HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 13:34:42 GMT

jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>It's true that I don't know what you look like, haven't mapped your
>DNA or done other things of that sort; and it's true that the only
>direct evidence I have is behavioral...

That's all I mean by "using the Turing Test"; using only behavioral
evidence.

>Really?  Behavior is (roughly) the causal relationship between a
>history of effects and some actions?  Does everyone out there
>recognize this as what they mean by "behavior"?  It certainly looks
>wrong to me.

Whoops. I meant:

     Behavior is the causal relationship between a history of
     effects of the environment on the system, and the actions taken
     by the system.

>>A TT-style interview cannot possibly determine what a person's
>>behavior is like,
>>it can only provide data that can rule out *some* possible behaviors.
>>At the point where the interviewer is convinced that he has ruled out the
>>most likely kinds of nonintelligent behaviors, he concludes that the
>>interviewee is intelligent. 
>
>What?  Are you suggesting an intelligent entity cannot behave in
>nonintelligent ways?

Yes. As I said, behavior is a causal relationship between inputs and
outputs, it is *not* simply a sequence of actions. While it may be
possible to classify actions as "unintelligent", and it may be
possible for an intelligent entity to produce an unintelligent action,
I don't believe it is possible for an intelligent entity to have an
unintelligent behavior (or vice-versa).

>And if not, what has been ruled out?

You can rule out the possibility that the entity completely ignores
what is said to it (as a phonograph does). You can rule out the
possibility that the entity simply repeats what is said to it (as
a parrot does). You can rule out the possibility that the output
is simply a syntactic rearrangement of the inputs (as Eliza does).

>>It's an imperfect judgement based on insufficient data, but then so
>>are all judgements that people make in the real world.
>
>But we don't treat them all as equally justified!

Agreed. But the judging intelligence (and other mental properties)
based on behavioral evidence is about as justified as any fallible
test can be.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:01:52 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <1992Nov5.041758.16880@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:

>The problem for me is that I don't know of an objective, coherent,
>nontrivial notion of functional organization. To be nontrivial, it has
>to be the case that two systems that are behaviorally identical can
>have different functional organizations.

There are plenty of examples of systems that are functionally
different while being _essentially_ (in all important respects)
behaviourally the same, such as clockwork and digital electronic
watches. Are these good enough? Or do you insist on completely
identical behaviour? The problem with _completely_ identical behaviour
is that it includes such behaviour as coming to bits in the same way.
In other words, one can always devise a test for the organisational
difference and include it in the definition of behviour.
-- 
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
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang,sci.cognitive
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on symbolic representation
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:23:18 GMT

In article <0f09W_S00Vpd4DQUlC@andrew.cmu.edu> "John R. Beer" <jbct+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>In <1992Nov9.202812.11520@midway.uchicago.edu> Jacob Galley
>	writes:
>
>>Now I think my original question was not specific enough. What bothers
>>me about the theories of meaning that I have seen is that they do not
>>adequately account for how meaningful symbols are linked to WHAT >THEY
>>MEAN. Ie, while we have made a good amount of progress in syntax and
>>taxonomic classifications, which describe how meaningful signs
>>interact with and relate to each other, I have not encountered any
>>theories of how the signifier is linked to the signified.
>
>You should look at:
>Donald Davidson's writing on truth theory and radical interpretation,
>collected in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation(1983)
>
>Michael Dummett--start with Truth  and Other Enigmas, which will
>prepare you for his classic paper "What is a Theory of Meaning?", in
>Truth and Meaning ,  (McDowell and Evans,eds.)
>
>The Varieties of Reference by Gareth Evans, which sets out an account
>of what abilities one needs in order to make reference to objects in the world.
>
>This stuff is hard going, but immensely rewarding.  Although all three
>authors are firmly in the analytic tradition (and you might want to look
>at Frege and Quine before plunging in), they aren't proposing new
>formalisms, but possible ways for grounding these formalisms.
>
>							--John Beer

You should also look at the semantic paradoxes to see why such
accounts will inevitably be partial, not complete.



