: even when
>you've told the whole story about behaviour and its physical causation,
>there still seems to be a vast explanatory gap between that and
>the phenomenon of consciousness itself.

This "seems to be" is controversial:  Dennett in particular questions
the vastness of the gap (in "Consciousness Explained").  
	Could the gap just result from the inadequacy of third-person 
descriptions from capturing a first-person experience?  Maybe the gap is 
no worse than that encountered in trying to explain color to someone 
blind from birth?  Maybe bridging the 3rd/1st-person gap requires going
linguistically beyond straight description:  allusion, metaphor, poetry?
From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Re: God's and Zorn's existence.
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 00:15:40 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.190822.90079@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> kevin@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au writes:
>My claim: Meyer's result is completely transparent.

I agree, assuming my reconstruction of his argument is correct (nobody seems
to have commented on my reconstruction though).  The mathematical part of
his result would barely deserve the title of "remark" in a mathematical
paper, let alone "Theorem."

>What is the cardinality of the set of a-priori, non-trivial statements
>that have been made about the real world? ...  24 minus the sum of the
>divisors of 24.

You mean proper divisors, I assume?  24 - (1+2+3+4+6+8+12) = -12.  An
interesting set, I must say!  Care to list its members?  :-)

You mean of course 28.
-- 
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: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: God's and Zorn's existence.
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 11:02:30 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.190822.90079@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> kevin@vaxc.cc.
monash.edu.au writes:

   >There are no non-trivial a-priori statements that can be made about the 
   >real world.

  A clarification has reached me! "a priori statement" should be
understood as "a priori true statement". I try again.

   >Here, a-priori and trivial are a bit vague, but I'll take a-priori as
   >intuitively understood by a philospher, and trivial as understood by a 
   >mathematician.

  These explanations are hardly sufficient. "A priori" usually means
"independent of, or prior to, experience", but this leaves a lot of
leeway. Whose experience? All experience after birth? For example,
does my conviction that I cannot eat the moon stem from experience,
and if so, which experience?

  Also, what does "the real world" include? The world of physics?
The world of subjective experience? The world of mathematics? One
might (a priori) suspect that you are only interested in the
world of mathematics, since it is stipulated that "trivial" means
trivial as understood by a mathematician. Why a mathematician,
if you are not talking about the real world of mathematics?

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: nhorne@casper.cs.uct.ac.za (N E Horne)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:56:18 GMT

In <BuDoJ5.MDM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

>In article <29sn2qc@lynx.unm.edu> amiga@phobos.unm.edu (carlos a.f  senaenterr) writes:

>>	This is the best argument for dualism that I have come across:
>>
>>1) What I can imagine is possible.
>>2) I can imagine being disembodied.
>>3) Therefore, I could be disembodied.


Of course, this argument succeeds only in demonstrating the logical 
possibilty of dualism, which many of the theory's critics accept anyway.
(There'd be little point in dicsussing - let alone defending - dualism
if it were logically impossible, but dualists argue for an *actual*
mind/brain dichotomy, not a *possible* one.)


>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.

>(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).

>(3) Therefore dualism is true.

>If there's anything wrong with this argument, it has to be at premise
>(1).  I confess that this premise seems obviously true to me, but
>some people would deny it.  It is contingent on those people to
>provide some kind of demonstration of how the physical facts
>could possibly logically entail the facts about consciousness,
>but such suggestions are usually manifestly unconvincing.  In
>virtue of what kind of physical properties is consciousness
>logically necessitated?  Suggestions usually revolve around
>discrimination of stimuli, or verbal reportability of mental
>states, but it seems clear that all those things are logically
>compatible with the absence of conscious experience.



Indeed the problem is at premise (1), which can be seen to assume at the        outset that which requires proof. The existence of physical 
replica sans states of consciousness is possible if, and only if,
the existence of conscious states is a "further fact". If you
reject this objection then it is contingent on you to explain how the
two may occur seperately if they are intrinsically wedded. 




Neil Horne
Dept. of Philosophy
University of Cape Town
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 11 Sep 92 14:44:43 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

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

Is this "substance dualism" `a la Descartes, or "property dualism"
(there are some nonreducible mental properties) or both or neither?

