[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Sean
- From: "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:48:47 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jrstern" <jrstern@...> wrote:
I am reposting this. It is more than 24 hours since I originally
posted, and it has not shown up yet. Apologies if you see it twice.
>> As a mathematician, I usually say that I'm a fictionalist. But,
>> really, I find nominalism, fictionalism and platonism all pretty
>> hard to distinguish.
> In the end, the meaning is in the use.
However, most mathematicians don't really use the term, though they
have probably heard of platonism. It's mainly the philosophers who use
that terminology, and it is far from clear from how they use it, as to
whether it has an important relevance as to how mathematics is done.
> However, in this area, computation has a gigantic advantage over
> any other domains - computation is 100% observable, and is proven
> in operation.
Naturally, I disagree with that. What makes something computation is a
matter of intention, and intentions are not anything like 100%
observable.
> Most of what I'm trying to do in computational nominalism is to
> explain what we SEE in today's ordinary, mundane computer systems,
> in the development of their software, and understanding how it is
> they prove useful in the world.
I am inclined to think that you are looking in the wrong place.
> The first is Searle's "derived intentionality", which claims computer
> systems, like written words on a page, don't say anything, until
> a privileged human comes along and makes sense of them.
I can go along with that - sort of. But it fails to account for what
computers do when there is no human trying to make sense of them.
The gearbox of my car is an intricate causal mechanism, based on gear
wheels. A traditional swiss watch is an even more intricate causal
mechanism. And the digital computer is a causal mechanism that is far
more intricate than either of the above. That's really all there is to
it. The computer isn't really computing, though we may choose to
interpret it as computing.
To say it differently, computation is not metaphysical, and it is not
causal. It is interpretational.
Of course, we do have to deal with changes of meaning. These days,
when people say "computation" they mean "that which a computer does."
When I say it is interpretational, I am using the term more according
to the older usage.
> And it fails for computers, because per Searle the paint on his
> wall is just as much a computer as the workstation on his desk,
> which seems to me a blatently non-working theory.
That's just Searle's mistake. We should not have to modify what we do
or how we think, just because Searle said something silly.
> Not to mention that *any* theory of derived intentionality that
> privileges humans, has yet to explain *anything* at all, about how
> the humans do it.
So why is nobody, not even Searle, seriously studying how humans do it?
Actually, I have been studying it, but I find that nobody wants to
discuss it.
> The other is that computers are useful by providing some kind of
> correspondence to distal objects, events, etc.
However, computers don't actually do that. The idea that they do is a
confusion.
We need a theory of how all these computers work.
What's wrong with "intricate causal mechanism."
> I believe computers work in part due to something like
> Wittgenstein's linguistic turn, which Turing effectively wrote
> into both his big papers, I believe more or less directly from
> Wittgenstein.
That is surely a mistaken view of computation, and perhaps also a
mistaken view of the later Wittgenstein.
>> I guess I am raising the same point Sean raised. Why does it even
>> matter? Why is philosophy so concerned about these "isms"?
> Why did you choose that shirt?
Because it was the one that had cycled to the front when I was reaching
for a shirt.
Regards,
Neil
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