-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:45:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: mp.1992Nov9.184509.7182
Organization: Northern Illinois University

In article <27898@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.041758.16880@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>
>>The problem for me is that I don't know of an objective, coherent,
>>nontrivial notion of functional organization. To be nontrivial, it has
>>to be the case that two systems that are behaviorally identical can
>>have different functional organizations.
>
>There are plenty of examples of systems that are functionally
>different while being _essentially_ (in all important respects)
>behaviourally the same, such as clockwork and digital electronic
>watches. Are these good enough?

If you were a physician you might hold the watch at different distances
from a patient's ears to see if it can be heard, and thus serve as a
crude indicator of hearing problems.  In such a case the distinction
between the clockwork watch (which makes a ticking sound), and the silent
electronic watch which might turn out to be crucial.

I think Daryl's point is that you cannot rule out the possibility that
seemingly unimportant difference may turn out to be quiet important.
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 10 Nov 92 17:47:24 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Nov4.150808.24775@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>>>There is evidence at compile-time of
>>>thinking behavior. If you look at the code, you can see what the
>>>responses to all possible inputs will be.
>>
>>That's not behavioral evidence (ie, not some behavior that's
>>evidence), it's looking at the source code.  And, of course, one
>>of my repeated points is that you can tell something by looking at
>>the source code, which shows we're not confined to behavior.
>
>As I said before, for me "behavior" is not a sequence of actions, it
>is a causal relationship between inputs and outputs. The code is the
>specification of this causal relationship.

So why didn't you agree with me any of the other times I've talked
about such things as looking at source code?  Or when I said we
ought to look at more than the sort of behavioral evidence (is
that still a term I can use?) that could be seen in the TT?

Look, if you want to make that the meaning of behavior, fine.  
But if so you ought to start agreeing with me against the TT.
The TT does not involve looking at source code.

>>>What I was trying to suggest is that the notion of "having a thought
>>>at a particular time" is not very meaningful. It is meaningful to talk
>>>about the time that a physical event occurs, and it is meaningful to
>>>talk about the subjective ordering of mental events, but it is not
>>>especially meaningful to talk about the objective time at which a
>>>mental event occurs.
>>
>>Why not?  Of course, an event may have some duration, and so it may
>>not be right to assign it a single point in time.  On the other hand,
>>it is entirely meaningful, and even true, to say that between typing
>>this star -- * -- and this one -- * -- I was thinking about how bad the
>>weather is in Edinburgh tonight.
>
>There is certainly a relationship between the subjective ordering of
>mental events and the objective time of physical events. However, I
>don't think that the question "At what objective time did thought T
>occur" necessarily has an answer.

Of course, an event may have some duration, and so it may not be 
right to assign it a single point in time.  On the other hand, it is
entirely possible to answer the question whether between typing this
star -- * -- and this one -- * -- I was thinking about how bad the
weather is in Edinburgh tonight.

-- jd
Newsgroups: news.announce.newsgroups,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: leva@ghost.dsi.unimi.it (paolo leva)
Subject: Re: RFD: sci.philosophy.language
Keywords: RFD, philosophy of language, sci.philosophy.language
Organization: Computer Science Dep. - Milan University
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 10:09:04 GMT

nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis) writes:

>In article <1992Nov8.192341.6220@samba.oit.unc.edu> Rick.Horowitz@launchpad.unc.edu (Rick Horowitz) writes:
>>The following is an OFFICIAL request for discussion to create a
>>newsgroup called sci.philosophy.language.  (At least in my mind) It
>>supersedes a previous post I made requesting the creation of
>>talk.philosophy.language.  It has been pointed out to me that a
>>designation of sci might be more appropriate.
>> 

>I'd like to see such a group also, but would also be interested in
>including discussions on psychological and computational aspects of
>language.  I realize that this all may be too much to have in one
>group.  Perhaps there could be a group such as: comp.ai.language or
>sci.cog.language etc.

I'd like to see those groups as well. I'm particularly interested in 
language and cognitive science. A group called sci.cog.language sounds perfect 
to me. I also think that it is a shame there are no groups where you can
follow a discussion on philosophy of language. 
Let's do it now!

Leva Paolo, Dept. of computer science, Univ. of Milan


Xref: sparky sci.philosophy.tech:3959 talk.philosophy.misc:2337
From: spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za (David Spurrett)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: DETERMINISM 1: `Refutation' the first
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 18:54:34 GMT
Organization: University Of Natal (Durban)
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc14.superbowl.und.ac.za

In article <1992Nov5.191446.15657@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <spurrett.23.720960465@superbowl.und.ac.za> 
spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za (David Spurrett) writes:

[Deletions...]

