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From: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch")
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Intentions
Message-ID: <964075.870104.KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 4-Jan-87 19:51:22 EST
Article-I.D.: MX.964075.870104.KFL
Posted: Sun Jan  4 19:51:22 1987
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    From: DAVIS%EMBL.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
    Subject: unlikely submission to the ai-list...

    Of course, all this chat from computer chess players is meaningless -
    nobody *really* believes in the will of the machine.

  True.

    This ascription of intentionality [to people] is not, I believe, a
    mistake, simply on the grounds that intentionality simply does not exist.
    It is an explanatory construct which creates an arbitrary class
    (`intentional objects'), but has no real existence in the world ...

  One minor flaw.  I know that *I* have intentions.  So there is at
least one thing in the world with intentions.
  Given that I intend things, I find it plausible that other humans do
so as well.  And given that human beings have intentions, I don't find
it totally impossible that machines might ever have intentions.

								...Keith