-- jd
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: nano-replicator assumptions
From: chisnall@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz (The Technicolour Throw-up)
Date: 8 Sep 92 19:58:39 +1200
Distribution: world
Organization: Computer Science,University of Canterbury,New Zealand

From article <1992Sep6.220333.17756@galois.mit.edu>, by tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow):
> Cracking the "genetic code" is a far cry from understanding the entire
> mechanism of self-replication.  The physical and chemical environment of a
> cell is just as important as the DNA.  Even the genetic code is not as
> simple as idealizations such as Life might lead one to believe.  It is not
> only the primary structure (the list of amino acids) that matters in the
> construction of a protein---secondary and tertiary structures (the physical
> shape of the protein as it forms) also play a critical role.  This is just
> the tip of the iceberg of the complexities that face a would-be engineer of
> a self-replicator.

It may perhaps be relevant to point out that simple chemical self-replicating
systems are known to us that don't involve enzymes, DNA or RNA.  Recently
Rebek came up with one that even underwent a very limited form of mutation.

--
Just my two rubber ningis worth.
Name: Michael Chisnall  (chisnall@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz)
I'm not a .signature virus and nor do I play one on tv.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: evanh@sco.COM (Evan Hunt)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Stan's Chosen Ones
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 00:54:54 GMT


Don't blame me, I voted for chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers).
>Obviously, if you include the truth of physicalism is a *premise*,
>you can get your conclusion.  However, physicalism is precisely
>what's in question.

No, Mr. Chalmers, that is not what is in question.  What I've been
trying to establish is that your "probably correct" syllogistic
proof of dualism is circular, because it requires the prior
assumption that dualism is true.  The fact that I personally
believe physicalism to be true is irrelevant to the discussion;
I'm well aware that my belief is unprovable.

To recapitulate the entire discussion:  You presented an argument
for dualism which you said was "probably correct", and its first
premise was that a nonconscious exact duplicate of your body could
be constructed.  I pointed out that such a duplicate could only
be nonconscious if physicalism is false--which means that you had
been silently assuming dualism to be true before you started.

>I asked for a reason to believe that the
>facts about consciousness are logically necessitated by the
>physical facts, *independent* of that assumption.  On the face
>of it, the notion of a zombie replica of me certainly seems to
>a logical possibility.  Why isn't it?

Perhaps you're using one of those slippery definitions of "possibility"
that we were discussing the other day.  If you mean something by
"logical possibility" that I don't, then this whole discussion's
been pointless.  The way I see it, a zombie replica is only possible
if dualism is true, and impossible if physicalism is; in either case
you can't prove anything about the world by asserting one or the
other.

-- 
"This coffee is my blood, this breakfast burrito is my flesh.  And
 it cost me 89 cents, so get your goddamned own." - Jeff Lester, "Saint 11"
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
Subject: Re: Evolutionary Epistemology
Date: 5 Sep 92 22:58:38 GMT

In <1992Sep4.002657.2346@math.ucla.edu> barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:


>The fact that then mutation would be the dominant factor in this 
>theory makes it a useless theory, but philosophers seem undaunted by such.

      Your whole attack against the vagueness and imprecision of
philosophy is itself a good example of vague and imprecise philosophy.
That's why you're being viewed as shallow. Philosophers are aware of
the need for a continual stepping back on one's own processes of thought,
to make sure they are consistent at different levels. Relatively speaking,
technologists tend to see themselves in paper-cut-out terms, not to be
much aware of themselves, and to take their cues from external authority.
This gives their views a certain black-and-white naivete which makes
them easy to ignore.

>--
>Barry Merriman
>UCLA Dept. of Math
>UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
>barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


      John E. Snodgrass
      -----------------
      snodgras@crash.cts.com

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay)
Subject: Re: Proof of God's Existence
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 05:43:03 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.040504.3673@math.ucla.edu> 
barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
>The paper in no way establishes there is a first cause. 

I agree, by the way.

>Why can't
>philosophers understand this simple proposition: 
>
>YOU CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING ABOUT THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE THROUGH PURE  
>CONTEMPLATION.

Many philosophers have, in fact, tried to argue for something of this
kind. Most modern philosophers, I would guess, would agree that *some*
version of this is true.

Certain "facts about the world" seem to be vacuous, and also to follow
simply from the usage of the terms. For example, "all blue cars are
blue". Presumedly you want to rule these out.

"Through pure contemplation" presumedly means something like, "without
observations", i.e., "a priori". So what you are saying resembles a
standard positivist thesis: "a priori facts about the physical world
are always vacuous".

The applicability of mathematics to the world is, by the way,
sometimes used as a partial counterexample to all this. For example,
the fact that no voting system satisfies all of the conditions
described in the Arrow voting theorem (which proves the conditions are
mutually inconsistent) is regarded by some as a non-trivial piece of
information "about the world", which can be arrived at by "pure
contemplation".

