[Wittrs] Re: Following a rule
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:06:33 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
>
>
> > But, it uses this causal execution to make things happen
> > like "if pay>100 then print name, pay" which sure looks
> > like rule-following to me.
>
> Sure. We carefully designed our programming languages so that it
> would look like rule following to us.
Would look like? Well, it's working, for me!
> > Let's review why something might or might not be rule-following.
>
> > First, we want to exclude nomological phenomena, like the
> > planets in their orbits. Fine, I think there are some things
> > like that in the universe which, as brute facts, are causal
> > processes and not logical or "rules".
>
> Okay, that sounds about right. But once you rule out nomological
> phenomena, haven't you ruled out what the computer does? It seems
> to me that computers were cleverly designed so as to harness
> nomological behavior to serve our purposes.
Again, yes, it sure looks that way to me!
However, please note, this is NOT the conventional compsci argument
about what computation is. The conventional argument is that
computation is functionalism - an abstraction on top of (what is
commonly seen as) another "abstraction", that of the TM.
My physical particularist computational (...) nominalism,
says, that a computer *is* a TM as far as anybody could care
(the TM is an abstraction from the physical realizations possible
and available at the corner store, that we call a computer), and
that it is also the physicalist realization, as far as any
physical realization of any abstraction can be (which is backwards,
again, the physical is prior, the abstraction comes later), of
rules and rule-following.
> > Exercising my particular-based nominalism, let's say that
> > if someone writes some rules down, and we can see that
> > some agency operates by checking the rules and acting
> > on them, then we have rule-following. The computer is
> > the archetype of rule-following.
>
> I do not see the computer as the archetype. It seems to me that
> the computer is not checking the rules and acting on them.
> Rather, by means of our programming, we have built our rules into
> the causal structure of the computer, and the computer is just
> acting nomologically.
No, we do not alter the hardware to run our programs.
Yes, we realize the program physically, SO THAT the computer
can run it. But that is not a novelty, for a physicalist,
and nothing is lost - quite the opposite, that's the only
way that anything is "found".
> > Now, what about people? Do people ever follow rules?
> > They don't seem to do so as a causal necessity, though
> > one could argue the case.
>
> Okay, agree thus far. And at this stage I prefer not to argue
> whether causal necessity is involved. Those "free will" debates
> never get anywhere.
Good.
> > If they follow a rule by choice, well, is that even
> > rule-following as such?
>
> Why would that not be rule following?
Because you had the choice.
But I'm just anticipating arguments, I agree (!?) that it
is rule-following if the rule is looked at and followed,
with whatever other considerations.
> > So, when you (Neil) say that the computer "just"
> > is a machine that doesn't know symbols, at the low
> > level, I agree with you. However, at the high level,
> > I see symbolic programs being executed, and must see this
> > as rule-based systems being done by machines.
>
> But isn't this "high level" just a convenient fiction that we use
> because it makes it easier for us to talk about computers and to
> program them.
That, of course is the question.
But, it is the question all over town.
Isn't "chemistry" just a convenient fiction on top of atomic physics?
Isn't "psychology" just a convenient fiction on top of biology?
etc.
I can't answer those.
I can't answer for the "levels" talk that permeates CTM and
philosophy of mind generally.
So, I'm going to make a convenient assumption that, yes, it's
just as real a thing as it needs to be. I'm pretty darned sure,
Neil, that's it's real enough that the program is doing symbols
and rules even while the hardware is causal and methodologically
solipsistic.
It sure is easy to pretend this, anyway, and that's just
what I'm going to do.
Josh
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