>You can't tell the difference between a robot and and agent. Taking an
>"Intentional Stance" with respect to something is an investment of faith.
>You must assume the entity is willful as a precondition of the stance. In
One usually only assumes the intentional stance with respect to something
when there are good reasons to do so, ie. the something's behavior is
sufficiently complex that other approaches to predicting its future
actions or explaining its past actions fail.
>essence, we are all successful Turing machines, even to ourselves.
>Descartes: "I think therefore I am": we explicitly choose to see ourselves
>as intentional. But seeking to justify the aesthetic or ethical choices
>you make with respect to which entities you respond to as intentional will
>not be--cannot be--fruitful.
Perhaps, but attempting to be consistent in your choices is fruitful
(I claim).
-- David McFadzean david@kumo.com Memetic Engineer http://www.kumo.com/~david/ Kumo Software Corp. http://www.kumo.com