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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