Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2830 talk.philosophy.misc:1694
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!bpa!sjuvax!tmoody
From: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence
Message-ID: <1736@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: 8 Dec 88 13:38:42 GMT
References: <562@metapsy.UUCP> <2732@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <563@metapsy.UUCP> <1841@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Reply-To: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody)
Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA.
Lines: 18

In article <1841@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks) writes:

>I will ask Serge the same questions I asked Gilbert: if humans are
>not a machine, what elements are added to the body (which seems to
>be a physical machine as far as we can tell) which make it otherwise?
>Are these material or immaterial?  Is there some aspect of human
>beings which does not obey the laws of nature?

The assumption here is that anything that "obeys the laws of nature" [as
currently understood, or some future set?] is a machine.  I have stayed
out of the discussion so far, because this is a singularly uninteresting
conception of "machine," in my view.  If you don't understand "machine"
in a way that lets you distinguish between, say, trees and clocks, then
you are taking this word on a long holiday.

-- 
Todd Moody * {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody * SJU Phil. Dept.
            "The mind-forg'd manacles I hear."  -- William Blake