Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!quiche!utility From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Recursive Searles, or what? Message-ID: <1952@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> Date: 11 Jan 90 00:59:06 GMT References: <12679@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <12702@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1224@oravax.UUCP> <1933@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> Reply-To: gilham@csl.sri.com Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Lines: 21 In article gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) writes: >The alternatives seem to be that either a pattern has some independent >existence of its own (concrete reality) or a mind is necessary to >perceive it. On the one hand, I say we have dualism; on the other >hand, I say we have the ``hermeneutical hall of mirrors'', where we >project our own thought processes onto something in the outside world. I think that it may be that these positions are not really as you claim. I would submit that the word "independent" is extremely vague. Aristotle's view of form/pattern is about the same as mine, both try to avoid postulating a SEPARATE existence for patternyet claim that there is some kind of non-subjective nature to it. I don't really think its the case that my epistemology projects thought processes onto reality, in that it is ultimately the case that the though the pattern is embedded in particular minds its a universal quantity, which ALL minds (or potential minds) can experience. But there is certainly nothing like a definitively correct epistemology out there, and its a problem that has occupied philosophy from its dawn until this century. And the interesting thing is that computer scientists are forced to demonstrate these claims a bit more explicitly than other philosophers were. Ron