Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2784 talk.philosophy.misc:1671 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!xanth!mcnc!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge From: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Message-ID: <563@metapsy.UUCP> Date: 4 Dec 88 07:11:16 GMT References: <562@metapsy.UUCP> <2732@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> Reply-To: sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) Organization: Metapsychology, Woodside, CA Lines: 36 In article <2732@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: >From article <562@metapsy.UUCP>, by sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode): >" Since [machines'] behavior is completely >" explainable in terms of the hardware design, the software program, >" and the input data, Occam's Razor demands that we not attribute >" subjectivity to them. > >A more proper application of Occam's Razor would be that it prevents >us from assuming a difference between humans and machines in this >regard without necessity. What does explaining behavior have to >do with it? If I could explain your behavior, would this have the >consequence that you cease to have subjective experience? Of course >not. (If *you* could explain your behavior, perhaps the case could >be made ...) I don't need a mechanistic explanation of my own behavior (much of it, at least), because I am directly aware of causing it by intention. Furthermore, the most major observable difference between myself and a machine is that the latter is explainable in mechanistic terms, whereas I am not. On the other hand, if I could explain *your* behavior entirely on mechanistic grounds, then I think I would have grounds (Occam's Razor) for not attributing subjectivity to you. However, I don't think I can do that, and so I don't think you are a machine. It is because others are observably *not* machines, not explainable in mechanistic terms, that we attribute subjectivity (and humanity) to them, in order to explain their behavior. People don't like to be manipulated, programed, treated like machines, and part of the reason why is, I believe, that they have an immediate awareness of themselves as not being mechanistically determined, and that sort of treatment observably embodies a lie. -- -------------------- Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge Institute for Research in Metapsychology 950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301