>>        For example when one  person pushes another over a cliff  we direct
>>  our criticism/ revenge/ abuse/ rehabilitation/ whatever at the person who
>>  `did' the pushing.  Some archaic legal systems had different economies of
>>  `do-ers' and, for example, tried crows for crop damage.  NO LEGAL  SYSTEM
>>  HAS EVER `TRIED' A LAW OF NATURE, OR A MECHANICAL DEVICE.
>
>This is simply not true.  Mechanical devices are sometimes subjected to
>scientific and engineering tests, and the results of these tests are
>brought to a court for decision.  The decision might, in effect, be a
>judgment of summary execution (perhaps in the form of a product recall).
>Certainly the treatment of mechanical devices is different, but this is
>because mechanical devices are presumed not to have free will, and thus
>unable to change their behavior.
 
  `Test' is not a `trail' in the legal sense concerning motivation, and 
applicability of various moral evaluations.  In court we attempt to 
establish whether a person is to be called a `Murderer' (in any of various 
degrees) or a `Man Slaugterer' or a `Culpable Homiciderer' or `Innocent' 
(which is precisely the logic of the humour when the Laura Dern character 
says to Sailor (who has just called himself a `murderer') `Don't exaggerate: 
you're just a Man-slaugterer.')  When testing, eg, the breaking properties 
of some substance we want to know simply whether or not it did, or perhaps 
would, break.  There is no question of moral evaluation/content.  There is 
certainly no question of a machine/law of nature being charged with a 
crime, which is my point.  The metaphor of `summary execution' is completely 
off the point, as your own suceeding sentence admits.  

[Deletions...]

o------------------------------------------o------------------------------o
| David Spurrett, department of Philosophy |  `I have seen the truth, and |
| University of Natal, Durban              |   it makes no sense.'        |
| email: spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za      |              - OFFICIAL!     |
o------------------------------------------o------------------------------o
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.classics
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Keywords: Plato, politics, women, feminism
Date: 10 Nov 92 19:00:25 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com


In article <7894@skye.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
|> In article <Bx9JK3.35s@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
|> >In article <1992Nov3.220658.27483@midway.uchicago.edu> koc5@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
|> >
|> >>As a newcomer to women's studies and to feminist philosophy I could also use 
|> >>refernces to the most important recent work.  The University of Chicago,
|> >>where I attend, seems unusually benighted in its lack of a women's studies
|> >>department or even a women's studies bibliographer.
|> 
|> Is (I'm sure to get the name wrong) Sandra Bartky still at the 
|> University of Chicago?  She ought to count as a feminist philosopher.
|> 
|> -- jd

I think you're off by a few miles.  She was (still is, I think) at
University of Illinois at Chicago.

As another teaser, have you ever wondered why the "feminist philosophers"
all seem to have a certain political perspective -- as though this
somehow is a part of the essential nature of feminism or feminist
philosophy?  If you want to get a job as a "feminist philosopher" you
not only have to teach "feminist issues", but you have to teach them
in a certain *way*, from a certain point of view.  Any feminist
philosophers out there who are Ayn Rand followers?  Any feminist
philosophers who would, under any objective criterion, be considered
"right" of center rather than "left"?

-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:08:08 GMT

In article <7889@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>Minsky's posting was on the table lookup machine.  My point was
>(roughly) that people didn't respond to McCullough and Minksy
>on TLMs the way the responded to Putnam on rocks.
>...

>In any case, I will save you the trouble of finding the Minsky
>article.  Here it is:
 [copy deleted for brevity]

The explanation should be clear.  In the article you cite, neither the
quotation from McCullough nor the comments of Minsky assert that the
TLM (table lookup machine) would be conscious.  They merely make the
much weaker assertion that it is not obvious that the TLM is not
conscious.  In other words, they are reserving judgement until there
is more evidence.

What exactly did you expect - a rampage of flaming aimed at McCullough and
Minsky because they dared to keep open minds on the issue?

In article <7883@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <27526@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>
>>According to Popper a theory accumulates _no_ extra virtue by making
>>more verified predictions. The value of the confirming experiment is a
>>human weakness in scientists, and not logical -- according to Popper.
>
>Take that Turing Testers!

