Bill.Viggers@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Bill Viggers) (04/30/91)
In article <2124@seti.inria.fr>, ziane@nuri.inria.fr (ziane mikal @) writes: [bits deleted] |> |> I am not aware (although I should) of the opposition you mention about |> simulation, but it seems obvious to me that the point is what you consider |> a simulation. The word is much too fuzzy, this is why I tried to be more |> explicit with intelligence and pain. |> About the simulaton of a hurricane, I think that people IN the simulation |> of your hurricane may become wet. Such a simulation may be considered |> quite satisfactory, depending of course on which charateristics of a |> hurricane |> are important to you. I disagree, they are simulated people, undergoing a simulation of wetness. Naturally they will act as if they are wet, as that is how they are programmed to act (assuming that the simulation is that exact). |> I do not know Searle's chinese room experiment, but since Searle is giving |> a talk in Paris May 21 I would like to be aware of his work. I remember |> a paper in the french edition of the Scientific American, about a year ago, |> but I lost it. Has anybody interesting references to suggest ? |> I would also welcome references about Steven Harnad, Haugeland, and Pylyshyn |> since I do not know them. OK Seale's work can be found in "Minds, brains and programs", it's been published in the Behavioural and Brain sciences (a long time ago), as a chapter in a book by Seale (the book had a similar name, but it escapes me for now), and also in "The minds eye" which is a collection of philosphical essays. Haugeland has written or edited several books, but my favourite is "Artificial Intelligence: the very idea", published by the MIT press (I think, around 1988-89 ish). |> |> Maybe I was not clear enough. Of course pain can be faked and you may not |> trust someone else. However, if you have experienced pain yourself, and |> once you have notice interesting common points between you and other human |> beings, you can hardly deny that they suffer pain. I think that you need |> strong reasons to deny that, unless you pretend to be quite unique. |> You may also adopt some classical scepticism, or solipsism but I |> consider that |> it is not very useful. |> |> Any reference about the classic "other minds" problem ? |> Thats what I was thinking too. Also in "The Minds Eye" is an article by Block called something like "What is it like to be a bat", which goes over this sort of stuff. In the new William Lycan (ed) book there are several papers that discuss this problem, and the effects it has on a functionlist doctrine. Sorry about the vaugeness, as I don't have the books here, if you want some more detailed references then e-mail me. Bill