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From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Can Machines Think?
Message-ID: <31821@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 89 06:35:34 GMT
References: <83367@linus.UUCP> <1989Dec18.014229.18058@athena.mit.edu> <968@metapsy.UUCP>
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"Programs" do not think.
Cognition is not "symbol-manipulation."
The "hardware/software" distinction is unimportant for thinking about minds.

However:

Systems with an appropriate causal structure think.
Programs are a way of formally specifying causal structures.
Physical systems which implement a given program *have* that causal structure,
physically.  (Not formally, physically.  Symbols were simply an intermediate
device.)

Physical systems which implement the appropriate program think.

--
Dave Chalmers     (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable" -- Fred