What exactly was the relevance of this to the Turing Test?  Surely the
TT is only a pragmatic test, and is not a theory designed to make
predictions.
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:57:40 GMT

In article <7892@skye.ed.ac.uk>,
jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>As I said before, for me "behavior" is not a sequence of actions, it
>>is a causal relationship between inputs and outputs. The code is the
>>specification of this causal relationship.
>
>So why didn't you agree with me any of the other times I've talked
>about such things as looking at source code? Or when I said we
>ought to look at more than the sort of behavioral evidence (is
>that still a term I can use?) that could be seen in the TT?

Let me try once again: What I mean by the behavior of a
(deterministic) system is the function giving the output as a function
of the history of inputs it has received. (It is more complicated to
say what behavior means for nondeterministic systems.) Observing a
system does not determine its behavior, but only determines bounds on
the set of possible behaviors. Looking at the code for a program, on
the other can in principle tell you everything about the behavior. So
I certainly agree with you that you can tell more about behavior from
the code than you can from any finite amount of observing the system.

However, when you were talking about "looking at the source code", I
thought you were talking about using the source code to distinguish
between behaviorally identical systems. For example, the lookup table
machine has the same behavior as a human (even if it doesn't execute
the same "code").

In article <7895@skye.ed.ac.uk>, you say:

>>The problem for me is that I don't know of an objective, coherent,
>>nontrivial notion of functional organization. To be nontrivial, it has
>>to be the case that two systems that are behaviorally identical can
>>have different functional organizations.
>
>But in another article you say:
>
>   "behavior" is not a sequence of actions, it is a causal
>   relationship between inputs and outputs. The [source] code 
>   [of a program] is the specification of this causal relationship.
>
>Now, it sounds from this like functional organization and
>"behavior" are almost the same thing.  A specification of
>a functional organization would also specify the behavior.

I wasn't saying what a functional organization is; I don't know.
But I was simply saying that any notion of functional organization
is trivial if it turns out to be the same as the behavior.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


Newsgroups: news.announce.newsgroups,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: RFD: sci.philosophy.language
Keywords: RFD, philosophy of language, sci.philosophy.language
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 22:43:46 GMT

In article <1992Nov8.192341.6220@samba.oit.unc.edu> Rick.Horowitz@launchpad.unc.edu (Rick Horowitz) writes:
>The following is an OFFICIAL request for discussion to create a
>newsgroup called sci.philosophy.language.  (At least in my mind) It
>supersedes a previous post I made requesting the creation of
>talk.philosophy.language.  It has been pointed out to me that a
>designation of sci might be more appropriate.
> 
Hooray!! Let's do it!! Philosophy of language is a major area of the 
disipline. Moreover it contains issues which are not within the 
provinces of the current sci.philosophy groups. One, two, three, go!

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Popper and Abian and other matters
Date: 10 Nov 92 14:36:58 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)

In article <1992Nov10.004237.50028@Cookie.secapl.com>, frank@Cookie (Frank Adams) writes:
>>>                                      And I think his criticism is
>>>valid; it isn't clear what slogans such as "survival of the fittest"
>>>can be other than tautologies.

>>If you're silly enough to define fitness as survival, sure.

>I think fitness really pretty much is defined as survival, as Daryl has
>argued in other postings.  (At least, survival of your genes.)

But it's never defined as survival_of_the_species, which is what the
"survival" in SOTF is referring to.

>I think the real content of "survival of the fittest" is that
>"fittest" is a naturalistic concept.

Part of it is.  I made that point several times in my postings.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: FREE WILL 1: Compatibilism sucks!
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 13:55:11 GMT

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>>  [Definition of determinism:]
>>    `The theory that the state of a system at some time and the  rela-
>>  tions governing the  time development of  the system determine,  un-
>>  ambiguously, the state of  the system at any  later time.

>This definition presupposes that "the state of a system at some time"
>has meaning.  According to relativity, the notion of simultaneity is
>dependent upon the observer.

I don't think that relativity is at all incompatible with determinism.
Of course, there are an infinite number of ways to assign times to
space-time events, but you can always state determinism as follows:

    The universe is deterministic if for *every* time assignment to
    space-time points, and for every time t (according to that
    assignment), the state of the universe at time t uniquely determines
    the state at times t'>t.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc