[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Sean
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:21:35 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jrstern" <jrstern@> wrote:
>
> I replied to Josh yesterday. My reply still has not appeared.
> I'm not sure if this is Yahoo brokenness, or whether some of the
> changes that Sean has been making are blocking my method of
> posting. Here, I'll just comment on a parts I ignored in the
> earlier reply. I'll decide later whether to repost that reply.
Hope to see it.
> > But I'm working on finding what one can do in and around
> > computational theories. That's my mission statement. Preliminary
> > work looks to me very promising. And frankly, looking around at
> > other parts of philosophy, nothing else looks promising to me at
> > all.
>
> Nothing in philosophy looks promising. Honestly, philosophy is a
> vast wasteland. Okay, I borrowed that phrase from Newton Minow,
> who was applying it to TV. But at least TV has an excuse. It is,
> after all, merely an entertainment medium for the masses.
> However, in philosophy you find some very intelligent people.
> Yet it is still a vast wasteland.
Sturgeon's Law.
> > The "naturalizing" projects worked pretty well for the natural
> > (!) sciences over the past century or two, and I think we really
> > just need more of the same in computation, and the computational
> > theories of mind, that we have courtesy of Wittgenstein, Turing,
> > and McCarthy/Minsky/Chomsky/Newell and Simon/Fodor/Dennett/Schank
> > et al.
>
> If you want to "naturalize" computation, wouldn't it be a good
> idea to at least find some natural examples of computation.
In this context, "naturalization" means explaining whatever 100% in
terms of conventional science, generally meaning reduction to physics
and efficient causation.
By that definition, whatever my processor chip does, is
"naturalized".
So, what questions could possibly remain about computation?
Well, I've come up with some. Have to, because Searle is this
much right, if computation is all and only this kind of naturalized,
and mind contain some other stuff (intentionality being his focus,
but if we manage that, then he can always fall back on qualia),
then ex hypothesi computation cannot explain mind, cannot "do" mind.
Even Fodor, with his own computational theory of mind (CTM) talk,
does not even convince himself that he has an answer.
If there's an answer, I suggest we will find it not by trying
harder on the reduction side, but by looking more closely at what
we already have carelessly in hand, in computation.
>I am not convinced
> that any exist, except to the extent that human activity can be
> considered natural. Sure, some people say that the brain is doing
> computation. But, as far as I can tell, the only evidence they
> have is that signals are being sent down neural lines. Your
> automobile has signals sent down lines (to energize the spark
> plugs, for example), but few would claim that as computation.
I'm not aware of "natural" flight by big, fixed-wing animals
through the Earth's atmosphere, yet the flight of an airliner
has a "naturalized" explanation, in these terms.
> While googling to find out more about Wittgenstein's theory of
> mind, I came across this page
> <http://www.phil.canterbury.ac.nz/personal_pages/jack_copeland/pub/leibe\
> r.html> , apparently due to Jack Copeland
> <http://www.hums.canterbury.ac.nz/phil/people/copeland.shtml> .
Thanks, yes, I've seen that.
Both Lieber and the response make interesting points, they don't
go quite where I'm going, but yes, at least a few more people on
the planet interested in the Wittgenstein/Turing connection.
Josh
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