Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!sunybcs!rapaport
From: rapaport@sunybcs.uucp (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulation verus reality
Message-ID: <5227@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 12 Apr 89 22:07:18 GMT
References: <827@htsa.uucp>
Sender: nobody@cs.Buffalo.EDU
Reply-To: rapaport@sunybcs.UUCP (William J. Rapaport)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 32

In article <827@htsa.uucp> fransvo@htsa.UUCP (Frans van Otten) writes:
>
>When we simulate a flying plain, it is (within the simulator) really
>flying (in so far as the simulator simulates flying).  To us, it is a
>simulation of a flying plane.  That is, in our reality the plane does
>not fly, but in the reality inside the simulator it does fly !

And I quote:

"It is often suggested that a simulation of a phenomenon is not an
instance of the p[henomenon being simulated.  For example, simulated
hurricanes are not real hurricanes.  After all, as people often point
out, simulated hurricanes don't get you wet.  I think it is wrong to
suppose that this shows that simulated Xs aren't Xs.  Simulated
huricanes won't get _you_ wet, but they _will_ get a simulated you
simulatedly wet; if they didn't they wouldn't be very good simulations
of hurricanes.  The proper way to look at it is that both simulated and
real hurricanes are implementations of an abstract notion of hurricane;
in this way, they can both legitimately be said to be hurricanes.  But
suppose that it is the case, _in general_, that simulated Xs aren't Xs.
Still, there might be _some_ values of X for which simulated Xs _are_
Xs.  In particular, simulated mentality seems to me to be a good
candidate for such an X.  If I have a conversation with a computer that
passes the Turing Test, it might very well be the case that I could
learn something from it.  To use the hurricane metaphor, it might indeed
get me "wet":  it might give me information in much the same way that a
Xerox copy of Searle's book can give me the same information that an
actual copy would.  Such a copy to perhaps all but certain
book-collectors, is the book itself."

From Rapaport, William J. (1988), ``To Think or Not to Think''
(critical study of Searle, _Minds, Brains & Science_), Nous 22:  585-609.