It is nevertheless hard to specify what "a priori" and "vacuous" mean.
Philosophers have tried, though apparently not with complete success,
to explain both concepts in such a way that the thesis holds true. I
think they (collectively) understand the proposition you've made as
well as you or I do. If you think that there is a clear way to explain
these terms, it certainly would be interesting (and relevant to the
group) to describe it to us.

Keith Ramsay
ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:25:41 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.220139.4525@galois.mit.edu> tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:
>In article <1992Sep14.144957.28355@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>No.  The main problem lies in the impossibility of constructing a table
>>sufficiently comprehensive.
>[various practical difficulties deleted]
>
>Are these practical difficulties really relevant?

The Turing test in intended to be a pragmatic test.  You can't put up
an unimplementable hypothetical to attack such a test.

>                                                   My point is that the
>essence of a certain limited form of the Turing test is captured by a
>lookup table

The essence of the Turing test is that it is not permitted to be limited.
A limited "Turing test" is not a Turing test.

>             (whether it can be implemented in our physical universe or
>not), and that many (not necessarily including myself) have an intuition
>that such a simple structure cannot be conscious.  If you have no such
>intuition, then forget the example.

It seems to me that you are claiming that, under the completely impractical
assumption that a particular non-conscious hypothesized solution to the
Turing test would work, then it would be demonstrated that the Turing
test does not demonstrate consciousness.  I'll grant you that, although
it is surely circular reasoning.

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 01:13:04 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.220139.4525@galois.mit.edu> tycchow@riesz.mit.edu  
(Timothy Y. Chow) writes:
> In article <1992Sep14.144957.28355@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil  
Rickert) writes:
> >No.  The main problem lies in the impossibility of constructing a table
> >sufficiently comprehensive.
> [various practical difficulties deleted]

I don't quibble over practicalities or implementation in my argument, you'll
 note. I quible over the difference between something that exists and something  
that is constructible via an algorithm.

Something that exists mathematically but is not constructible is a pretty  
complicated thing, I'd say. I wouldn't want to wield such a thing in a way
that implied my intuition about it was solid.

After all: consciousness and intelligence exist as _empirical phenomena_
that we can't figure out how to construct---and these are the things
we are talking about. How an even more ambiguos entity clarifies things
is not clear.

The lookup table is easily comprehended only if you don't think
about it too much...

 
--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand)
Subject: Re: Proof of God's Existence
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 01:04:33 GMT

BM=Barry Merriman, MH=yours truly

BM:  Why can't philosophers understand this simple proposition: 
     YOU CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING ABOUT THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE THROUGH PURE 
     CONTEMPLATION.
MH:  Oh, everyone *understands* it: the issue is whether it's true.
BM:  Are you telling me there are philosophers that still expect to 
     prove things through pure contemplation? 

Your screamed (but nonetheless philosophical) claim is either about 
the physical universe or not about the physical universe.

(1) If it is, then why do you believe it?  On grounds that are
relevantly similar to the grounds that philosophers have for their
various kinds of "philosophical" claims.  (Unless of course you
believe it because you read it somewhere, or because it would upset
you not to believe it, or lots of other *bad* reasons.)  So you have 
no good reason to complain.

(2) If it isn't, then you clearly think there are important claims
that aren't about the physical universe.  Why object to philosophers'
investigations of some?  So far, you have no good reason to complain.

B-o} Michael
_______________________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Hand                     phone (409)845-5660, fax (409)845-0458
Dept of Philosophy, Texas A&M Univ, College Station TX 77843-4237 U.S.A.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Request for critiques of Objectivism, and for intro's to philosophy
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 04:17:04 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.220522.17755@wuecl.wustl.edu> jaf@wucs1.wustl.edu
 (Andy Fingerhut) writes:

   >What changed this interest was reading "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand,
   >suggested to me by my girlfriend.  I have scanned the Usenet
   >philosophy groups for a couple of months now, and have gotten the
   >impression that Ms. Rand is not considered to be a very worthy
   >philosopher by many.

  Your post is a very reasonable one, and I don't mean "reasonable" in
the Randian sense. Rand was a very poor philosopher, but she had a talent
for writing stirring stuff that appeals to a lot of (mostly young) people,
for reasons that aren't hard to understand. If you find romantic capitalism
and individualism appealing, there's no reason why you shouldn't enjoy
her writings. However, if what appeals to you is chiefly the realist
philosophy she presents, it is a relevant comment that Rand's variety of
philosophical realism is very poorly argued, and marred by a lack of
understanding of any of the philosophy she denounces. In short, there is
no reason to read Rand for her philosophy.



Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta